note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see -h.htm or -h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/ / / / / / -h/ -h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/ / / / / / -h.zip) arts and crafts in the middle ages a description of mediaeval workmanship in several of the departments of applied art, together with some account of special artisans in the early renaissance by julia de wolf addison author of "the art of the pitti palace," "the art of the national gallery," "classic myths in art," etc. [illustration: examples of ecclesiastical metal work] introduction the very general and keen interest in the revival of arts and crafts in america is a sign full of promise and pleasure to those who are working among the so-called minor arts. one reads at every turn how greatly ruskin and morris have influenced handicraft: how much these men and their co-workers have modified the appearance of our streets and houses, our materials, textiles, utensils, and all other useful things in which it is possible to shock or to please the æsthetic taste, without otherwise affecting the value of these articles for their destined purposes. in this connection it is interesting to look into the past, particularly to those centuries known as the middle ages, in which the handicrafts flourished in special perfection, and to see for ourselves how these crafts were pursued, and exactly what these arts really were. many people talk learnedly of the delightful revival of the arts and crafts without having a very definite idea of the original processes which are being restored to popular favour. william morris himself, although a great modern spirit, and reformer, felt the necessity of a basis of historic knowledge in all workers. "i do not think," he says, "that any man but one of the highest genius could do anything in these days without much study of ancient art, and even he would be much hindered if he lacked it." it is but turning to the original sources, then, to examine the progress of mediæval artistic crafts, and those sources are usually to be found preserved for our edification in enormous volumes of plates, inaccessible to most readers, and seldom with the kind of information which the average person would enjoy. there are very few books dealing with the arts and crafts of the olden time, which are adapted to inform those who have no intention of practising such arts, and yet who wish to understand and appreciate the examples which they see in numerous museums or exhibitions, and in travelling abroad. there are many of the arts and crafts which come under the daily observation of the tourist, which make no impression upon him and have no message for him, simply because he has never considered the subject of their origin and construction. after one has once studied the subject of historic carving, metal work, embroidery, tapestry, or illumination, one can never fail to look upon these things with intelligent interest and vastly increased pleasure. until the middle of the nineteenth century art had been regarded as a luxury for the rich dilettante,--the people heard little of it, and thought less. the utensils and furniture of the middle class were fashioned only with a view to utility; there was a popular belief that beautiful things were expensive, and the thrifty housekeeper who had no money to put into bric-à-brac never thought of such things as an artistic lamp shade or a well-coloured sofa cushion. decorative art is well defined by mr. russell sturgis: "fine art applied to the making beautiful or interesting that which is made for utilitarian purposes." many people have an impression that the more ornate an article is, the more work has been lavished upon it. there never was a more erroneous idea. the diligent polish in order to secure nice plain surfaces, or the neat fitting of parts together, is infinitely more difficult than adding a florid casting to conceal clumsy workmanship. of course certain forms of elaboration involve great pains and labour; but the mere fact that a piece of work is decorated does not show that it has cost any more in time and execution than if it were plain,--frequently many hours have been saved by the device of covering up defects with cheap ornament. how often one finds that a simple chair with a plain back costs more than one which is apparently elaborately carved! the reason is, that the plain one had to be made out of a decent piece of wood, while the ornate one was turned out of a poor piece, and then stamped with a pattern in order to attract the attention from the inferior material of which it was composed. the softer and poorer the wood, the deeper it was possible to stamp it at a single blow. the same principle applies to much work in metal. flimsy bits of silverware stamped with cheap designs of flowers or fruits are attached to surfaces badly finished, while the work involved in making such a piece of plate with a plain surface would increase its cost three or four times. a craft may easily be practised without art, and still serve its purpose; the alliance of the two is a means of giving pleasure as well as serving utility. but it is a mistake to suppose that because a design is artistic, its technical rendering is any the less important. frequently curious articles are palmed off on us, and designated as "arts and crafts" ornaments, in which neither art nor craft plays its full share. art does not consist only in original, unusual, or unfamiliar designs; craft does not mean hammering silver so that the hammer marks shall show; the best art is that which produces designs of grace and appropriateness, whether they are strikingly new or not, and the best craftsman is so skilful that he is able to go beyond the hammer marks, so to speak, and to produce with the hammer a surface as smooth as, and far more perfect than, that produced by an emery and burnisher. some people think that "arts and crafts" means a combination which allows of poor work being concealed under a mask of æsthetic effect. labour should not go forth blindly without art, and art should not proceed simply for the attainment of beauty without utility,--in other words, there should be an alliance between labour and art. one principle for which craftsmen should stand is a respect for their own tools: a frank recognition of the methods and implements employed in constructing any article. if the article in question is a chair, and is really put together by means of sockets and pegs, let these constructive necessities appear, and do not try to disguise the means by which the result is to be attained. make the requisite feature a beauty instead of a disgrace. it is amusing to see a new england farmer build a fence. he begins with good cedar posts,--fine, thick, solid logs, which are at least genuine, and handsome so far as a cedar post is capable of being handsome. you think, "ah, that will be a good unobjectionable fence." but, behold, as soon as the posts are in position, he carefully lays a flat plank vertically in front of each, so that the passer-by may fancy that he has performed the feat of making a fence of flat laths, thus going out of his way to conceal the one positive and good-looking feature in his fence. he seems to have some furtive dread of admitting that he has used the real article! a bolt is to be affixed to a modern door. instead of being applied with a plate of iron or brass, in itself a decorative feature on a blank space like that of the surface of a door, the carpenter cuts a piece of wood out of the edge of the door, sinks the bolt out of sight, so that nothing shall appear to view but a tiny meaningless brass handle, and considers that he has performed a very neat job. compare this method with that of a mediæval locksmith, and the result with his great iron bolt, and if you can not appreciate the difference, both in principle and result, i should recommend a course of historic art study until you are convinced. on the other hand, it is not necessary to carry your artistry so far that you build a fence of nothing but cedar logs touching one another, or that you cover your entire door with a meander of wrought iron which culminates in a small bolt. enthusiastic followers of the arts and crafts movement often go to morbid extremes. _recognition_ of material and method does not connote a _display_ of method and material out of proportion to the demands of the article to be constructed. as in other forms of culture, balance and sanity are necessary, in order to produce a satisfactory result. but when a craftsman is possessed of an æsthetic instinct and faculty, he merits the congratulations offered to the students of birmingham by william morris, when he told them that they were among the happiest people in all civilization--"persons whose necessary daily work is inseparable from their greatest pleasure." a mediæval artist was usually a craftsman as well. he was not content with furnishing designs alone, and then handing them over to men whose hands were trained to their execution, but he took his own designs and carried them out. thus, the designer adapted his drawing to the demands of his material and the craftsman was necessarily in sympathy with the design since it was his own. the result was a harmony of intention and execution which is often lacking when two men of differing tastes produce one object. lübke sums up the talents of a mediæval artist as follows: "a painter could produce panels with coats of arms for the military men of noble birth, and devotional panels with an image of a saint or a conventionalized scene from scripture for that noble's wife. with the same brush and on a larger panel he could produce a larger sacred picture for the convent round the corner, and with finer pencil and more delicate touch he could paint the vellum leaves of a missal;" and so on. if an artistic earthenware platter was to be made, the painter turned to his potter's wheel and to his kiln. if a filigree coronet was wanted, he took up his tools for metal and jewelry work. redgrave lays down an excellent maxim for general guidance to designers in arts other than legitimate picture making. he says: "the picture must be independent of the material, the thought alone should govern it; whereas in decoration the material must be one of the suggestors of the thought, its use must govern the design." this shows the difference between decoration and pictorial art. one hears a great deal of the "conventional" in modern art talk. just what this means, few people who have the word in their vocabularies really know. as professor moore defined it once, it does not apply to an arbitrary theoretical system at all, but is instinctive. it means obedience to the limits under which the artist works. the really greatest art craftsmen of all have been those who have recognized the limitations of the material which they employed. some of the cleverest have been beguiled by the fascination of overcoming obstacles, into trying to make iron do the things appropriate only to wood, or to force cast bronze into the similitude of a picture, or to discount all the credit due to a fine piece of embroidery by trying to make it appear like a painting. but these are the exotics; they are the craftsmen who have been led astray by a false impulse, who respect difficulty more than appropriateness, war rather than peace! no elaborate and tortured piece of cellini's work can compare with the dignified glory of the pala d'oro; ghiberti's gates in florence, though a marvellous _tour de force_, are not so satisfying as the great corona candelabrum of hildesheim. as a rule, we shall find that mediæval craftsmen were better artists than those of the renaissance, for with facility in the use of material, comes always the temptation to make it imitate some other material, thus losing its individuality by a contortion which may be curious and interesting, but out of place. we all enjoy seeing acrobats on the stage, but it would be painful to see them curling in and out of our drawing-room chairs. the true spirit which the arts and crafts is trying to inculcate was found in florence when the great artists turned their attention to the manipulation of objects of daily use, benvenuto cellini being willing to make salt-cellars, and sansovino to work on inkstands, and donatello on picture frames, while pollajuolo made candlesticks. the more our leading artists realize the need of their attention in the minor arts, the more nearly shall we attain to a genuine alliance between the arts and the crafts. to sum up the effect of this harmony between art and craft in the middle ages, the abbé texier has said: "in those days art and manufactures were blended and identified; art gained by this affinity great practical facility, and manufacture much original beauty." and then the value to the artist is almost incalculable. to spend one's life in getting means on which to live is a waste of all enjoyment. to use one's life as one goes along--to live every day with pleasure in congenial occupation--that is the only thing worth while. the life of a craftsman is a constant daily fulfilment of the final ideal of the man who spends all his time and strength in acquiring wealth so that some time (and he may never live to see the day) he may be able to control his time and to use it as pleases him. there is stored up capital represented in the life of a man whose work is a recreation, and expressive of his own personality. in a book of this size it is not possible to treat of every art or craft which engaged the skill of the mediæval workers. but at some future time i hope to make a separate study of the ceramics, glass in its various forms, the arts of engraving and printing, and some of the many others which have added so much to the pleasure and beauty of the civilized world. contents chapter introduction i. gold and silver ii. jewelry and precious stones iii. enamel iv. other metals v. tapestry vi. embroideries vii. sculpture in stone (france and italy) viii. sculpture in stone (england and germany) ix. carving in wood and ivory x. inlay and mosaic xi. illumination of books bibliography index list of illustrations examples of ecclesiastical metal work crown of charlemagne bernward's cross and candlesticks, hildesheim bernward's chalice, hildesheim corona at hildesheim. (detail) reliquary at orvieto apostle spoons ivory knife handles, with portraits of queen elizabeth and james i. englis the "milkmaid cup" saxon brooch the tara brooch shrine of the bell of st. patrick the treasure of guerrazzar hebrew ring crystal flagons, st. mark's, venice sardonyx cup, th century, venice german enamel, th century enamelled gold book cover, siena detail; shrine of the three kings, cologne finiguerra's pax, florence italian enamelled crozier, th century wrought iron hinge, frankfort biscornette's doors at paris wrought iron from the bargello, florence moorish keys, seville armour. showing mail developing into plate damascened helmet moorish sword enamelled suit of armour brunelleschi's competitive panel ghiberti's competitive panel font at hildesheim, th century portrait statuette of peter vischer a copper "curfew" sanctuary knocker, durham cathedral anglo-saxon crucifix of lead detail, bayeux tapestry flemish tapestry, "the prodigal son" tapestry, representing paris in the th century embroidery on canvas, th century, south kensington museum detail of the syon cope dalmatic of charlemagne embroidery, th century, cologne carved capital from ravenna pulpit of nicola pisano, pisa tomb of the son of st. louis, st. denis carvings around choir ambulatory, chartres grotesque from oxford, popularly known as "the backbiter" the "beverly minstrels" st. lorenz church, nuremberg, showing adam kraft's pyx, and the hanging medallion by veit stoss relief by adam kraft carved box--wood pyx, th century miserere stall; an artisan at work miserere stall, ely; noah and the dove miserere stall; the fate of the ale-wife ivory tabernacle, ravenna the nativity; ivory carving pastoral staff; ivory, german, th century ivory mirror case; early th century ivory mirror case, chessman from lewis marble inlay from lucca detail of pavement, baptistery, florence detail of pavement, siena; "fortune," by pinturicchio ambo at ravello; specimen of cosmati mosaic mosaic from ravenna; theodora and her suite, th century mosaic in bas-relief, naples a scribe at work; th century manuscript detail from the durham book ivy pattern, from a th century french manuscript mediæval illumination caricature of a bishop illumination by gherart david of bruges, ; st. barbara choral book, siena detail from an italian choral book arts and crafts in the middle ages chapter i gold and silver the worker in metals is usually called a smith, whether he be coppersmith or goldsmith. the term is saxon in origin, and is derived from the expression "he that smiteth." metal was usually wrought by force of blows, except where the process of casting modified this. beaten work was soldered from the earliest times. egyptians evidently understood the use of solder, for the hebrews obtained their knowledge of such things from them, and in isaiah xli. , occurs the passage: "so the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smootheth with the hammer him that smote the anvil, saying, 'it is ready for the soldering.'" in the bible there are constant references to such arts in metal work as prevail in our own times: "of beaten work made he the candlesticks," exodus. in the ornaments of the tabernacle, the artificer bezaleel "made two cherubims of gold beaten out of one piece made he them." an account of gold being gathered in spite of vicissitudes is given by pliny: "among the dardoe the ants are as large as egyptian wolves, and cat coloured. the indians gather the gold dust thrown up by the ants, when they are sleeping in their holes in the summer; but if these animals wake, they pursue the indians, and, though mounted on the swiftest camels, overtake and tear them to pieces." another legend relates to the blessed st. patrick, through whose intercession special grace is supposed to have been granted to all smiths. st. patrick was a slave in his youth. an old legend tells that one time a wild boar came rooting in the field, and brought up a lump of gold; and patrick brought it to a tinker, and the tinker said, "it is nothing but solder. give it here to me." but then he brought it to a smith, and the smith told him it was gold; and with that gold he bought his freedom. "and from that time," continues the story, "the smiths have been lucky, taking money every day, and never without work, but as for the tinkers, every man's face is against them!" in the middle ages the arts and crafts were generally protected by the formation of guilds and fraternities. these bodies practically exercised the right of patent over their professions, and infringements could be more easily dealt with, and frauds more easily exposed, by means of concerted effort on the part of the craftsmen. the goldsmiths and silversmiths were thus protected in england and france, and in most of the leading european art centres. the test of pure gold was made by "six of the more discreet goldsmiths," who went about and superintended the amount of alloy to be employed; "gold of the standard of the touch of paris" was the french term for metal of the required purity. any goldsmith using imitation stones or otherwise falsifying in his profession was punished "by imprisonment and by ransom at the king's pleasure." there were some complaints that fraudulent workers "cover tin with silver so subtilely... that the same cannot be discovered or separated, and so sell tin for fine silver, to the great damage and deceipt of us." this state of things finally led to the adoption of the hall mark, which is still to be seen on every piece of silver, signifying that it has been pronounced pure by the appointed authorities. the goldsmiths of france absorbed several other auxiliary arts, and were powerful and influential. in state processions the goldsmiths had the first place of importance, and bore the royal canopy when the king himself took part in the ceremony, carrying the shrine of st. genevieve also, when it was taken forth in great pageants. in the quaint wording of the period, goldsmiths were forbidden to gild or silver-plate any article made of copper or latten, unless they left some part of the original exposed, "at the foot or some other part,... to the intent that a man may see whereof the thing is made for to eschew the deceipt aforesaid." this law was enacted in . many of the great art schools of the middle ages were established in connection with the numerous monasteries scattered through all the european countries and in england. the rule of st. benedict rings true concerning the proper consecration of an artist: "if there be artists in the monastery, let them exercise their crafts with all humility and reverence, provided the abbot shall have ordered them. but if any of them be proud of the skill he hath in his craft, because he thereby seemeth to gain something for the monastery, let him be removed from it and not exercise it again, unless, after humbling himself, the abbot shall permit him." craft without graft was the keynote of mediæval art. king alfred had a monastic art school at athelney, in which he had collected "monks of all kinds from every quarter." this accounts for the greek type of work turned out at this time, and very likely for italian influences in early british art. the king was active in craft work himself, for asser tells us that he "continued, during his frequent wars, to teach his workers in gold and artificers of all kinds." the quaint old encyclopædia of bartholomew anglicus, called, "the properties of things," defines gold and silver in an original way, according to the beliefs of this writer's day. he says of gold, that "in the composition there is more sadness of brimstone than of air and moisture of quicksilver, and therefore gold is more sad and heavy than silver." of silver he remarks, "though silver be white yet it maketh black lines and strakes in the body that is scored therewith." marco polo says that in the province of carazan "the rivers yield great quantities of washed gold, and also that which is solid, and on the mountains they find gold in the vein, and they give one pound of gold for six of silver." workers in gold or silver usually employ one of two methods--casting or beating, combined with delicacy of finish, chasing, and polishing. the technical processes are interestingly described by the writers of the old treatises on divers arts. in the earliest of these, by the monk theophilus, in the eleventh century, we have most graphic accounts of processes very similar to those now in use. the naïve monastic instructor, in his preface, exhorts his followers to honesty and zeal in their good works. "skilful in the arts let no one glorify himself," say theophilus, "as if received from himself, and not from elsewhere; but let him be thankful humbly in the lord, from whom all things are received." he then advises the craftsman earnestly to study the book which follows, telling him of the riches of instruction therein to be found; "you will there find out whatever... tuscany knows of mosaic work, or in variety of enamels, whatever arabia shows forth in work of fusion, ductility or chasing, whatever italy ornaments with gold... whatever france loves in a costly variety of windows; whatever industrious germany approves in work of gold, silver or copper, and iron, of woods and of stones." no wonder the authorities are lost in conjecture as to the native place of the versatile theophilus! after promising all these delightful things, the good old monk continues, "act therefore, well intentioned man,... hasten to complete with all the study of thy mind, those things which are still wanting among the utensils of the house of the lord," and he enumerates the various pieces of church plate in use in the middle ages. directions are given by theophilus for the workroom, the benches at which the smiths are to sit, and also the most minute technical recipes for "instruments for sculping," for scraping, filing, and so forth, until the workshop should be fitted with all necessary tools. in those days, artists began at the very beginning. there were no "windsor and newtons," no nice makers of dividers and t-squares, to whom one could apply; all implements must be constructed by the man who contemplated using them. we will see how theophilus proceeds, after he has his tools in readiness, to construct a chalice. first, he puts the silver in a crucible, and when it has become fluid, he turns it into a mould in which there is wax (this is evidently the "cire perdu" process familiar to casters of every age), and then he says, "if by some negligence it should happen that the melted silver be not whole, cast it again until it is whole." this process of casting would apply equally to all metals. theophilus instructs his craftsman how to make the handles of the chalice as follows: "take wax, form handles with it, and grave upon them dragons or animals or birds, or leaves--in whatever manner you may wish. but on the top of each handle place a little wax, round like a slender candle, half a finger in length,... this wax is called the funnel.... then take some clay and cover carefully the handle, so that the hollows of the sculpture may be filled up.... afterwards place these moulds near the coals, that when they have become warm you may pour out the wax. which being turned out, melt the silver,... and cast into the same place whence you poured out the wax. and when they have become cold remove the clay." the solid silver handles are found inside, one hardly need say. in casting in the "cire perdu" process, benvenuto cellini warns you to beware lest you break your crucible--"just as you've got your silver nicely molten," he says, "and are pouring it into the mould, crack goes your crucible, and all your work and time and pains are lost!" he advises wrapping it in stout cloths. the process of repoussé work is also much the same to-day as it has always been. the metal is mounted on cement and the design partly beaten in from the outside; then the cement is melted out, and the design treated in more detail from the inside. theophilus tells us how to prepare a silver vessel to be beaten with a design. after giving a recipe for a sort of pitch, he says, "melt this composition and fill the vial to the top. and when it has become cold, portray... whatever you wish, and taking a slender ductile instrument, and a small hammer, design that which you have portrayed around it by striking lightly." this process is practically, on a larger scale, what cellini describes as that of "minuterie." cellini praises caradosso beyond all others in this work, saying "it was just in this very getting of the gold so equal all over, that i never knew a man to beat caradosso!" he tells how important this equality of surface is, for if, in the working, the gold became thicker in one place than in another, it was impossible to attain a perfect finish. caradosso made first a wax model of the object which he was to make; this he cast in copper, and on that he laid his thin gold, beating and modelling it to the form, until the small hollow bas-relief was complete. the work was done with wooden and steel tools of small proportions, sometimes pressed from the back and sometimes from the front; "ever so much care is necessary," writes cellini, "...to prevent the gold from splitting." after the model was brought to such a point of relief as was suitable for the design, great care had to be exercised in extending the gold further, to fit behind heads and arms in special relief. in those days the whole film of gold was then put in the furnace, and fired until the gold began to liquefy, at which exact moment it was necessary to remove it. cellini himself made a medal for girolamo maretta, representing hercules and the lion; the figures were in such high relief that they only touched the ground at a few points. cellini reports with pride that michelangelo said to him: "if this work were made in great, whether in marble or in bronze, and fashioned with as exquisite a design as this, it would astonish the world; and even in its present size it seems to me so beautiful that i do not think even a goldsmith of the ancient world fashioned aught to come up to it!" cellini says that these words "stiffened him up," and gave him much increased ambition. he describes also an atlas which he constructed of wrought gold, to be placed upon a lapis lazuli background: this he made in extreme relief, using tiny tools, "working right into the arms and legs, and making all alike of equal thickness." a cope-button for pope clement was also quite a _tour de force_; as he said, "these pieces of work are often harder the smaller they are." the design showed the almighty seated on a great diamond; around him there were "a number of jolly little angels," some in complete relief. he describes how he began with a flat sheet of gold, and worked constantly and conscientiously, gradually bossing it up, until, with one tool and then another, he finally mastered the material, "till one fine day god the father stood forth in the round, most comely to behold." so skilful was cellini in this art that he "bossed up in high relief with his punches some fifteen little angels, without even having to solder the tiniest rent!" the fastening of the clasp was decorated with "little snails and masks and other pleasing trifles," which suggest to us that benvenuto was a true son of the renaissance, and that his design did not equal his ability as a craftsman. cellini's method of forming a silver vase was on this wise. the original plate of silver had to be red hot, "not too red, for then it would crack,--but sufficient to burn certain little grains thrown on to it." it was then adjusted to the stake, and struck with the hammer, towards the centre, until by degrees it began to take convex form. then, keeping the central point always in view by means of compasses, from that point he struck "a series of concentric circles about half a finger apart from each other," and with a hammer, beginning at the centre, struck so that the "movement of the hammer shall be in the form of a spiral, and follow the concentric circles." it was important to keep the form very even all round. then the vase had to be hammered from within, "till it was equally bellied all round," and after that, the neck was formed by the same method. then, to ornament the vase, it was filled with pitch, and the design traced on the outside. when it was necessary to beat up the ornament from within, the vase was cleared out, and inverted upon the point of a long "snarling-iron," fastened in an anvil stock, and beaten so that the point should indent from within. the vase would often have to be filled with pitch and emptied in this manner several times in the course of its construction. benvenuto cellini was one of the greatest art personalities of all time. the quaintness of the æsthetic temperament is nowhere found better epitomized than in his life and writings. but as a producer of artistic things, he is a great disappointment. too versatile to be a supreme specialist, he is far more interesting as a man and craftsman than as a designer. technical skill he had in unique abundance. and another faculty, for which he does not always receive due credit, is his gift for imparting his knowledge. his treatises, containing valuable information as to methods of work, are less familiar to most readers than his fascinating biography. these treatises, or directions to craftsmen, are full of the spice and charm which characterize his other work. one cannot proceed from a consideration of the bolder metal work to a study of the dainty art of the goldsmith without a glance at benvenuto cellini. the introduction to the treatises has a naïve opening: "what first prompted me to write was the knowledge of how fond people are of hearing anything new." this, and other reasons, induced him to "write about those loveliest secrets and wondrous methods of the great art of goldsmithing." francis i. indeed thought highly of cellini. upon viewing one of his works, his majesty raised his hands, and exclaimed to the mareschal de france, "i command you to give the first good fat abbey that falls vacant to our benvenuto, for i do not want my kingdom to be deprived of his like." benvenuto describes the process of making filigree work, the principle of which is, fine wire coiled flat so as to form designs with an interesting and varied surface. filigree is quite common still, and any one who has walked down the steep street of the goldsmiths in genoa is familiar with most of its modern forms. cellini says: "though many have practised the art without making drawings first, because the material in which they worked was so easily handled and so pliable, yet those who made their drawings first did the best work. now give ear to the way the art is pursued." he then directs that the craftsman shall have ready three sizes of wire, and some little gold granules, which are made by cutting the short lengths of wire, and then subjecting them to fervent heat until they become as little round beads. he then explains how the artificer must twist and mould the delicate wires, and tastily apply the little granules, so as to make a graceful design, usually of some floriate form. when the wire flowers and leaves were formed satisfactorily, a wash of gum tragacanth should be applied, to hold them in place until the final soldering. the solder was in powdered form, and it was to be dusted on "just as much as may suffice,... and not more,"... this amount of solder could only be determined by the experience of the artist. then came the firing of the finished work in the little furnace; benvenuto is here quite at a loss how to explain himself: "too much heat would move the wires you have woven out of place," he says, "really it is quite impossible to tell it properly in writing; i could explain it all right by word of mouth, or better still, show you how it is done,--still, come along,--we'll try to go on as we started!" sometimes embossing was done by thin sheets of metal being pressed on to a wooden carving prepared for the purpose, so that the result would be a raised silver pattern, which, when filled up with pitch or lead, would pass for a sample of repoussé work. i need hardly say that a still simpler mechanical form of pressing obtains on cheap silver to-day. so much for the mechanical processes of treating these metals. we will now examine some of the great historic examples, and glance at the lives of prominent workers in gold and silver in the past. one of the most brilliant times for the production of works of art in gold and silver, was when constantine, upon becoming christian, moved the seat of government to byzantium. byzantine ornament lends itself especially to such work. the distinguishing mark between the earlier greek jewellers and the byzantine was, that the former considered chiefly line, form, and delicacy of workmanship, while the latter were led to expression through colour and texture, and not fineness of finish. the byzantine emperors loved gold in a lavish way, and on a superb scale. they were not content with chaste rings and necklets, or even with golden crowns. the royal thrones were of gold; their armour was decorated with the precious metal, and their chariots enriched in the same way. even the houses of the rich people were more endowed with precious furnishings than most of the churches of other nations, and every family possessed a massive silver table, and solid vases and plate. the emperor theophilus, who lived in the ninth century, was a great lover of the arts. his palace was built after the arabian style, and he had skilful mechanical experts to construct a golden tree over his throne, on the branches of which were numerous birds, and two golden lions at the foot. these birds were so arranged by clockwork, that they could be made to sing, and the lions also joined a roar to the chorus! a great designer of the middle ages was alcuin, the teacher of charlemagne, who lived from to ; he superintended the building of many fine specimens of church plate. the school of alcuin, however, was more famous for illumination, and we shall speak of his work at more length when we come to deal with that subject. another distinguished patron of art was the abbot odo of cluny, who had originally been destined for a soldier; but he was visited with what maitland describes as "an inveterate headache, which, from his seventeenth to his nineteenth year, defied all medical skill," so he and his parents, convinced that this was a manifestation of the disapproval of heaven, decided to devote his life to religious pursuits. he became abbot of cluny in the year . [illustration: crown of charlemagne] examples of ninth century goldsmithing are rare. judging from the few specimens existing, the crown of charlemagne, and the beautiful binding of the hours of charles the bold, one would be inclined to think that an almost barbaric wealth of closely set jewels was the entire standard of the art of the time, and that grace of form or contour was quite secondary. the tomb was rifled about the twelfth century, and many of the valuable things with which he was surrounded were taken away. the throne was denuded of its gold, and may be seen to-day in the cathedral at aachen, a simple marble chair plain and dignified, with the copper joints showing its construction. many of the relics of charlemagne are in the treasury at aachen, among other interesting items, the bones of the right arm of the emperor in a golden shrine in the form of a hand and arm. there is a thrill in contemplating the remains of the right arm of charlemagne after all the centuries, when one remembers the swords and sceptres which have been wielded by that mighty member. the reliquary containing the right arm of charlemagne is german work (of course later than the opening of the tomb), probably between and . frederic barbarossa and his ancestors are represented on its ornamentation. there is little goldsmith's work of the norman period in great britain, for that was a time of the building of large structures, and probably minor arts and personal adornment took a secondary place. [illustration: bernward's cross and candlesticks, hildesheim] perhaps the most satisfactory display of mediæval arts and crafts which may be seen in one city is at hildesheim: the special richness of remains of the tenth century is owing to the life and example of an early bishop--bernward--who ruled the see from to . before he was made bishop, bernward was tutor to the young emperor otto iii. he was a student of art all his life, and a practical craftsman, working largely in metals, and training up a guild of followers in the cathedral school. he was extremely versatile: one of the great geniuses of history. in times of war he was commander in chief of hildesheim; he was a traveller, having made pilgrimages to rome and paris, and the grave of st. martin at tours. this wide culture was unusual in those days; it is quite evident from his active life of accomplishment in creative art, that good bishop bernward was not to be numbered among those who expected the end of the world to occur in the year a. d. of his works to be seen in hildesheim, there are splendid examples. the goldsmith's school under his direction was famous. he was created bishop in ; taugmar pays him a tribute, saying: "he was an excellent penman, a good painter, and as a household manager was unequalled." moreover, he "excelled in the mechanical no less than in the liberal arts." in fact, a visit to hildesheim to-day proves that to this man who lived ten centuries ago is due the fact that hildesheim is the most artistic city in germany from the antiquarian's point of view. this bishop influenced every branch of art, and with so vital an influence, that his see city is still full of his works and personality. he was not only a practical worker in the arts and crafts, but he was also a collector, forming quite a museum for the further instruction of the students who came in touch with him. he decorated the walls of his cathedral; the great candelabrum, or corona, which circles above the central aisle of the cathedral, was his own design, and the work of his followers; and the paschal column in the cathedral was from his workshop, wrought as delightfully as would be possible in any age, and yet executed nearly a thousand years ago. no bishop ever deserved sainthood more, or made a more practical contribution to the church. pope celestine iii. canonized him in . bernward came of a noble family. his figure may be seen--as near an approach to a portrait of this great worker as we have--among the bas-reliefs on the beautiful choir-screen in st. michael's church in hildesheim. [illustration: bernward's chalice, hildesheim] the cross executed by bernward's own hands in is a superb work, with filigree covering the whole, and set with gems _en cabochon_, with pearls, and antique precious stones, carved with greek divinities in intaglio. the candlesticks of st. bernward, too, are most interesting. they are made of a metal composed of gold, silver, and iron, and are wrought magnificently, into a mass of animal and floriate forms, their outline being well retained, and the grace of the shaft and proportions being striking. they are partly the work of the mallet and partly of the chisel. they had been buried with bernward, and were found in his sarcophagus in . didron has likened them, in their use of animal form, to the art of the mexicans; but to me they seem more like delightful german romanesque workmanship, leaning more towards that of certain spirited lombard grotesques, or even that of arles and certain parts of france, than to the aztec to which didron has reference. the little climbing figures, while they certainly have very large hands and feet, yet are endowed with a certain sprightly action; they all give the impression of really making an effort,--they are trying to climb, instead of simply occupying places in the foliage. there is a good deal of strength and energy displayed in all of them, and, while the work is rude and rough, it is virile. it is not unlike the workmanship on the gloucester candlestick in the south kensington museum, which was made in the twelfth century. bernward's chalice is set with antique stones, some of them carved. on the foot may be seen one representing the three graces, in their customary state of nudity "without malice." bernward was also an architect. he built the delightful church of st. michael, and its cloister. he also superintended the building of an important wall by the river bank in the lower town. when there was an uneasy time of controversy at gandesheim, bernward hastened to headquarters in rome, to arrange to bring about better feeling. in he arrived, early in january, and the pope went out to meet him, kissed him, and invited him to stay as a guest at his palace. after accomplishing his diplomatic mission, and laden with all sorts of sacred relics, bernward returned home, not too directly to prevent his seeing something of the intervening country. a book which bishop bernward had made and illuminated in has the inscription: "i, bernward, had this codex written out, at my own cost, and gave it to the beloved saint of god, michael. anathema to him who alienates it." this inscription has the more interest for being the actual autograph of bernward. he was succeeded by hezilo, and many other pupils. these men made the beautiful corona of the cathedral, of which i give an illustration in detail. great coronas or circular chandeliers hung in the naves of many cathedrals in the middle ages. the finest specimen is this at hildesheim, the magnificent ring of which is twenty feet across, as it hangs suspended by a system of rods and balls in the form of chains. it has twelve large towers and twelve small ones set around it, supposed to suggest the heavenly jerusalem with its many mansions. there are sockets for seventy-two candles. the detail of its adornment is very splendid, and repays close study. every little turret is different in architectonic form, and statues of saints are to be seen standing within these. the pierced silver work on this chandelier is as beautiful as any mediæval example in existence. [illustration: corona at hildesheim (detail)] the great leader of mediæval arts in france was the abbot suger of st. denis. suger was born in , he and his brother, alvise, who was bishop of arras, both being destined for the episcopate. as a youth he passed ten years at st. denis as a scholar. here he became intimate with prince louis, and this friendship developed in after life. on returning from a voyage to italy, in , he learned at the same time of the death of his spiritual father, abbot adam, and of his own election to be his successor. he thus stood at the head of the convent of st. denis in . this was due to his noble character, his genius for diplomacy and his artistic talent. he was minister to louis vi., and afterwards to louis vii., and during the second crusade, he was made regent for the kingdom. suger was known, after this, as the father of his country, for he was a courageous counsellor, firm and convincing in argument, so that the king had really been guided by his advice. while he was making laws and instigating crusades, he was also directing craft shops and propagating the arts in connection with the life of the church. st. bernard denounced him, as encouraging too luxurious a ritual; suger made a characteristic reply: "if the ancient law... ordained that vessels and cups of gold should be used for libations, and to receive the blood of rams,... how much rather should we devote gold, precious stones, and the rarest of materials, to those vessels which are destined to contain the blood of our lord." suger ordered and himself made most beautiful appointments for the sanctuary, and when any vessel already owned by the abbey was of costly material, and yet unsuitable in style, he had it remodelled. an interesting instance of this is a certain antique vase of red porphyry. there was nothing ecclesiastical about this vase; it was a plain straight greek jar, with two handles at the sides. suger treated it as the body of an eagle, making the head and neck to surmount it, and the claw feet for it to stand on, together with its soaring wings, of solid gold, and it thus became transformed into a magnificent reliquary in the form of the king of birds. the inscription on this ampula of suger is: "as it is our duty to present unto god oblations of gems and gold, i, suger, offer this vase unto the lord." suger stood always for the ideal in art and character. he had the courage of his convictions in spite of the fulminations of st. bernard. instead of using the enormous sums of money at his disposal for importing byzantine workmen, he preferred to use his funds and his own influence in developing a native french school of artificers. it is interesting to discover that suger, among his many adaptations and restorations at st. denis, incorporated some of the works of st. eloi into his own compositions. for instance, he took an ivory pulpit, and remodelled it with the addition of copper animals. abbots of st. denis made beautiful offerings to the church. one of them, abbot matthiew de vendôme, presented a wonderful reliquary, consisting of a golden head and bust, while another gave a reliquary to contain the jaw of st. louis. suger presented many fine products of his own art and that of his pupils, among others a great cross six feet in height. a story is told of him, that, while engaged in making a particularly splendid crucifix for st. denis, he ran short of precious stones, nor could he in any way obtain what he required, until some monks came to him and offered to sell him a superb lot of stones which had formerly embellished the dinner service of henry i. of england, whose nephew had given them to the convent in exchange for indulgences and masses! in these early and half-barbaric days of magnificence, form and delicacy of execution were not understood. brilliancy and lavish display of sparkling jewels, set as thickly as possible without reference to a general scheme of composition, was the standard of beauty; and it must be admitted that, with such stones available, no more effective school of work has ever existed than that of which such works charlemagne's crown, the iron crown of monza, and the crown of king suinthila, are typical examples. abbot suger lamented when he lacked a sufficient supply of stones; but he did not complain when there occurred a deficiency in workmen. it was comparatively easy to train artists who could make settings and bind stones together with soldered straps! in a royal silversmith of france, etienne la fontaine, made a "fauteuil of silver and crystal decorated with precious stones," for the king. the golden altar of basle is almost as interesting as the great pala d'oro in venice, of which mention is made elsewhere. it was ordered by emperor henry the pious, before , and presented to the prime minister at basle. the central figure of the saviour has at its feet two tiny figures, quite out of scale; these are intended for the donors, emperor henry and his queen, cunegunda. silversmith's work in spain was largely in byzantine style, while some specimens of gothic and roman are also to be seen there. moorish influence is noticeable, as in all spanish design, and filigree work of oriental origin is frequently to be met with. some specimens of champlevé enamel are also to be seen, though this art was generally confined to limoges during the middle ages. a guild was formed in toledo which was in flourishing condition in . an interesting document has been found in spain showing that craftsmen were supplied with the necessary materials when engaged to make valuable figures for the decoration of altars. it is dated may , , "i, sancho martinez orebsc, silversmith, native of seville, inform you, the dean and chapter of the church of seville, that it was agreed that i make an image of st. mary with its tabernacle, that it should be finished at a given time, and that you were to give me the silver and stones required to make it." in spain, the most splendid triumphs of the goldsmith's skill were the "custodias," or large tabernacles, in which the host was carried in procession. the finest was one made for toledo by enrique d'arphe, in competition with other craftsmen. his design being chosen, he began his work in , and in the custodia was finished. it was in the form of a gothic temple, six sided, with a jewelled cross on the top, and was eight feet high. some of the gold employed was the first ever brought from america. the whole structure weighed three hundred and eighty-eight pounds. arphe made a similar custodia for cordova and another for leon. his grandson, juan d'arphe, wrote a verse about the toledo custodia, in which these lines occur: "custodia is a temple of rich plate wrought for the glory of our saviour true... that holiest ark of old to imitate, fashioned by bezaleel the cunning jew, chosen of god to work his sovereign will, and greatly gifted with celestial skill." juan d'arphe himself made a custodia for seville, the decorations and figures on which were directed by the learned francesco pacheco, the father-in-law of velasquez. when this custodia was completed, d'arphe wrote a description of it, alluding boldly to this work as "the largest and finest work in silver known of its kind," and this could really be said without conceit, for it is a fact. a gothic form of goldsmith's work obtained in spain in the th, th and th centuries; it was based upon architectural models and was known as "plateresca." the shrines for holding relics became in these centuries positive buildings on a small scale in precious material. in england also were many of these shrines, but few of them now remain. the first mayor of london, from to , was a goldsmith, henry fitz alwyn, the founder of the royal exchange; sir thomas gresham, in , was also a goldsmith and a banker. there is an entertaining piece of cynical satire on the goldsmiths in stubbes' anatomy of abuses, written in the time of queen elizabeth, showing that the tricks of the trade had come to full development by that time, and that the public was being aroused on the subject. stubbes explains how the goldsmith's shops are decked with chains and rings, "wonderful richly." then he goes on to say: "they will make you any monster or article whatsoever of gold, silver, or what you will. is there no deceit in these goodlye shows? yes, too many; if you will buy a chain of gold, a ring, or any kind of plate, besides that you shall pay almost half more than it is worth... you shall also perhaps have that gold which is naught, or else at least mixed with drossie rubbage.... but this happeneth very seldom by reason of good orders, and constitutions made for the punishment of them that offend in this kind of deceit, and therefore they seldom offend therein, though now and then they chance to stumble in the dark!" fynes moryson, a traveller who died in , says that "the goldsmiths' shops in london... are exceedingly richly furnished continually with gold, with silver plate, and with jewels.... i never see any such daily show, anything so sumptuous, in any place in the world, as in london." he admits that in florence and paris the similar shops are very rich upon special occasions; but it is the steady state of the market in london to which he has reference. the company of goldsmiths in dublin held quite a prominent social position in the community. in , a great festival and pageant took place, in which the goldsmiths and visiting craftsmen from other corporations took part. henry iii. set himself to enrich and beautify the shrine of his patron saint, edward the confessor, and with this end in view he made various extravagant demands: for instance, at one time he ordered all the gold in london to be detailed to this object, and at another, he had gold rings and brooches purchased to the value of six hundred marks. the shrine was of gold, and, according to matthew paris, enriched with jewels. it was commenced in . in the queen presented an image of the virgin with a ruby and an emerald. jewels were purchased from time to time,--a great cameo in , and in many gems of great value. the son of ado the goldsmith, edward, was the "king's beloved clerk," and was made "keeper of the shrine." most of the little statuettes were described as having stones set somewhere about them: "an image of st. peter holding a church in one hand and the keys in the other, trampling on nero, who had a big sapphire on his breast;" and "the blessed virgin with her son, set with rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and garnets," are among those cited. the whole shrine was described as "a basilica adorned with purest gold and precious stones." odo the goldsmith was in charge of the works for a good while. he was succeeded by his son edward. payments were made sometimes in a regular wage, and sometimes for "task work." the workmen were usually known by one name--master alexander the king's carpenter, master henry the king's master mason, and so forth. in an early life of edward the confessor, there is an illumination showing the masons and carpenters kneeling to receive instruction from their sovereign. the golden shrine of the confessor was probably made in the palace itself; this was doubtless considered the safest place for so valuable a work to remain in process of construction; for there is an allusion to its being brought on the king's own shoulders (with the assistance of others), from the palace to the abbey, in , for its consecration. in henry iii. ordered four silver basins, fitted with cakes of wax with wicks in them, to be placed as lights before the shrine of thomas à becket in canterbury. the great gold shrine of becket appears to have been chiefly the work of a goldsmith, master adam. he also designed the coronation chair of england, which is now in westminster abbey. the chief goldsmith of england employed by edward i. was one adam of shoreditch. he was versatile, for he was also a binder of books. a certain bill shows an item of his workmanship, "a group in silver of a child riding upon a horse, the child being a likeness of lord edward, the king's son." a veritable arts and crafts establishment had been in existence in woolstrope, lincolnshire, before cromwell's time; for georde gifford wrote to cromwell regarding the suppression of this monastery: "there is not one religious person there but what doth use either embrothering, wryting books with a faire hand, making garments, or carving." in all countries the chalices and patens were usually, designed to correspond with each other. the six lobed dish was a very usual form; it had a depressed centre, with six indented scallops, and the edge flat like a dinner plate. in an old church inventory, mention is made of "a chalice with _his_ paten." sometimes there was lettering around the flat edge of the paten. chalices were-composed of three parts: the cup, the ball or knop, and the stem, with the foot. the original purpose of having this foot hexagonal in shape is said to have been to prevent the chalice from rolling when it was laid on its side to drain. under many modifications this general plan of the cup has obtained. the bowl is usually entirely plain, to facilitate keeping it clean; most of the decoration was lavished on the knop, a rich and uneven surface being both beautiful and functional in this place. such norman and romanesque chalices as remain are chiefly in museums now. they were usually "coffin chalices"--that is, they had been buried in the coffin of some ecclesiastic. of gothic chalices, or those of the tudor period, fewer remain, for after the reformation, a general order went out to the churches, for all "chalices to be altered to decent communion cups." the shape was greatly modified in this change. in the thirteenth century the taste ran rather to a chaster form of decoration; the large cabochons of the romanesque, combined with a liquid gold surface, gave place to refined ornaments in niello and delicate enamels. the bowls of the earlier chalices were rather flat and broad. when it became usual for the laity to partake only of one element when communicating, the chalice, which was reserved for the clergy alone, became modified to meet this condition, and the bowl was much smaller. after the reformation, however, the development was quite in the other direction, the bowl being extremely large and deep. in that period they were known as communion cups. in sandwich there is a cup which was made over out of a ciborium; as it quite plainly shows its origin, it is naïvely inscribed: "this is a communion coop." when this change in the form of the chalice took place, it was provided, by admonition of the archbishop, in all cases with a "cover of silver... which shall serve also for the ministration of the communion bread." to make this double use of cover and dish satisfactory, a foot like a stand was added to the paten. the communion cup of the reformation differed from the chalice, too, in being taller and straighter, with a deep bowl, almost in the proportions of a flaring tumbler, and a stem with a few close decorations instead of a knop. the small paten served as a cover to the cup, as has been mentioned. it is not always easy to see old church plate where it originally belonged. on the scottish border, for instance, there were constant raids, when the scots would descend upon the english parish churches, and bear off the communion plate, and again the english would cross the border and return the compliment. in old churches, such as the eleventh century structure at torpenhow, in cumberland, the deep sockets still to be seen in the stone door jambs were intended to support great beams with which the church had constantly to be fortified against scottish invasion. another reason for the disappearance of church plate, was the occasional sale of the silver in order to continue necessary repairs on the fabric. in a church in norfolk, there is a record of sale of communion silver and "for altering of our church and fynnishing of the same according to our mindes and the parishioners." it goes on to state that the proceeds were appropriated for putting new glass in the place of certain windows "wherein were conteined the lives of certain prophane histories," and for "paving the king's highway" in the church precincts. at the time of the reformation many valuable examples of church plate were cast aside by order of the commissioners, by which "all monuments of feyned miracles, pilgrimages, idolatry, and superstition," were to be destroyed. at this time a calf or a sheep might have been seen browsing in the meadows with a sacring-bell fastened at its neck, and the pigs refreshed themselves with drinking from holy-water fonts! croziers of ornate design especially roused the ire of the puritans. in mr. alfred maskell's incomparable book on ivories, he translates a satirical verse by guy de coquille, concerning these objectionable pastoral staves (which were often made of finely sculptured ivory). "the staff of a bishop of days that are old was of wood, and the bishop himself was of gold. but a bishop of wood prefers gorgeous array, so his staff is of gold in the new fashioned way!" during the renaissance especially, goldsmith's work was carried to great technical perfection, and yet the natural properties of the metal were frequently lost sight of, and the craftsmen tried to produce effects such as would be more suitable in stone or wood,--little architectonic features were introduced, and gold was frequently made to do the work of other materials. thus it lost much of its inherent effectiveness. too much attention was given to ingenuity, and not enough to fitness and beauty. [illustration: reliquary at orvieto] in documents of the fourteenth century, the following list of goldsmiths is given: jean de mantreux was goldsmith to king jean. claux de friburg was celebrated for a gold statuette of st. john which he made for the duke of normandy. a diadem for this duke was also recorded, made by jean de piguigny. hannequin made three golden crowns for charles v. hans crest was goldsmith to the duke of orleans, while others employed by him were durosne, of toulouse, jean de bethancourt, a flemish goldsmith. in the fifteenth century the names of jean de hasquin, perrin manne, and margerie d'avignon, were famous. artists in the renaissance were expected to undertake several branches of their craft. hear poussin: "it is impossible to work at the same time upon frontispieces of books: a virgin: at the picture for the congregation of st. louis, at the designs for the gallery, and for the king's tapestry! i have only a feeble head, and am not aided by anyone!" a goldsmith attached to the court of king rené of anjou was jean nicolas. rené also gave many orders to one liguier rabotin, of avignon, who made him several cups of solid gold, on a large tray of the same precious metal. the king often drew his own designs or such bijoux. among the famous men of italy were several who practised the art of the goldsmith. ugolino of siena constructed the wonderful reliquary at orvieto; this, is in shape somewhat similar to the façade of the cathedral. verocchio, the instructor of leonardo da vinci, accomplished several important pieces of jewelery in his youth: cope-buttons and silver statuettes, chiefly, which were so successful that he determined to take up the career of a sculptor. ghirlandajo, as is well known, was trained as a goldsmith originally, his father having been the inventor of a pretty fashion then prevailing among young girls of florence, and being the maker of those golden garlands worn on the heads of maidens. the name ghirlandajo, indeed, was derived from these garlands (ghirlandes). francia began life as a goldsmith, too, and was never in after life ashamed of his profession, for he often signed his works francesco francia aurifex. francia was a very skilful workman in niello, and in enamels. in fact, to quote the enthusiastic vasari, "he executed everything that is most beautiful, and which can be performed in that art more perfectly than any other master had ever done." baccio baldini, also, was a goldsmith, although a greater portion of his ability was turned in the direction of engraving. his pupil maso finniguerra, who turned also to engraving, began his career as a goldsmith. the great silver altar in the baptistery in florence occupied nearly all the goldsmiths in that city. in the father of the orcagnas, cione, died; he had worked for some years before that on the altar. in the altar was destroyed, but the parts in bas-relief by cione were retained and incorporated into the new work, which was finished in . ghiberti, orcagna, verocchio, and pollajuolo, all executed various details of this magnificent monument. goldsmiths did not quite change their standing and characteristics until late in the sixteenth century. about that time it may be said that the last goldsmith of the old school was claude ballin, while the first jeweller, in the modern acceptation of the word, was pierre de montarsy. silver has always been selected for the better household utensils, not only on account of its beauty, but also because of its ductility, which is desirable in making larger vessels; its value, too, is less than that of gold, so that articles which would be quite out of the reach of most householders, if made in gold, become very available in silver. silver is particularly adapted to daily use, for the necessary washing and polishing which it receives keeps it in good condition, and there is no danger from poison through corrosion, as with copper and brass. in the middle ages the customary pieces of plate in english homes were basins, bottles, bowls, candlesticks, saucepans, jugs, dishes, ewers and flagons, and chafing-dishes for warming the hands, which were undoubtedly needed, when we remember how intense the cold must have been in those high, bare, ill-ventilated halls! there were also large cups called hanaps, smaller cups, plates, and porringers, salt-cellars, spoons, and salvers. forks were of much later date. there are records of several silver basins in the register of john of gaunt, and also in the inventory of lord lisle: one being "a basin and ewer with arms" and another, "a shaving basin." john of gaunt also owned "a silver bowl for the kitchen." if the mediæval household lacked comforts, it could teach us lessons in luxury in some other departments! he also had a "pair of silver bottles, partly gilt, and enamelled, garnished with tissues of silk, white and blue," and a "casting bottle" for distributing perfume: silver candelabra were recorded; these, of course, must have been in constant service, as the facilities for lighting were largely dependent upon them. when the crown was once obliged to ask a loan from the earl of salisbury, in , the earl received, as earnest of payment, "two golden candelabra, garnished with pearls and precious stones." in the close roll of henry iii. of england, there is found an interesting order to a goldsmith: "edward, son of eudo, with all haste, by day and by night, make a cup with a foot for the queen: weighing two marks, not more; price twenty marks, against christmas, that she may drink from it in that feast: and paint it and enamel it all over, and in every other way that you can, let it be decently and beautifully wrought, so that the king, no less than the said queen, may be content therewith." all the young princes and princesses were presented with silver cups, also, as they came to such age as made the use of them expedient; lionel and john, sons of edward iii., were presented with cups "with leather covers for the same," when they were one and three years old respectively. in the chief justice, sir william hankford, gave his great-granddaughter a baptismal gift of a gilt cup and a diamond ring, together with a curious testimonial of eight shillings and sixpence to the nurse! of dishes, the records are meagre, but there is an amusing entry among the lisle papers referring to a couple of "conserve dishes" for which lady lisle expressed a wish. husee had been ordered to procure these, but writes, "i can get no conserve dishes... however, if they be to be had, i will have of them, or it shall cost me hot water!" a little later he observes, "towards christmas day they shall be made at bevoys, betwixt abbeville and paris." flagons were evidently a novelty in , for there is an entry in the issue roll of edward iv., which mentions "two ollas called silver flagons for the king." an olla was a latin term for a jar. lord lisle rejoiced in "a pair of flagons, the gilt sore worn." hanaps were more usual, and appear to have been usually in the form of goblets. they frequently had stands called "tripers." sometimes these stands were very ornate, as, for instance, one owned by the bishop of carpentras, "in the shape of a flying dragon, with a crowned damsel sitting upon a green terrace." another, belonging to the countess of cambridge, was described as being "in the shape of a monster, with three buttresses and three bosses of mother of pearl... and an ewer,... partly enamelled with divers babooneries"--a delightful expression! other hanaps were in the forms of swans, oak trees, white harts, eagles, lions, and the like--probably often of heraldic significance. a set of platters was sent from paris to richard ii., all of gold, with balas rubies, pearls and sapphires set in them. it is related of the ancient frankish king, chilperic, that he had made a dish of solid gold, "ornamented all over with precious stones, and weighing fifty pounds," while lothaire owned an enormous silver basin bearing as decoration "the world with the courses of the stars and the planets." the porringer was a very important article of table use, for pap, and soft foods such as we should term cereals, and for boiled pudding. these were all denominated porridge, and were eaten from these vessels. soup was doubtless served in them as well. they were numerous in every household. in the roll of henry iii. is an item, mentioning that he had ordered twenty porringers to be made, "like the one hundred porringers" which had already been ordered! an interesting pattern of silver cups in elizabethan times were the "trussing cups," namely, two goblets of silver, squat in shape and broad in bowl, which fitted together at the rim, so that one was inverted as a sort of cover on top of the other when they were not in use. drinking cups were sometimes made out of cocoanuts, mounted in silver, and often of ostrich eggs, similarly treated, and less frequently of horns hollowed out and set on feet. mediæval loving cups were usually named, and frequently for some estates that belonged to the owner. cups have been known to bear such names as "spang," "bealchier," and "crumpuldud," while others bore the names of the patron saints of their owners. a kind of cruet is recorded among early french table silver, "a double necked bottle in divisions, in which to place two kinds of liquor without mixing them." a curious bit of table silver in france, also, was the "almsbox," into which each guest was supposed to put some piece of food, to be given to the poor. spoons were very early in their origin; st. radegond is reported by a contemporary to have used a spoon, in feeding the blind and infirm. a quaint book of instructions to children, called "the babee's booke," in , advises by way of table manners: "and whenever your potage to you shall be brought, take your sponys and soupe by no way, and in your dish leave not your spoon, i pray!" and a later volume on the same subject, in , commends a proper respect for the implements of the table: "ne playe with spoone, trencher, ne knife." spoons of curious form were evidently made all the way from to the present day. in an old will, in , mention is made of spoons "wt leopards hedes printed in the sponself," and in another, six spoons "wt owles at the end of the handles." professor wilson said, "a plated spoon is a pitiful imposition," and he was right. if there is one article of table service in which solidity of metal is of more importance than in another, it is the spoon, which must perforce come in contact with the lips whenever it is used. in england the earliest spoons were of about the thirteenth century, and the first idea of a handle seems to have been a plain shaft ending in a ball or knob. gradually spoons began to show more of the decorative instinct of their designers; acorns, small statuettes, and such devices terminated the handles, which still retained their slender proportions, however. finally it became popular to have images of the virgin on individual spoons, which led to the idea, after a bit, of decorating the dozen with the twelve apostles. these may be seen of all periods, differently elaborated. sets of thirteen are occasionally met with, these having one with the statue of jesus as the good shepherd, with a lamb on his shoulders: it is known as the "master spoon." [illustration: apostle spoons] the first mention of forks in france is in the inventory, of charles v., in . we hear a great deal about the promiscuous use of knives before forks were invented; how in the children's book of instructions they are enjoined "pick not thy teeth with thy knife," as if it were a general habit requiring to be checked. massinger alludes to a "silver fork to convey an olive neatly to thy mouth," but this may apply to pickle forks. forks were introduced from italy into england about . a curiosity in cutlery is the "musical knife" at the louvre; the blade is steel, mounted in parcel gilt, and the handle is of ivory. on the blade is engraved a few bars of music (arranged for the bass only), accompanying the words, "what we are about to take may trinity in unity bless. amen." this is a literal translation. it indicates that there were probably three other knives in the set so ornamented, one with the soprano, one alto, and one tenor, so that four persons sitting down to table together might chant their "grace" in four-part harmony, having the requisite notes before them! it was a quaint idea, but quite in keeping with the taste of the sixteenth century. [illustration: ivory knife handles, with portraits of queen elizabeth and james i. englis] the domestic plate of louis, duke of anjou, in , consisted of over seven hundred pieces, and charles v. of france had an enormous treasury of such objects for daily use. strong rooms and safes were built during the fourteenth century, for the lodging of the household valuables. about this time the dukes of burgundy were famous for their splendid table service. indeed, the craze for domestic display in this line became so excessive, that in king john of france prohibited the further production of such elaborate pieces, "gold or silver plate, vases, or silver jewelry, of more than one mark of gold, or silver, excepting for churches." this edict, however, accomplished little, and was constantly evaded. many large pieces of silver made in the period of the renaissance were made simply with a view to standing about as ornaments. cellini alludes to certain vases which had been ordered from him, saying that "they are called ewers, and they are placed upon buffets for the purpose of display." the salt cellar was always a _piece de resistance_, and stood in the centre of the table. it was often in the form of a ship in silver. a book entitled "ffor to serve a lorde," in , directs the "boteler" or "panter," to bring forth the principal salt, and to "set the saler in the myddys of the table." persons helped themselves to salt with "a clene kniffe." the seats of honour were all about the salt, while those of less degree were at the lower end of the table, and were designated as "below the salt." the silver ship was commonly an immense piece of plate, containing the napkin, goblet, and knife and spoon of the host, besides being the receptacle for the spices and salt. through fear of poison, the precaution was taken of keeping it covered. this ship was often known as the "nef," and frequently had a name, as if it were the family yacht! one is recorded as having been named the "tyger," while a nef belonging to the duke of orleans was called the "porquepy," meaning porcupine. one of the historic salts, in another form, is the "huntsman's salt," and is kept at all soul's college, oxford. the figure of a huntsman, bears upon its head a rock crystal box with a lid. about the feet of this figure are several tiny animals and human beings, so that it looks as if the intent had been to picture some gigantic legendary hunter--a sort of gulliver of the chase. the table was often furnished also with a fountain, in which drinking-water was kept, and upon which either stood or hung cups or goblets. these fountains were often of fantastic shapes, and usually enamelled. one is described as representing a dragon on a tree top, and another a castle on a hill, with a convenient tap at some point for drawing off the water. the london city companies are rich in their possessions of valuable plate. some of the cups are especially beautiful. the worshipful company of skinners owns some curious loving cups, emblematic of the names of the donors. there are five cockayne loving cups, made in the form of cocks, with their tail feathers spread up to form the handles. the heads have to be removed for drinking. these cups were bequeathed by william cockayne, in . another cup is in the form of a peacock, walking with two little chicks of minute proportions on either side of the parent bird. this is inscribed, "the gift of mary the daughter of richard robinson, and wife to thomas smith and james peacock, skinners." whether the good lady were a bigamist or took her husbands in rotation, does not transpire. an interesting cup is owned by the vintners in london, called the milkmaid. the figure of a milkmaid, in laced bodice, holds above her head a small cup on pivots, so that it finds its level when the figure is inverted, as is the case when the cup is used, the petticoat of the milkmaid forming the real goblet. it is constructed on the same principle as the german figures of court ladies holding up cups, which are often seen to-day, made on the old pattern. the cups in the case of this milkmaid are both filled with wine, and it is quite difficult to drink from the larger cup without spilling from the small swinging cup which is then below the other. every member is expected to perform this feat as a sort of initiation. it dates from . [illustration: the "milkmaid cup"] one of the most beautiful corporation cups is at norwich, where it is known as the "petersen" cup. it is shaped like a very thick and squat chalice, and around its top is a wide border of decorative lettering, bearing the inscription, "the + most + here + of. + is + dunne + by + peter + peterson +." this craftsman was a norwich silversmith of the sixteenth century, very famous in his day, and a remarkably chaste designer as well. a beautiful ivory cup twelve inches high, set in silver gilt, called the grace cup, of thomas à becket, is inscribed around the top band, "_vinum tuum bibe cum gaudio_." it has a hall-mark of a lombardic letter h, signifying the year . it is decorated by cherubs, roses, thistles, and crosses, relieved with garnets and pearls. on another flat band is the inscription: "_sobrii estote_," and on the cover, in roman capitals, "_ferare god_." it is owned by the howard family, of corby. tankards were sometimes made of such crude materials as leather (like the "lether bottel" of history), and of wood. in fact, the inventory of a certain small church in the year tells of a "penny tankard of wood," which was used as a "holy water stock." an extravagant design, of a period really later than we are supposed to deal with in this book, is a curious cup at barber's and surgeon's hall, known as the royal oak. it is built to suggest an oak tree,--a naturalistic trunk, with its roots visible, supporting the cup, which is in the form of a semi-conventional tree, covered with leaves, detached acorns swinging free on rings from the sides at intervals! richard redgrave called attention to some of the absurdities of the exotic work of his day in england. "rachel at a well, under an imitative palm tree," he remarks, "draws, not water, but ink; a grotto of oyster shells with children beside it, contains... an ink vessel; the milk pail on a maiden's head contains, not goat's milk, as the animal by her side would lead you to suppose, but a taper!" one great secret of good design in metal is to avoid imitating fragile things in a strong material. the stalk of a flower or leaf, for instance, if made to do duty in silver to support a heavy cup or vase, is a very disagreeable thing to contemplate; if the article were really what it represented, it would break under the strain. while there should be no deliberate perversion of nature's forms, there should be no naturalistic imitation. chapter ii jewelry and precious stones we are told that the word "jewel" has come by degrees from latin, through french, to its present form; it commenced as a "gaudium" (joy), and progressed through "jouel" and "joyau" to the familiar word, as we have it. the first objects to be made in the form of personal adornment were necklaces: this may be easily understood, for in certain savage lands the necklace formed, and still forms, the chief feature in feminine attire. in this little treatise, however, we cannot deal with anything so primitive or so early; we must not even take time to consider the exquisite greek and roman jewelry. amongst the earliest mediæval jewels we will study the anglo-saxon and the byzantine. anglo-saxon and irish jewelry is famous for delicate filigree, fine enamels, and flat garnets used in a very decorative way. niello was also employed to some extent. it is easy, in looking from the bell of st. patrick to the book of kells, to see how the illuminators were influenced by the goldsmiths in early times,--in celtic and anglo-saxon work. [illustration: saxon brooch] the earliest forms of brooches were the annular,--that is, a long pin with a hinged ring at its head for ornament, and the "penannular," or pin with a broken circle at its head. through the opening in the circle the pin returns, and then with a twist of the ring, it is held more firmly in the material. of these two forms are notable examples in the arbutus brooch and the celebrated tara brooch. the tara brooch is a perfect museum in itself of the jeweller's art. it is ornamented with enamel, with jewels set in silver, amber, scroll filigree, fine chains, celtic tracery, moulded glass--nearly every branch of the art is represented in this one treasure, which was found quite by accident near drogheda, in , a landslide having exposed the buried spot where it had lain for centuries. as many as seventy-six different kinds of workmanship are to be detected on this curious relic. [illustration: the tara brooch] at a great exhibition at ironmonger's hall in there was shown a leaden fibula, quite a dainty piece of personal ornament, in anglo-saxon taste, decorated with a moulded spiral meander. it was found in the thames in , and there are only three other similar brooches of lead known to exist. of the celtic brooches scott speaks: "...the brooch of burning gold that clasps the chieftain's mantle fold, wrought and chased with rare device, studded fair with gems of price." one of the most remarkable pieces of celtic jewelled work is the bell of st. patrick, which measures over ten inches in height. this saint is associated with several bells: one, called the broken bell of st. brigid, he used on his last crusade against the demons of ireland; it is said that when he found his adversaries specially unyielding, he flung the bell with all his might into the thickest of their ranks, so that they fled precipitately into the sea, leaving the island free from their aggressions for seven years, seven months, and seven days. one of st. patrick's bells is known, in celtic, as the "white toned," while another is called the "black sounding." this is an early and curious instance of the sub-conscious association of the qualities of sound with those of colour. viollet le duc tells how a blind man was asked if he knew what the colour red was. he replied, "yes: red is the sound of the trumpet." and the great architect himself, when a child, was carried by his nurse into the cathedral of notre dame in paris, where he cried with terror because he fancied that the various organ notes which he heard were being hurled at him by the stained glass windows, each one represented by a different colour in the glass! [illustration: shrine of the bell of st. patrick] but the most famous bell in connection with st. patrick is the one known by his own name and brought with his relics by columbkille only sixty years after the saint's death. the outer case is an exceedingly rich example of celtic work. on a ground of brass, fine gold and silver filigree is applied, in curious interlaces and knots, and it is set with several jewels, some of large size, in green, blue, and dull red. in the front are two large tallow-cut irish diamonds, and a third was apparently set in a place which is now vacant. on the back of the bell appears a celtic inscription in most decorative lettering all about the edge; the literal translation of this is: "a prayer for donnell o'lochlain, through whom this bell shrine was made; and for donnell, the successor of patrick, with whom it was made; and for cahalan o'mulhollan, the keeper of the bell, and for cudilig o'immainen, with his sons, who covered it." donald o'lochlain was monarch of ireland in . donald the successor of patrick was the abbot of armagh, from to . the others were evidently the craftsmen who worked on the shrine. in many interlaces, especially on the sides, there may be traced intricate patterns formed of serpents, but as nearly all celtic work is similarly ornamented, there is probably nothing personal in their use in connection with the relic of st. patrick! patrick brought quite a bevy of workmen into ireland about : some were smiths, mac cecht, laebhan, and fontchan, who were turned at once upon making of bells, while some other skilled artificers, fairill and tassach, made patens and chalices. st. bridget, too, had a famous goldsmith in her train, one bishop coula. the pectoral cross of st. cuthbert of lindisfarne is now to be seen in durham. it was buried with the saint, and was discovered with his body. the four arms are of equal length, and not very heavy in proportion. it is of gold, made in the seventh century, and is set with garnets, a very large one in the centre, one somewhat smaller at the ends of the arms, where the lines widen considerably, and with smaller ones continuously between. among the many jewels which decorated the shrine of thomas à becket at canterbury was a stone "with an angell of gold poynting thereunto," which was a gift from the king of france, who had had it "made into a ring and wore it on his thumb." other stones described as being on this shrine were sumptuous, the whole being damascened with gold wire, and "in the midst of the gold, rings; or cameos of sculptured agates, carnelians, and onyx stones." a visitor to canterbury in writes: "everything is left far behind by a ruby not larger than a man's thumb nail, which is set to the right of the altar. the church is rather dark, and when we went to see it the sun was nearly gone down, and the weather was cloudy, yet we saw the ruby as well as if it had been in my hand. they say it was a gift of the king of france." possessions of one kind were often converted into another, according to changing fashions. philippa of lancaster had a gold collar made "out of two bottles and a turret," in . mediæval rosaries were generally composed of beads of coral or carnelian, and often of gold and pearls as well. marco polo tells of a unique rosary worn by the king of malabar; one hundred and four large pearls, with occasional rubies of great price, composed the string. marco polo adds: "he has to say one hundred and four prayers to his idols every morning and evening." in the possession of the shah of persia is a gold casket studded with emeralds, which is said to have the magic power of rendering the owner invisible as long as he remains celibate. i fancy that this is a safe claim, for the tradition is not likely to be put to the proof in the case of a shah! probably there has never been an opportunity of testing the miraculous powers of the stones. the inventory of lord lisle contains many interesting side lights on the jewelry of the period: "a hawthorne of gold, with twenty diamonds;" "a little tower of gold," and "a pair of beads of gold, with tassels." filigree or chain work was termed "perry." in old papers such as inventories, registers, and the like, there are frequent mentions of buttons of "gold and perry;" in aline gerbuge received "one little circle of gold and perry, emeralds and balasses." clasps and brooches were used much in the fourteenth century. they were often called "ouches," and were usually of jewelled gold. one, an image of st. george, was given by the black prince to john of gaunt. the duchess of bretagne had among other brooches one with a white griffin, a balas ruby on its shoulder, six sapphires around it, and then six balasses, and twelve groups of pearls with diamonds. brooches were frequently worn by being stuck in the hat. in a curious letter from james i. to his son, the monarch writes: "i send for your wearing the three brethren" (evidently a group of three stones) "...but newly set... which i wolde wish you to weare alone in your hat, with a littel black feather." to his favourite buckingham he also sends a diamond, saying that his son will lend him also "an anker" in all probability; but he adds: "if my babee will not spare the anker from his mistress, he may well lend thee his round brooch to weare, and yett he shall have jewels to weare in his hat for three grate dayes." in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the women wore nets in their hair, composed of gold threads adorned with pearls. at first two small long rolls by the temples were confined in these nets: later, the whole back hair was gathered into a large circular arrangement. these nets were called frets--"a fret of pearls" was considered a sufficient legacy for a duchess to leave to her daughter. in the constant resetting and changing of jewels, many important mediæval specimens, not to mention exquisite vessels and church furniture, were melted down and done over by benvenuto cellini, especially at the time that pope clement was besieged at the castle of st. angelo. probably the most colossal jewel of ancient times was the peacock throne of delhi. it was in the form of two spread tails of peacocks, composed entirely of sapphires, emeralds and topazes, feather by feather and eye by eye, set so as to touch each other. a parrot of life size carved from a single emerald, stood between the peacocks. in the throne of the emperor in constantinople is described by benjamin of tudela: "of gold ornamented with precious stones. a golden crown hangs over it, suspended on a chain of the same material, the length of which exactly admits the emperor to sit under it. the crown is ornamented with precious stones of inestimable value. such is the lustre of these diamonds that even without any other light, they illumine the room in which they are kept." the greatest mediæval jeweller was st. eloi of limoges. his history is an interesting one, and his achievement and rise in life was very remarkable in the period in which he lived. eloi was a workman in limoges, as a youth, under the famous abho, in the sixth century; there he learned the craft of a goldsmith. he was such a splendid artisan that he soon received commissions for extensive works on his own account. king clothaire ii. ordered from him a golden throne, and supplied the gold which was to be used. to the astonishment of all, eloi presented the king with _two_ golden thrones (although it is difficult to imagine what a king would do with duplicate thrones!), and immediately it was noised abroad that the goldsmith eloi was possessed of miraculous powers, since, out of gold sufficient for one throne, he had constructed two. people of a more practical turn found out that eloi had learned the art of alloying the gold, so as to make it do double duty. a great many examples of st. eloi's work might have been seen in france until the revolution in , especially at the abbey of st. denis. a ring made by him, with which st. godiberte was married to christ, according to the custom of mediæval saints, was preserved at noyon until , when it disappeared in the revolution. the chronicle says of eloi: "he made for the king a great numer of gold vesses enriched with precious stones, and he worked incessantly, seated with his servant thillo, a saxon by birth, who followed the lessons of his master." st. eloi founded two institutions for goldsmithing: one for the production of domestic and secular plate, and the other for ecclesiastical work exclusively, so that no worker in profane lines should handle the sacred vessels. the secular branch was situated near the dwelling of eloi, in the cité itself, and was known as "st. eloi's enclosure." when a fire burned them out of house and shelter, they removed to a suburban quarter, which soon became known in its turn, as the "clôture st. eloi." the religious branch of the establishment was presided over by the aforesaid thillo, and was the abbey of solignac, near limoges. this school was inaugurated in . while eloi was working at the court of king clothaire ii., st. quen was there as well. the two youths struck up a close friendship, and afterwards ouen became his biographer. his description of eloi's personal appearance is worth quoting, to show the sort of figure a mediæval saint sometimes cut before canonization. "he was tall, with a ruddy face, his hair and beard curly. his hands well made, and his fingers long, his face full of angelic sweetness.... at first he wore habits covered with pearls and precious stones; he had also belts sewn with pearls. his dress was of linen encrusted with gold, and the edges of his tunic trimmed with gold embroidery. indeed, his clothing was very costly, and some of his dresses were of silk. such was his exterior in his first period at court, and he dressed thus to avoid singularity; but under this garment he wore a rough sack cloth, and later on, he disposed of all his ornaments to relieve the distressed; and he might be seen with only a cord round his waist and common clothes. sometimes the king, seeing him thus divested of his rich clothing, would take off his own cloak and girdle and give them to him, saying: 'it is not suitable that those who dwell for the world should be richly clad, and that those who despoil themselves for christ should be without glory.'" among the numerous virtues of st. eloi was that of a consistent carrying out of his real beliefs and theories, whether men might consider him quixotic or not. he was strongly opposed to the institution of slavery. in those days it would have been futile to preach actual emancipation. the times were not ripe. but st. eloi did all that he could for the cause of freedom by investing most of his money in slaves, and then setting them at liberty. sometimes he would "corner" a whole slave market, buying as many as thirty to a hundred at a time. some of these manumitted persons became his own faithful followers: some entered the religious life, and others devoted their talents to their benefactor, and worked in his studios for the furthering of art in the church. he once played a trick upon the king. he requested the gift of a town, in order, as he explained, that he might there build a ladder by which they might both reach heaven. the king, in the rather credulous fashion of the times, granted his request, and waited to see the ladder. st. eloi promptly built a monastery. if the monarch did not choose to avail himself of this species of ladder,--surely it was no fault of the builder! st. quen and st. eloi were consecrated bishops on the same day, may , st. quen to the bishopric of rouen, and eloi to the see of noyon. he made a great hunt for the body of st. quentin, which had been unfortunately mislaid, having been buried in the neighbourhood of noyon; he turned up every available spot of ground around, within and beneath the church, until he found a skeleton in a tomb, with some iron nails. this he proclaimed to be the sacred body, for the legend was that st. quentin had been martyred by having nails driven into his head! although it was quite evident to others that these were coffin nails, still st. eloi insisted upon regarding his discovery as genuine, and they began diligently to dismember the remains for distribution among the churches. as they were pulling one of the teeth, a drop of blood was seen to follow it, which miracle was hailed by st. eloi as the one proof wanting. eloi had the genuine artistic temperament and his religious zeal was much influenced by his æsthetic nature. he once preached an excellent sermon, still preserved, against superstition. he inveighed particularly against the use of charms and incantations. but he had his own little streak of superstition in spite of the fact that he fulminated against it. when he had committed some fault, after confession, he used to hang bags of relics in his room, and watch them for a sign of forgiveness. when one of these would turn oily, or begin to affect the surrounding atmosphere peculiarly, he would consider it a sign of the forgiveness of heaven. it seems to us to-day as if he might have looked to his own relic bags before condemning the ignorant. st. eloi died in , and was himself distributed to the faithful in quite a wholesale way. one arm is in paris. he was canonized both for his holy life and for his great zeal in art. he was buried in a silver coffin adorned with gold, and his tomb was said to work miracles like the shrine of becket. indeed, becket himself was pretty dressy in the matter of jewels; when he travelled to paris, the simple frenchmen exclaimed: "what a wonderful personage the king of england must be, if his chancellor can travel in such state!" there are various legends about st. eloi. it is told that a certain horse once behaved in a very obstreperous way while being shod; st. eloi calmly cut off the animal's leg, and fixed the shoe quietly in position, and then replaced the leg, which grew into place again immediately, to the pardonable astonishment of all beholders, not to mention the horse. st. eloi was also employed to coin the currency of dagobert and clovis ii., and examples of these coins may now be seen, as authentic records of the style of his work. a century after his death the monasteries which he had founded were still in operation, and charlemagne's crown and sword are very possibly the result of st. eloi's teachings to his followers. while the monasteries undoubtedly controlled most of the art education of the early middle ages, there were also laymen who devoted themselves to these pursuits. john de garlande, a famous teacher in the university of paris, wrote, in the eleventh century, a "dictionarius" dealing with various arts. in this interesting work he describes, the trades of the moneyers (who controlled the mint), the coining of gold and silver into currency (for the making of coin in those days was permitted by individuals), the clasp makers, the makers of cups or hanaps, jewellers and harness makers, and other artificers. john de garlande was english, born about the middle of the twelfth century, and was educated in oxford. in the early thirteenth century he became associated with the university, and when simon de montfort was slain in , at toulouse, john was at the university of toulouse, where he was made so professor, and stayed three years, returning then to paris. he died about the middle of the thirteenth century. he was celebrated chiefly for his dictionarius, a work on the various arts and crafts of france, and for a poem "de triumphis ecclesiæ." during the middle ages votive crowns were often presented to churches; among these a few are specially famous. the crowns, studded with jewels, were suspended before the altar by jewelled chains, and often a sort of fringe of jewelled letters was hung from the rim, forming an inscription. the votive crown of king suinthila, in madrid, is among the most ornate of these. it is the finest specimen in the noted "treasure of guerrazzar," which was discovered by peasants turning up the soil near toledo; the crowns, of which there were many, date from about the seventh century, and are sumptuous with precious stones. the workmanship is not that of a barbarous nation, though it has the fascinating irregularities of the byzantine style. of the delightful work of the fifth and sixth centuries there are scarcely any examples in italy. the so-called iron crown of monza is one of the few early lombard treasures. this crown has within it a narrow band of iron, said to be a nail of the true cross; but the crown, as it meets the eye, is anything but iron, being one of the most superb specimens of jewelled golden workmanship, as fine as those in the treasure of guerrazzar. [illustration: the treasure of guerrazzar.] the crown of king alfred the great is mentioned in an old inventory as being of "gould wire worke, sett with slight stones, and two little bells." a diadem is described by william of malmsbury, "so precious with jewels, that the splendour... threw sparks of light so strongly on the beholder, that the more steadfastly any person endeavoured to gaze, so much the more he was dazzled, and compelled to avert the eyes!" in a circlet crown was purchased for queen anne of bohemia, being set with a large sapphire, a balas, and four large pearls with a diamond in the centre. the cathedral at amiens owns what is supposed to be the head of john the baptist, enshrined in a gilt cup of silver, and with bands of jewelled work. the head is set upon a platter of gilded and jewelled silver, covered with a disc of rock crystal. the whole, though ancient, is enclosed in a modern shrine. the legend of the preservation of the baptist's head is that herodias, afraid that the saint might be miraculously restored to life if his head and body were laid in the same grave, decided to hide the head until this danger was past. furtively, she concealed the relic for a time, and then it was buried in herod's palace. it was there opportunely discovered by some monks in the fourth century. this "invention of the head" (the word being interpreted according to the credulity of the reader) resulted in its removal to emesa, where it was exhibited in . in marcellus, the abbot of emesa, had a vision by means of which he re-discovered (or re-invented) the head, which had in some way been lost sight of. following the guidance of his dream, he repaired to a grotto, and proceeded to exhume the long-suffering relic. after many other similar and rather disconnected episodes, it finally came into possession of the bishop of amiens in . a great calamity in early times was the loss of all the valuables of king john of england. between lincolnshire and norfolk the royal cortège was crossing the wash: the jewels were all swept away. crown and all were thus lost, in . several crowns have been through vicissitudes. when richard iii. died, on bosworth field, his crown was secured by a soldier and hidden in a bush. sir reginald de bray discovered it, and restored it to its rightful place. but to balance such cases several of the queens have brought to the national treasury their own crowns. in edward iii. pawned even the queen's jewels to raise money for fighting france. the same inventory makes mention of certain treasures deposited at westminster: the values are attached to each of these, crowns, plates, bracelets, and so forth. also, with commendable zeal, a list was kept of other articles stored in an iron chest, among which are the items, "one liver coloured silk robe, very old, and worth nothing," and "an old combe of horne, worth nothing." a frivolous scene is described by wood, when the notorious republican, marten, had access to the treasure stored in westminster. some of the wits of the period assembled in the treasury, and took out of the iron chest several of its jewels, a crown, sceptre, and robes; these they put upon the merry poet, george withers, "who, being thus crowned and royally arrayed, first marched about the room with a stately gait, and afterwards, with a thousand ridiculous and apish actions, exposed the sacred ornaments to contempt and laughter." no doubt the "olde comb" played a suitable part in these pranks,--perhaps it may even have served as orchestra. one sir henry mildmay, in , was responsible for dreadful vandalism, under the puritan régime. among other acts which he countenanced was the destruction and sale of the wonderful crown of king alfred, to which allusion has just been made. in the will of the earl of pembroke, in , is this clause showing how unpopular sir henry had become: "because i threatened sir henry mildmay, but did not beat him, i give £ to the footman who cudgelled him. item, my will is that the said sir harry shall not meddle with my jewels. i knew him... when he handled the crown jewels,... for which reason i now name him the knave of diamonds." jewelled arms and trappings became very rich in the fifteenth century. pius ii. writes of the german armour: "what shall i say of the neck chains of the men, and the bridles of the horses, which are made of the purest gold; and of the spears and scabbards which are covered with jewels?" spurs were also set with jewels, and often damascened with gold, and ornamented with appropriate mottoes. an inventory of the jewelled cups and reliquaries of queen jeanne of navarre, about , reads like a museum. she had various gold and jewelled dishes for banquets; one jewel is described as "item, a demoiselle of gold, represented as riding upon a horse, of mother of pearl, standing upon a platform of gold, enriched with ten rubies, six turquoises and three fine pearls." another item is, "a fine rock crystal set in gold, enriched with three rubies, three emeralds, and a large sapphire, set transparently, the whole suspended from a small gold chain." it is time now to speak of the actual precious stones themselves, which apart from their various settings are, after all, the real jewels. according to cellini there are only four precious stones: he says they are made "by the four elements," ruby by fire, sapphire by air, emerald by earth, and diamond by water. it irritated him to have any one claim others as precious stones. "i have a thing or two to say," he remarks, "in order not to scandalize a certain class of men who call themselves jewellers, but may be better likened to hucksters, or linen drapers, pawn brokers, or grocers... with a maximum of credit and a minimum of brains... these dunderheads... wag their arrogant tongues at me and cry, 'how about the chrysophrase, or the jacynth, how about the aqua marine, nay more, how about the garnet, the vermeil, the crysolite, the plasura, the amethyst? ain't these all stones and all different?' yes, and why the devil don't you add pearls, too, among the jewels, ain't they fish bones?" thus he classes the stones together, adding that the balas, though light in colour, is a ruby, and the topaz a sapphire. "it is of the same hardness, and though of a different colour, must be classified with the sapphire: what better classification do you want? hasn't the air got its sun?" cellini always set the coloured stones in a bezel or closed box of gold, with a foil behind them. he tells an amusing story of a ruby which he once set on a bit of frayed silk instead of on the customary foil. the result happened to be most brilliant. the jewellers asked him what kind of foil he had used, and he replied that he had employed no foil. then they exclaimed that he must have tinted it, which was against all laws of jewelry. again benvenuto swore that he had neither used foil, nor had he done anything forbidden or unprofessional to the stone. "at this the jeweller got a little nasty, and used strong language," says cellini. they then offered to pay well for the information if cellini would inform them by what means he had obtained so remarkably a lustre. benvenuto, expressing himself indifferent to pay, but "much honoured in thus being able to teach his teachers," opened the setting and displayed his secret, and all parted excellent friends. even so early as the thirteenth century, the jewellers of paris had become notorious for producing artificial jewels. among their laws was one which stipulated that "the jeweller was not to dye the amethyst, or other false stones, nor mount them in gold leaf nor other colour, nor mix them with rubies, emeralds, or other precious stones, except as a crystal simply without mounting or dyeing." one day cellini had found a ruby which he believed to be set dishonestly, that is, a very pale stone with a thick coating of dragon's blood smeared on its back. when he took it to some of his favourite "dunderheads," they were sure that he was mistaken, saying that it had been set by a noted jeweller, and could not be an imposition. so benvenuto immediately removed the stone from its setting, thereby exposing the fraud. "then might that ruby have been likened to the crow which tricked itself out in the feathers of the peacock," observes cellini, adding that he advised these "old fossils in the art" to provide themselves with better eyes than they then _wore_. "i could not resist saying this," chuckles benvenuto, "because all three of them wore great gig-lamps on their noses; whereupon they all three gasped at each other, shrugged their shoulders, and with god's blessing, made off." cellini tells of a milanese jeweller who concocted a great emerald, by applying a very thin layer of the real stone upon a large bit of green glass: he says that the king of england bought it, and that the fraud was not discovered for many years. a commission was once given cellini to make a magnificent crucifix for a gift from the pope to emperor charles v., but, as he expresses it, "i was hindered from finishing it by certain beasts who had the vantage of the pope's ear," but when these evil whisperers had so "gammoned the pope," that he was dissuaded from the crucifix, the pope ordered cellini to make a magnificent breviary instead, so that the "job" still remained in his hands. giovanni pisano made some translucid enamels for the decorations of the high altar in florence, and also a jewelled clasp to embellish the robe of a statue of the virgin. ghiberti was not above turning his attention to goldsmithing, and in made a seal for giovanni de medici, a cope-button and mitre for pope martin v., and a gold nutre with precious stones weighing five and a half pounds, for pope eugene iv. diamonds were originally cut two at a time, one cutting the other, whence has sprung the adage, "diamond cut diamond." cutting in facets was thus the natural treatment of this gem. the practise originated in india. two diamonds rubbing against each other systematically will in time form a facet on each. in it was discovered by louis de berghem that diamonds could be cut by their own dust. it is an interesting fact in connection with the kohinoor that in india there had always been a legend that its owner should be the ruler of india. probably the ancient hindoos among whom this legend developed would be astonished to know that, although the great stone is now the property of the english, the tradition is still unbroken! marco polo alludes to the treasures brought from the isle of ormus, as "spices, pearls, precious stones, cloth of gold and silver, elephant's teeth, and all other precious things from india." in balaxiam he says are found "ballasses and other precious stones of great value. no man, on pain of death, dare either dig such stones or carry them out of the country, for all those stones are the king's. other mountains also in this province yield stones called lapis lazuli, whereof the best azure is made. the like is not found in the world. these mines also yield silver, brass, and lead." he speaks of the natives as wearing gold and silver earrings, "with pearls and-other stones artificially wrought in them." in a certain river, too, are found jasper and chalcedons. marco polo's account of how diamonds are obtained is ingenuous in its reckless defiance of fact. he says that in the mountains "there are certain great deep valleys to the bottom of which there is no access. wherefore the men who go in search of the diamonds take with them pieces of meat," which they throw into this deep valley. he relates that the eagles, when they see these pieces of meat, fly down and get them, and when they return, they settle on the higher rocks, when the men raise a shout, and drive them off. after the eagles have thus been driven away, "the men recover the pieces of meat, and find them full of diamonds, which have stuck to them. for the abundance of diamonds down in the depths," continues marco polo, naïvely "is astonishing; but nobody can get down, and if one could, it would be only to be incontinently devoured by the serpents which are so rife there." a further account proceeds thus: "the diamonds are so scattered and dispersed in the earth, and lie so thin, that in the most plentiful mines it is rare to find one in digging;... they are frequently enclosed in clods,... some... have the earth so fixed about them that till they grind them on a rough stone with sand, they cannot move it sufficiently to discover they are transparent or... to know them from other stones. at the first opening of the mine, the unskilful labourers sometimes, to try what they have found, lay them on a great stone, and, striking them one with another, to their costly experience, discover that they have broken a diamond.... they fill a cistern with water, soaking therein as much of the earth they dig out of the mine as it can hold at one time, breaking the clods, picking out the great stones, and stirring it with shovels... then they open a vent, letting out the foul water, and supply it with clean, till the earthy substance be all washed away, and only the gravelly one remains at the bottom." a process of sifting and drying is then described, and the gravel is all spread out to be examined, "they never examine the stuff they have washed but between the hours of ten and three, lest any cloud, by interposing, intercept the brisk beams of the sun, which they hold very necessary to assist them in their search, the diamonds constantly reflecting them when they shine on them, rendering themselves thereby the more conspicuous." the earliest diamond-cutter is frequently mentioned as louis de berquem de bruges, in . but laborde finds earlier records of the art of cutting this gem: there was in paris a diamond-cutter named herman, in . the diamond cutters of paris were quite numerous in that year, and lived in a special district known as "la courarie, where reside the workers in diamonds and other stones." finger rings almost deserve a history to themselves, for their forms and styles are legion. rings were often made of glass in the eleventh century. theophilus tells in a graphic and interesting manner how they were constructed. he recommends the use of a bar of iron, as thick as one's finger, set in a wooden handle, "as a lance is joined in its pike." there should also be a large piece of wood, at the worker's right hand, "the thickness of an arm, dug into the ground, and reaching to the top of the window." on the left of the furnace a little clay trench is to be provided. "then, the glass being cooked," one is admonished to take the little iron in the wooden handle, dip it into the molten glass, and pick up a small portion, and "prick it into the wood, that the glass may be pierced through, and instantly warm it in the flame, and strike it twice upon the wood, that the glass may be dilated, and with quickness revolve your hand with the same iron;" when the ring is thus formed, it is to be quickly thrown into the trench. theophilus adds, "if you wish to vary your rings with other colours... take... glass of another colour, surrounding the glass of the ring with it in the manner of a thread... you can also place upon the ring glass of another kind, as a gem, and warm it in the fire that it may adhere." one can almost see these rings from this accurate description of their manufacture. the old coronation ring, "the wedding ring of england," was a gold ring with a single fine balas ruby; the pious tradition had it that this ring was given to edward the confessor by a beggar, who was really st. john the evangelist in masquerade! the palace where this unique event occurred was thereupon named have-ring-at-bower. the stuart kings all wore this ring and until it came to george iv., with other stuart bequests, it never left the royal stuart line. edward i. owned a sapphire ring made by st. dunstan. dunstan was an industrious art spirit, being reported by william of malmsbury as "taking great delight in music, painting, and engraving." in the "ancren riwle," a book of directions for the cloistered life of women, nuns are forbidden to wear "ne ring ne brooche," and to deny themselves other personal adornments. archbishops seem to have possessed numerous rings in ancient times. in the romance of "sir degrevant" a couplet alludes to: "archbishops with rings more than fifteen." episcopal rings were originally made of sapphires, said to be typical of the cold austerity of the life of the wearer. later, however, the carbuncle became a favourite, which was supposed to suggest fiery zeal for the faith. perhaps the compromise of the customary amethyst, which is now most popularly used, for episcopal rings, being a combination of the blue and the red, may typify a blending of more human qualities! [illustration: hebrew ring] in an old will of , a ring was left as a bequest to a relative, described as "a table diamond set with black aniell, meate for my little finger." the accompanying illustration represents a hebrew ring, surmounted by a little mosque, and having the inscription "mazul toub" (god be with you, or good luck to you). it was the custom in elizabethan times to wear "posie rings" (or poesie rings) in which inscriptions were cut, such as, "let likinge laste," "remember the ? that is in pain," or, "god saw fit this knot to knit," and the like. these posie rings are so called because of the little poetical sentiments associated with them. they were often used as engagement rings, and sometimes as wedding rings. in an old saxon ring is the inscription, "eanred made me and ethred owns me." one of the mottoes in an old ring is pathetic; evidently it was worn by an invalid, who was trying to be patient, "quant dieu plera melior sera." (when it shall please god, i shall be better.) and in a small ring set with a tiny diamond, "this sparke shall grow." an agreeable and favourite "posie" was "the love is true that i o u." a motto in a ring owned by lady cathcart was inscribed on the occasion of her fourth marriage; with laudable ambition, she observes, "if i survive, i will have five." it is to these "posie rings" that shakespeare has reference when he makes jaques say to orlando: "you are full of pretty answers: have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths' wives, and conned them out of rings?" in the isle of man there was once a law that any girl who had been wronged by a man had the right to redress herself in one of three ways: she was given a sword, a rope and a ring, and she could decide whether she would behead him, hang him, or marry him. tradition states that the ring was almost invariably the weapon chosen by the lady. superstition has ordained that certain stones should cure certain evils: the blood-stone was of very general efficacy, it was claimed, and the opal, when folded in a bay leaf, had the power of rendering the owner invisible. some stones, especially the turquoise, turned pale or became deeper in hue according to the state of the owner's health; the owner of a diamond was invincible; the possession of an agate made a man amiable, and eloquent. whoever wore an amethyst was proof against intoxication, while a jacynth superinduced sleep in cases of insomnia. bed linen was often embroidered, and set with bits of jacynth, and there is even a record of diamonds having been used in the decoration of sheets! another entertaining instance of credulity was the use of "cramp rings." these were rings blessed by the queen, and supposed to cure all manner of cramps, just as the king's touch was supposed to cure scrofula. when a queen died, the demand for these rings became a panic: no more could be produced, until a new queen was crowned. after the beheading of anne boleyn, husee writes to his patroness: "your ladyship shall receive of this bearer nine cramp rings of silver. john williams says he never had so few of gold as this year!" a stone engraved with the figure of a hare was believed to be valuable in exorcising the devil. that of a dog preserved the owner from "dropsy or pestilence;" a versatile ring indeed! an old french book speaks of an engraved stone with the image of pegasus being particularly healthful for warriors; it was said to give them "boldness and swiftness in flight." these two virtues sound a trifle incompatible! the turquoise was supposed to be especially sympathetic. according to dr. donne: "a compassionate turquoise, that cloth tell by looking pale, the owner is not well," must have been a very sensitive stone. there was a physician in the fourth century who was famous for his cures of colic and biliousness by means of an iron ring engraved with an exorcism requesting the bile to go and take possession of a bird! there was also a superstition that fits could be cured by a ring made of "sacrament money." the sufferer was obliged to stand at the church door, begging a penny from every unmarried man who passed in or out; this was given to a silversmith, who exchanged it at the cathedral for "sacrament money," out of which he made a ring. if this ring was worn by the afflicted person, the seizures were said to cease. the superstition concerning the jewel in the toad's head was a strangely persistent one: it is difficult to imagine what real foundation there could ever have been for the idea. an old writer gives directions for getting this stone, which the toad in his life time seems to have guarded most carefully. "a rare good way to get the stone out of a toad," he says, "is to put a... toad... into an earthen pot: put the same into an ant's hillocke, and cover the same with earth, which toad... the ants will eat, so that the bones... and stone will be left in the pot." boethius once stayed up all night watching a toad in the hope that it might relinquish its treasure; but he complained that nothing resulted "to gratify the great pangs of his whole night's restlessness." an old irish legend says that "the stone adamant in the land of india grows no colder in any wind or snow or ice; there is no heat in it under burning sods" (this is such an hibernian touch! the peat fuel was the celtic idea of a heating system), "nothing is broken from it by striking of axes and hammers; there is one thing only breaks that stone, the blood of the lamb at the mass; and every king that has taken that stone in his right hand before going into battle, has always gained the victory." there is also a superstition regarding the stone hibien, which is said to flame like a fiery candle in the darkness, "it spills out poison before it in a vessel; every snake that comes near to it or crosses it dies on the moment." another stone revered in irish legend is the stone of istien, which is found "in the brains of dragons after their deaths," and a still more capable jewel seems to be the stone of fanes, within which it is claimed that the sun, moon, and twelve stars are to be seen. "in the hearts of the dragons it is always found that make their journey under the sea. no one having it in his hand can tell any lie until he has put it from him; no race or army could bring it into a house where there is one that has made way with his father. at the hour of matins it gives out sweet music that there is not the like of under heaven." bartholomew, the mediæval scientist, tells narratives of the magical action of the sapphire. "the sapphire is a precious stone," he says, "and is blue in colour, most like to heaven in fair weather and clear, and is best among precious stones, and most apt and able to fingers of kings. and if thou put an addercop in a box, and hold a very sapphire of india at the mouth of the box any while, by virtue thereof the addercop is overcome and dieth, as it were suddenly. and this same i have seen proved oft in many and divers places." possibly the fact that the addercop is so infrequent an invader of our modern life accounts for the fact that we are left inert upon reading so surprising a statement; or possibly our incredulity dominates our awe. the art of the lapidary, or science of glyptics, is a most interesting study, and it would be a mistake not to consider it for a few moments on its technical side. it is very ancient as an art. in ecclesiasticus the wise son of sirach alludes to craftsmen "that cut and grave seals, and are diligent to make great variety, and give themselves to counterfeit imagery, and watch to finish a work." theophilus on glyptics is too delightfully naïve for us to resist quoting his remarks. "crystal," he announces, "which is water hardened into ice, and the ice of great age hardened into stone, is trimmed and polished in this manner." he then directs the use of sandstone and emery, chiefly used by rubbing, as one might infer, to polish the stones, probably _en cabochon_ as was the method in his time; this style of finish on a gem was called "tallow cutting." but when one wishes to sculp crystal, theophilus informs one: "take a goat of two or three years... make an opening between his breast and stomach, in the position of the heart, and lay in the crystal, so that it may lie in its blood until it grow warm... cut what you please in it as long as the heat lasts." just how many goats were required to the finishing of a sculptured crystal would be determined by the elaboration of the design! unfortunately animal rescue leagues had not invaded the monasteries of the eleventh century. in sculpturing glass, the ingenuous theophilus is quite at his best. "artists!" he exclaims, "who wish to engrave glass in a beautiful manner, i now can teach you, as i have myself made trial. i have sought the gross worms which the plough turns up in the ground, and the art necessary in these things also bid me procure vinegar, and the warm blood of a lusty goat, which i was careful to place under the roof for a short time, bound with a strong ivy plant. after this i infused the worms and vinegar with the warm blood and i anointed the whole clearly shining vessel; which being done, i essayed to sculp the glass with the hard stone called the pyrites." what a pity good theophilus had not begun with the pyrites, when he would probably have made the further discovery that his worms and goats could have been spared. in the polishing of precious stones, he is quite sane in his directions. "procure a marble slab, very smooth," he enjoins, "and act as useful art points out to you." in other words, rub it until it is smooth! bartholomew anglicus is as entertaining as theophilus regarding crystal. "men trowe that it is of snow or ice made hard in many years," he observes complacently. "this stone set in the sun taketh fire, insomuch if dry tow be put thereto, it setteth the tow on fire," and again, quoting gregory on ezekiel i., he adds, "water is of itself fleeting, but by strength of cold it is turned and made stedfast crystal." of small specimens of sculptured crystal some little dark purple beads carved into the semblance of human faces may be seen on the tara brooch; while also on the same brooch occur little purple daisies. the cup of the ptolemies, a celebrated onyx cup in paris, is over fifteen inches in circumference, and is a fine specimen of early lapidary's work. it was presented in the ninth century by charles the bald to st. denis, and was always used to contain the consecrated wine when queens of france were crowned. henry ii. once pawned it to a jew when he was hard up, and in it was stolen and the old gold and jewelled setting removed. it was found again in holland, and was remounted within a century. in the treasury of st. mark's in venice are many valuable examples of carved stones, made into cups, flagons, and the like. these were brought from constantinople in , when the city was captured by the venetians. constantinople was the only place where glyptics were understood and practised upon large hard stones in the early middle ages. the greek artists who took refuge in italy at that time brought the art with them. there are thirty-two of these byzantine chalices in st. mark's. usually the mountings are of gold, and precious stones. there are also two beautiful cruets of agate, elaborately ornamented, but carved in curious curving forms requiring skill of a superior order. two other rock crystal cruets are superbly carved, probably by oriental workmen, however, as they are not byzantine in their decorations. one of them was originally a vase, and, indeed, is still, for the long gold neck has no connection with the inside; the handle is also of gold, both these adjuncts seem to have been regarded as simply ornament. the other cruet is carved elaborately with leopards, the first and taller one showing monsters and foliate forms. around the neck of the lower of these rock crystal cruets is an inscription, praying for god's blessing on the "imam aziz billah," who was reigning in egypt in . this cruet has a gold stand. the handle is cleverly cut in the same piece of crystal, but a band of gold is carried down it to give it extra strength. the forming of this handle in connection with the rest of the work is a veritable _tour de force_, and we should have grave doubts whether theophilus with his goats could have managed it! [illustration: crystal flagons, st. mark's, venice] vasari speaks with characteristic enthusiasm of the glyptics of the greeks, "whose works in that manner may be called divine." but, as he continues, "many and very many years passed over during which the art was lost".... until in the days of lorenzo di medici the fashion for cameos and intaglios revived. in the guild of the masters of wood and stone in florence, the cameo-cutters found a place, nevertheless it seems fitting to include them at this point among jewellers, instead of among carvers. the italians certainly succeeded in performing feats of lapidary art at a later period. vasari mentions two cups ordered by duke cosmo, one cut out of a piece of lapis lazuli, and the other from an enormous heliotrope, and a crystal galley with gold rigging was made by the sanachi brothers. in the green vaults in dresden may be seen numerous specimens of valuable but hideous products of this class. in the seventeenth century, the art had run its course, and gave place to a taste for cameos, which in its turn was run into the ground. cameo-cutting and gem engraving has always been accomplished partly by means of a drill; the deepest point to be reached in the cutting would be punctured first, and then the surfaces cut, chipped, and ground away until the desired level was attained. this is on much the same principle as that adopted by marble cutters to-day. mr. cyril davenport's definition of a cameo is quite satisfactory: "a small sculpture executed in low relief upon some substance precious either for its beauty, rarity, or hardness." cameos are usually cut in onyx, the different layers and stratifications of colour being cut away at different depths, so that the sculpture appears to be rendered in one colour on another, and sometimes three or four layers are recognized, so that a shaded effect is obtained. certain pearly shells are sometimes used for cameo cutting; these were popular in italy in the fifteenth century. in greece and rome the art of cameo cutting was brought to astonishing perfection, the sardonyx being frequently used, and often cut in five different coloured layers. an enormous antique cameo, measuring over nine inches across, may be seen in vienna; it represents the apotheosis of augustus, and the scene is cut in two rows of spirited figures. it dates from the first century a. d. it is in dark brown and white. among the treasures of the art-loving henry iii. was a "great cameo," in a golden case; it was worth two hundred pounds. this cameo was supposed to compete with a celebrated work at ste. chapelle in paris, which had been brought by emperor baldwin ii. from constantinople. [illustration: sardonyx cup, th century, venice] in paris was a flourishing guild, the "lapidaries, jewel cutters, and engravers of cameos and hard stones," in the thirteenth century; glass cutters were included in this body for a time, but after the revised laws did not permit of any imitative work, so glass cutters were no longer allowed to join the society. the french work was rather coarse compared with the classic examples. the celebrated portland vase is a glass cameo, of enormous proportions, and a work of the first century, in blue and white. there is a quaint legend connected with the famous stone cameo known as the vase of st. martin, which is as follows: when st. martin visited the martyr's field at agaune, he prayed for some time, and then stuck his knife into the ground, and was excusably astonished at seeing blood flow forth. recognizing at once that he was in the presence of the miraculous (which was almost second nature to mediæval saints), he began sedulously to collect the precious fluid in a couple of receptacles with which he had had the foresight to provide himself. the two vases, however, were soon filled, and yet the mystical ruby spring continued. at his wit's ends, he prayed again for guidance, and presently an angel descended, with a vase of fine cameo workmanship, in which the remainder of the sacred fluid was preserved. this vase is an onyx, beautifully cut, with fine figures, and is over eight inches high, mounted at foot and collar with byzantine gold and jewelled work. the subject appears to be an episode during the siege of troy,--a whimsical selection of design for an angel. some apparently mediæval cameos are in reality antiques recut with christian characters. a hercules could easily be turned into a david, while perseus and medusa could be transformed quickly into a david and goliath. there are two examples of cameos of the virgin which had commenced their careers, one as a leda, and the other as venus! while a st. john had originally figured as jupiter with his eagle! in the renaissance there was great revival of all branches of gem cutting, and cameos began to improve, and to resemble once more their classical ancestors. indeed, their resemblance was rather academic, and there was little originality in design. like most of the renaissance arts, it was a reversion instead of a new creation. technically, however, the work was a triumph. the craftsmen were not satisfied until they had quite outdone the ancients, and they felt obliged to increase the depth of the cutting, in order to show how cleverly they could coerce the material; they even under-cut in some cases. during the medicean period of italian art, cameos were cut in most fantastic forms; sometimes a negro head would be introduced simply to exhibit a dark stratum in the onyx, and was quite without beauty. one of the florentine lapidaries was known as giovanni of the carnelians, and another as domenico of the cameos. this latter carved a portrait of ludovico il moro on a red balas ruby, in intaglio. nicolo avanzi is reported as having carved a lapis lazuli "three fingers broad" into the scene of the nativity. matteo dal nassaro, a son of a shoemaker in verona, developed extraordinary talent in gem cutting. an exotic production is a crucifix cut in a blood-stone by matteo del nassaro, where the artist has so utilized the possibilities of this stone that he has made the red patches to come in suitable places to portray drops of blood. matteo worked also in paris, in , where he formed a school and craft shop, and where he was afterwards made engraver of the mint. vasari tells of an ingenious piece of work by matteo, where he has carved a chalcedony into a head of dejanira, with the skin of the lion about it. he says, "in the stone there was a vein of red colour, and here the artist has made the skin turn over... and he has represented this skin with such exactitude that the spectator imagines himself to behold it newly torn from the animal! of another mark he has availed himself, for the hair, and the white parts he has taken for the face and breast." matteo was an independent spirit: when a baron once tried to beat him down in his price for a gem, he refused to take a small sum for it, but asked the baron to accept it as a gift. when this offer was refused, and the nobleman insisted upon giving a low price, matteo deliberately took his hammer and shattered the cameo into pieces at a single blow. his must have been an unhappy life. vasari says that he "took a wife in france and became the father of children, but they were so entirely dissimilar to himself, that he had but little satisfaction from them." another famous lapidary was valerio vicentino, who carved a set of crystals which were made into a casket for pope clement vii., while for paul iii. he made a carved crystal cross and chandelier. vasari reserves his highest commendation for casati, called "el greco," "by whom every other artist is surpassed in the grace and perfection as well as in the universality of his productions."... "nay, michelangelo himself, looking at them one day while giovanni vasari was present, remarked that the hour for the death of the art had arrived, for it was not possible that better work could be seen!" michelangelo proved a prophet, in this case surely, for the decadence followed swiftly. chapter iii enamel "oh, thou discreetest of readers," says benvenuto cellini, "marvel not that i have given so much time to writing about all this," and we feel like making the same apology for devoting a whole chapter to enamel; but this branch of the goldsmith's art has so many subdivisions, that it cries for space. the word enamel is derived from various sources. the greek language has contributed "maltha," to melt; the german "schmeltz," the old french "esmail," and the italian "smalta," all meaning about the same thing, and suggesting the one quality which is inseparable from enamel of all nations and of all ages,--its fusibility. for it is always employed in a fluid state, and always must be. enamel is a type of glass product reduced to powder, and then melted by fervent heat into a liquid condition, which, when it has hardened, returns to its vitreous state. enamel has been used from very early times. the first allusion to it is by philostratus, in the year a. d., where he described the process as applied to the armour of his day. "the barbarians of the regions of the ocean," he writes, "are skilled in fusing colours on heated brass, which become as hard as stone, and render the ornament thus produced durable." enamels have special characteristics in different periods: in the late tenth century, of byzantium and germany; in the eleventh century, of italy; while most of the later work owes its leading characteristics to the french, although it continued to be produced in the other countries. it helps one to understand the differences and similarities in enamelled work, to observe the three general forms in which it is employed; these are, the cloisonné, the champlevé, and the painted enamel. there are many subdivisions of these classifications, but for our purpose these three will suffice. in cloisonné, the only manner known to the greek, anglo-saxon, and celtic craftsmen, the pattern is made upon a gold ground, by little upright wire lines, like filigree, the enamel is fused into all the little compartments thus formed, each bit being one clear colour, on the principle of a mosaic. the colours were always rather clear and crude, but are the more sincere and decorative on this account, the worker recognizing frankly the limitation of the material; and the gold outline harmonizes the whole, as it does in any form of art work. a cloisonné enamel is practically a mosaic, in which the separations consist of narrow bands of metal instead of plaster. the enamel was applied in its powdered state on the gold, and then fused all together in the furnace. [illustration: german enamel, th century] champlevé enamel has somewhat the same effect as the cloisonné, but the end is attained by different means. the outline is left in metal, and the whole background is cut away and sunk, thus making the hollow chambers for the vitreous paste, in one piece, instead of by means of wires. often it is not easy to determine which method has been employed to produce a given work. painted enamels were not employed in the earliest times, but came to perfection in the renaissance. a translucent enamel prevailed especially in italy: a low relief was made with the graver on gold or silver; fine raised lines were left here and there, to separate the colours. therefore, where the cutting was deepest, the enamel ran thicker, and consequently darker in colour, giving the effect of shading, while in reality only one tint had been used. the powdered and moistened enamel was spread evenly with a spatula over the whole surface, and allowed to stand in the kiln until it liquefied. another form of enamel was used to colour gold work in relief, with a permanent coating of transparent colour. sometimes this colour was applied in several coats, one upon another, and the features painted with a later touch. much enamelled jewelry was made in this way, figures, dragons, and animal forms, being among the most familiar. but an actual enamel painting--on the principle of a picture, was rendered in still another way. in preparing the ground for enamel painting, there are two things which have been essentially considered in all times and countries. the enamel ground must be more fusible than the metal on which it is placed, or else both would melt together. also the enamel with which the final decoration is executed must be more easily made fluid than the harder enamel on which it is laid. in fact, each coat must of necessity be a trifle more fusible than the preceding one. a very accurate knowledge is necessary to execute such a work, as will be readily understood. [illustration: enamelled gold book cover, siena] in examining historic examples of enamel, the curious oval set in gold, known as the alfred jewel, is among the first which come within our province. it was found in somersetshire, and probably dates from about the year . it consists of an enamelled figure covered by a thick crystal, set in filigree, around the edge of which runs the inscription, "aelfred mec reht gavur can" (alfred ordered me to be wrought). king alfred was a great patron of the arts. of such anglo-saxon work, an ancient poem in the exeter book testifies: "for one a wondrous skill in goldsmith's art is provided full oft he decorates and well adorns a powerful king's nobles." celtic enamels are interesting, being usually set in the spaces among the rambling interlaces of this school of goldsmithing. the cross of cong is among the most famous specimens of this work, and also the bosses on the ardagh chalice. the monk theophilus describes the process of enamelling in a graphic manner. he directs his workmen to "adapt their pieces of gold in all the settings in which the glass gems are to be placed" (by which we see that he teaches the cloisonné method). "cut small bands of exceedingly thin gold," he continues, "in which you will bend and fashion whatever work you wish to make in enamel, whether circles, knots, or small flowers, or birds, or animals, or figures." he then admonishes one to solder it with greatest care, two or three times, until all the pieces adhere firmly to the plate. to prepare the powdered glass, theophilus advises placing a piece of glass in the fire, and, when it has become glowing, "throw it into a copper vessel in which there is water, and it instantly flies into small fragments which you break with a round pestle until quite fine. the next step is to put the powder in its destined cloison, and to place the whole jewel upon a thin piece of iron, over which fits a cover to protect the enamel from the coals, and put it in the most intensely hot part of the fire." theophilus recommends that this little iron cover be "perforated finely all over so that the holes may be inside flat and wide, and outside finer and rough, in order to stop the cinders if by chance they should fall upon it." this process of firing may have to be repeated several times, until the enamel fills every space evenly. then follows the tedious task of burnishing; setting the jewel in a strong bit of wax, you are told to rub it on a "smooth hard bone," until it is polished well and evenly. benvenuto cellini recommends a little paper sponge to be used in smoothing the face of enamels. "take a clean nice piece of paper," he writes, "and chew it well between your teeth,--that is, if you have got any--i could not do it, because i've none left!" a celebrated piece of goldsmith's work of the tenth century is the pala d'oro at st. mark's in venice. this is a gold altar piece or reredos, about eleven feet long and seven feet high, richly wrought in the byzantine style, and set with enamels and precious stones. the peculiar quality of the surface of the gold still lingers in the memory; it looks almost liquid, and suggests the appearance of metal in a fluid state. on its wonderful divisions and arched compartments are no less than twelve hundred pearls, and twelve hundred other precious gems. these stones surround the openings in which are placed the very beautiful enamel figures of saints and sacred personages. st. michael occupies a prominent position; the figure is partly in relief. the largest medallion contains the figure of christ in glory, and in other compartments may be seen even such secular personages as the empress irene, and the doge who was ruling venice at the time this altar piece was put in place--the year . the pala d'oro is worked in the champlevé process, the ground having been cut away to receive the melted enamel. it is undoubtedly a byzantine work; the doge orseolo, in , ordered it to be made by the enamellers of constantinople. it was not finished for nearly two centuries, arriving in venice in , when the portrait of the doge then reigning was added to it. the byzantine range of colours was copious; they had white, two reds, bright and dark, dark and light blue, green, violet, yellow, flesh tint, and black. these tints were always fused separately, one in each cloison: the greeks in this period never tried to blend colours, and more than one tint never appears in a compartment. the enlarging and improving of the pam d'oro was carried on by greek artists in venice in . it was twice altered after that, once in the fourteenth century for dandolo, and thus the pure byzantine type is somewhat invaded by the gothic spirit. the restorations in were presided over by gianmaria boninsegna. one of the most noted specimens of enamel work is on the crown of charlemagne,[ ] which is a magnificent structure of eight plaques of gold, joined by hinges, and surmounted by a cross in the front, and an arch crossing the whole like a rib from back to front. the other cross rib has been lost, but originally the crown was arched by two ribs at the top. the plates of gold are ornamented, one with jewels, and filigree, and the next with a large figure in enamel. these figures are similar to those occurring on the pala d'oro. [footnote : see fig. .] [illustration: detail; shrine of the three kings, cologne] the shrine of the three kings in cologne is decorated both with cloisonné and champlevé enamels,--an unusual circumstance. in aix la chapelle the shrine of charlemagne is extremely like it in some respects, but the only enamels are in champlevé. good examples of translucent enamels in relief may be seen on several of the reliquaries at aix la chapelle. theophilus gives us directions for making a very ornate chalice with handles, richly embossed and ornamented with mello. another paragraph instructs us how to make a golden chalice decorated with precious stones and pearls. it would be interesting as a modern problem, to follow minutely his directions, and to build the actual chalice described in the eleventh century. to apply the gems and pearls theophilus directs us to "cut pieces like straps," which you "bend together to make small settings of them, by which the stones may be enclosed." these little settings, with their stones, are to be fixed with flour paste in their places and then warmed over the coals until they adhere. this sounds a little risky, but we fancy he must have succeeded, and, indeed, it seems to have been the usual way of setting stones in the early centuries. filigree flowers are then to be added, and the whole soldered into place in a most primitive manner, banking the coals in the shape of a small furnace, so that the coals may lie thickly around the circumference, and when the solder "flows about as if undulating," the artist is to sprinkle it quickly with water, and take it out of the fire. niello, with which the chalice of theophilus is also to be enriched, stands in relation to the more beautiful art of enamel, as drawing does to painting, and it is well to consider it here. both the romans and the anglo-saxons understood its use. it has been employed as an art ever since the sixth and seventh centuries. the term "niello" probably is an abbreviation of the italian word "nigellus" (black); the art is that of inlaying an engraved surface with a black paste, which is thoroughly durable and hard as the metal itself in most cases, the only difference being in flexibility; if the metal plate is bent, the niello will crack and flake off. [illustration: finiguerra's pax, florence] niello is more than simply a drawing on metal. that would come under the head of engraving. a graver is used to cut out the design on the surface of the silver, which is simply a polished plane. when the drawing has been thus incised, a black enamel, made of lead, lamp black, and other substances, is filled into the interstices, and rubbed in; when quite dry and hard, this is polished. the result is a black enamel which is then fused into the silver, so that the whole is one surface, and the decoration becomes part of the original plate. the process as described by theophilus is as follows: "compose the niello in this manner; take pure silver and divide it into equal parts, adding to it a third part of pure copper, and taking yellow sulphur, break it very small... and when you have liquefied the silver with the copper, stir it evenly with charcoal, and instantly pour into it lead and sulphur." this niello paste is then made into a stick, and heated until "it glows: then with another forceps, long and thin, hold the niello and rub it all over the places which you wish to make black, until the drawing be full, and carrying it away from the fire, make it smooth with a flat file, until the silver appear." when theophilus has finished his directions, he adds: "and take great care that no further work is required." to polish the niello, he directs us to "pumice it with a damp stone, until it is made everywhere bright." there are various accounts of how finiguerra, who was a worker in niello in florence, discovered by its means the art of steel engraving. it is probably only a legendary narrative, but it is always told as one of the apocryphal stories when the origin of printing is discussed, and may not be out of place here. maso finiguerra, a florentine, had just engraved the plate for his famous niello, a pax which is now to be seen in the bargello, and had filled it in with the fluid enamel, which was standing waiting until it should be dry. then, according to some authorities, a piece of paper blew upon the damp surface, on which, after carefully removing it, maso found his design was impressed; others state that it was through the servant's laying a damp cloth upon it, that the principle of printing from an incised plate was suggested. at any rate, finiguerra took the hint, it is said, and made an impression on paper, rolling it, as one would do with an etching or engraving. in the silver chamber in the pitti palace is a pax, by mantegna, made in the same way as that by finiguerra, and bearing comparison with it. the engraving is most delicate, and it is difficult to imagine a better specimen of the art. the madonna and child, seated in an arbour, occupy the centre of the composition, which is framed with jewelled bands, the frame being divided into sixteen compartments, in each of which is seen a tiny and exquisite picture. the work on the arbour of roses in which the virgin sits is of remarkable quality, as well as the small birds and animals introduced into the composition. in the background, st. christopher is seen crossing the river with the christ child on his back, while in the water a fish and a swan are visible. in valencia in spain may be seen a chalice which has been supposed to be the very cup in which our saviour instituted the communion. the cup itself is of sardonyx, and of fine form. the base is made of the same stone, and handles and bands are of gold, adorned with black enamel. pearls, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds are set in profusion about the stem and base. it is a work of the epoch of imperial rome. in england, one of the most perfect specimens of fine, close work, is the wilton chalice, dating from the twelfth century. the warwick bowl, too, is of very delicate workmanship, and both are covered with minute scenes and figures. one of the most splendid treasures in this line is the crozier of william wyckham, now in oxford. it is strictly national in style. the agreement entered into between henry vii., and abbot islip, for the building of the chapel of that king in westminster, is extant. it is bound in velvet and bossed with enamels. it is an interesting fact that some of the enamels are in the italian style, while others are evidently english. limoges was the most famous centre of the art of enamelling in the twelfth century, the work being known as opus de limogia, or labor limogiae. limoges was a roman settlement, and enamels were made there as early as the time of philostratus. champlevé enamel, while it was not produced among the greeks, nor even in byzantine work, was almost invariable at limoges in the earlier days: one can readily tell the difference between a byzantine enamel and an early limoges enamel by this test, when there is otherwise sufficient similarity of design to warrant the question. some of the most beautiful enamels of limoges were executed in what was called basse-taille, or transparent enamel on gold grounds, which had been first prepared in bas-relief. champlevé enamel was often used on copper, for such things as pastoral staves, reliquaries, and larger bits of church furniture. the enamel used on copper is usually opaque, and somewhat coarser in texture than that employed on gold or silver. owing to their additional toughness, these specimens are usually in perfect preservation. in , guillaume de harie, in his will, bequeathed francs to make two high tombs, to be covered with limoges enamel, one for himself, and the other for "blanche d'avange, my dear companion." [illustration: italian enamelled crozier, th century] an interesting form of cloisonné enamel was that known as "plique à jour," which consists of a filigree setting with the enamel in transparent bits, without any metallic background. it is still made in many parts of the world. when held to the light it resembles minute arrangements of stained glass. francis i. showed benvenuto cellini a wonderful bowl of this description, and asked cellini if he could possibly imagine how the result was attained. "sacred majesty," replied benvenuto, "i can tell you exactly how it is done," and he proceeded to explain to the astonished courtiers how the bowl was constructed, bit by bit, inside a bowl of thin iron lined with clay. the wires were fastened in place with glue until the design was complete, and then the enamel was put in place, the whole being fused together at the soldering. the clay form to which all this temporarily adhered was then removed, and the work, transparent and ephemeral, was ready to stand alone. king john gave to the city of lynn a magnificent cup of gold, enamelled, with figures of courtiers of the period, engaged in the sports of hawking and hare-hunting, and dressed in the costume of the king's reign. "king john gave to the corporation a rich cup and cover," says mackarel, "weighing seventy-three ounces, which is preserved to this day and upon all public occasions and entertainments used with some uncommon ceremonies at drinking the health of the king or queen, and whoever goes to visit the mayor must drink out of this cup, which contains a full pint." the colours of the enamels which are used as flat values in backgrounds to the little silver figures, are dark rose, clear blue, and soft green. the dresses of the persons are also picked out in the same colours, varied from the grounds. this cup was drawn by john carter in , he having had much trouble in getting permission to study the original for that purpose! he took letters of introduction to the corporation, but they appeared to suspect him of some imposture; at first they refused to entertain his proposal at all, but after several applications, he was allowed to have the original before him, in a closed room, in company with a person appointed by them but at his expense, to watch him and see that no harm came to the precious cup! the translucent enamels on relief were made a great deal by the italian goldsmiths; vasari alludes to this class of work as "a species of painting united with sculpture." as enamel came by degrees to be used as if it were paint, one of the chief charms of the art died. the limits of this art were its strength, and simple straight-forward use of the material was its best expression. the method of making a painted enamel was as follows. the design was laid out with a stilus on a copper plate. then a flux of plain enamel was fused on to the surface, all over it. the drawing was then made again, on the same lines, in a dark medium, and the colours were laid flat inside the dark lines, accepting these lines as if they had been wires around cloisons. all painted enamels had to be enamelled on the back as well, to prevent warping in the furnace when the shrinkage took place. after each layer of colour the whole plate was fired. in the fifteenth century these enamels were popular and retained some semblance of respect for the limitation of material; later, greater facility led, as it does in most of the arts, to a decadence in taste, and florid pictures, with as many colours and shadows as would appear in an oil painting, resulted. here and there, where special metallic brilliancy was desired, a leaf of gold was laid under the colour of some transparent enamel, giving a decorative lustre. these bits of brilliant metal were known as _paillons_. when limoges had finally become the royal manufactory of enamels, under francis i., the head of the works was leonard limousin, created "valet de chambre du roi," to show his sovereign's appreciation. remarkable examples of the work of leonard limousin, executed in , are the large figures of the apostles to be seen in the church of st. pierre, at chartres, where they are ranged about the apsidal chapel. they are painted enamels on copper sheets twenty-four by eleven inches, and are in a wonderful state of preservation. they were the gift of henri ii. to diàne de poictiers and were brought to chartres from the chateau d'anet. these enamels, being on a white ground, have something the effect of paintings in faience; the colouring is delicate, and they have occasional gold touches. a treatise by william of essex directs the artist how to prepare a plate for a painted enamel, such as were used in miniature work. he says "to make a plate for the artist to paint upon: a piece of gold or copper being chosen, of requisite dimensions, and varying from about / to / of an inch in thickness, is covered with pulverized enamel, and passed through the fire, until it becomes of a white heat; another coating of enamel is then added, and the plate again fired; afterwards a thin layer of a substance called flux is laid upon the surface of the enamel, and the plate undergoes the action of heat for a third time. it is now ready for the painter to commence his picture upon." leonard limousin painted from until . he used the process as described by william of essex (which afterwards became very popular for miniaturists), and also composed veritable pictures of his own design. it is out of our province to trace the history of the limoges enamellers after this period. chapter iv other metals the "perils that environ men that meddle with cold iron" are many; but those who attempt to control hot iron are also to be respected, when they achieve an artistic result with this unsympathetic metal, which by nature is entirely lacking in charm, in colour and texture, and depends more upon a proper application of design than any other, in order to overcome the obstacles to beauty with which it is beset. "rust hath corrupted," unfortunately, many interesting antiquities in iron, so that only a limited number of specimens of this metal have come down to us from very early times; one of the earliest in england is a grave-stone of cast metal, of the date : it is decorated with a cross, and has the epitaph, "pray for the soul of joan collins." the process of casting iron was as follows. the moulds were made of a sandy substance, composed of a mixture of brick dust, loam, plaster, and charcoal. a bed of this sand was made, and into it was pressed a wooden or metal pattern. when this was removed, the imprint remained in the sand. liquid metal was run into the mould so formed, and would cool into the desired shape. as with a plaster cast, it was necessary to employ two such beds, the sand being firmly held in boxes, if the object was to be rounded, and then the two halves thus made were put together. flat objects, such as fire-backs, could be run into a single mould. bartholomew, in his book "on the properties of things," makes certain statements about iron which are interesting: "though iron cometh of the earth, yet it is most hard and sad, and therefore with beating and smiting it suppresseth and dilateth all other metal, and maketh it stretch on length and on breadth." this is the key-note to the work of a blacksmith: it is what he has done from the first, and is still doing. in spain there have been iron mines ever since the days when pliny wrote and alluded to them, but there are few samples in that country to lead us to regard it as æsthetic in its purpose until the fifteenth century. for tempering iron instruments, there are recipes given by the monk theophilus, but they are unfortunately quite unquotable, being treated with mediæval frankness of expression. st. dunstan was the patron of goldsmiths and blacksmiths. he was born in , and lived in glastonbury, where he became a monk rather early in life. he not only worked in metal, but was a good musician and a great scholar, in fact a genuine rounded man of culture. he built an organ, no doubt something like the one which theophilus describes, which, bede tells us, being fitted with "brass pipes, filled with air from the bellows, uttered a grand and most sweet melody." dunstan was a favourite at court, in the reign of king edmund. enemies were plentiful, however, and they spread the report that dunstan evoked demoniac aid in his almost magical work in its many departments. it was said that occasionally the evil spirits were too aggravating, and that in such cases dunstan would stand no nonsense. there is an old verse: "st. dunstan, so the story goes, once pulled the devil by the nose, with red hot tongs, which made him roar that he was heard three miles or more!" the same story is told of st. eloi, and probably of most of the mediæval artistic spirits who were unfortunate enough to be human in their temperaments and at the same time pious and struggling. he was greatly troubled by visitations such as persecuted st. anthony. on one occasion, it is related that he was busy at his forge when this fiend was unusually persistent: st. dunstan turned upon the demon, and grasped its nose in the hot pincers, which proved a most successful exorcism. in old portraits, st. dunstan is represented in full ecclesiastical habit, holding the iron pincers as symbols of his prowess. he became archbishop of canterbury after having held the sees of worcester and london. he journeyed to rome, and received the pallium of primate of the anglo-saxons, from pope john xii. dunstan was a righteous statesman, twice reproving the king for evil deeds, and placing his royal highness under the ban of the church for immoral conduct! st. dunstan died in . [illustration: wrought iron hinge, frankfort] wrought iron has been in use for many centuries for hinges and other decorations on doors; a necessity to every building in a town from earliest times. the word "hinge" comes from the saxon, _hengen_, to hang. primitive hinges were sometimes sockets cut in stone, as at torcello; but soon this was proved a clumsy and inconvenient method of hanging a door, and hinges more simple in one way, and yet more ornate, came into fashion. iron hinges were found most useful when they extended for some distance on to the door; this strengthened the door against the invasion of pirates, when the church was the natural citadel of refuge for the inhabitants of a town, and also held it firmly from warping. at first single straps of iron were clamped on: then the natural craving for beauty prevailed, and the hinges developed, flowering out into scrolls and leaves, and spreading all over the doors, as one sees them constantly in mediæval examples. the general scheme usually followed was a straight strap of iron flanked by two curving horns like a crescent, and this motive was elaborated until a positive lace of iron, often engraved or moulded, covered the surface of the door, as in the wonderful work of biscornette at notre dame in paris. biscornette was a very mysterious worker, and no one ever saw him constructing the hinges. reports went round that the devil was helping him, that he had sold his soul to the king of darkness in order to enlist his assistance in his work; an instance of æsthetic altruism almost commendable in its exotic zeal. certain jealous artificers even went so far as to break off bits of the meandering iron, to test it, but with no result; they could not decide whether it was cast or wrought. later a legend grew up explaining the reason why the central door was not as ornate as the side doors: the story was that the devil was unable to assist biscornette on this door because it was the aperture through which the host passed in processions. it is more likely, however, that the doors were originally uniform, and that the iron was subsequently removed for some other reason. the design is supposed to represent the earthly paradise. sauval says: "the sculptured birds and ornaments are marvellous. they are made of wrought iron, the invention of biscornette and which died with him. he worked the iron with an almost incredible industry, rendering it flexible and tractable, and gave it all the forms and scrolls he wished, with a 'douceur et une gentillesse' which surprised and astonished all the smiths." the iron master gaegart broke off fragments of the iron, and no member of the craft has ever been able to state with certainty just how the work was accomplished. some think that it is cast, and then treated with the file; others say that it must have been executed by casting entire, with no soldering. in any case, the secret will never be divulged, for no one was in the confidence of biscornette. norman blacksmiths and workers in wrought iron were more plentiful than goldsmiths. they had, in those warlike times, more call for arms and the massive products of the forge than for gaudy jewels and table appointments. one of the doors of st. alban's abbey displays the skill of norman smiths dealing with this stalwart form of ornament. among special artists in iron whose names have survived is that of jehan tonquin, in . earlier than that, a cutler, thomas de fieuvillier, is mentioned, as having flourished about . [illustration: biscornette's doors at paris] elaborate iron work is rare in germany; the germans always excelled rather in bronze than in the sterner metal. at st. ursula's in cologne there are iron floriated hinges, but the design and idea are french, and not native. one may usually recognize a difference between french and english wrought iron, for the french is often in detached pieces, not an outgrowth of the actual hinge itself, and when this is found in england, it indicates french work. ornaments in iron were sometimes cut out of flat sheet metal, and then hammered into form. in stamping this flat work with embossed effect, the smith had to work while the iron was hot,--as sancho panza expressed it, "praying to god and hammering away." dies were made, after a time, into which the design could be beaten with less effort than in the original method. one of the quaintest of iron doors is at krems, where the gate is made up of square sheets of iron, cut into rude pierced designs, giving scenes from the new testament, and hammered up so as to be slightly embossed. the guild of blacksmiths in florence flourished as early as the thirteenth century. it covered workers in many metals, copper, iron, brass, and pewter included. among the rules of the guild was one permitting members to work for ready money only. they were not allowed to advertise by street crying, and were fined if they did so. the arms of the guild was a pair of furnace tongs upon a white field. among the products of the forge most in demand were the iron window-gratings so invariable on all houses, and called by michelangelo "kneeling windows," on account of the bulging shape of the lower parts. one famous iron worker carried out the law of the guild both in spirit and letter to the extent of insisting upon payment in advance! this was nicolo grosso, who worked about . vasari calls him the "money grabber." his specialty was to make the beautiful torch holders and lanterns such as one sees on the strozzi palace and in the bargello. in england there were guilds of blacksmiths; in middlesex one was started in , and members were known as "in the worship of st. eloi." members were alluded to as "brethren and sisteren,"--this term would fill a much felt vacancy! some of the guilds exacted fines from all members who did not pay a proper proportion of their earnings to the church. another general use of iron for artistic purposes was in the manufacture of grilles. grilles were used in france and england in cathedrals. the earliest christian grille is a pierced bronze screen in the church of the nativity in bethlehem. in hildesheim is an original form of grille; the leaves and rosettes in the design are pierced, instead of being beaten up into bosses. this probably came from the fact that the german smith did not understand the frankish drawing, and supposed that the shaded portions of the work were intended to be open work. the result, however, is most happy, and a new feature was thus introduced into grille work. [illustration: wrought iron from the bargello, florence] many grilles were formed by the smith's taking an iron bar and, under the intense heat, splitting it into various branches, each of which should be twisted in a different way. another method was to use the single slighter bar for the foundation of the design, and welding on other volutes of similar thickness to make the scroll work associated with wrought iron. some of the smiths who worked at westminster abbey are known by name; master henry lewis, in , made the iron work for the tomb of henry iii. a certain iron fragment is signed gilibertus. the iron on the tomb of queen eleanor is by thomas de leighton, in . lead workers also had a place assigned to them in the precincts, which was known as "the plumbery." in master roger johnson was enjoined to arrest or press smiths into service in order to finish the ironwork on the tomb of edward iv. probably the most famous use of iron in spain is in the stupendous "_rejas_," or chancel screens of wrought iron; but these are nearly all of a late renaissance style, and hardly come within the scope of this volume. the requirements of spanish cathedrals, too, for wrought iron screens for all the side chapels, made plenty of work for the iron masters. in fact, the "_rejeros_," or iron master, was as regular an adjunct to a cathedral as an architect or a painter. knockers were often very handsome in spain, and even nail heads were decorated. an interesting specimen of iron work is the grille that surrounds the tomb of the scaligers in verolla. it is not a hard stiff structure, but is composed of circular forms, each made separately, and linked together with narrow bands, so that the construction is flexible, and is more like a gigantic piece of chain mail than an iron fence. quentin matsys was known as the "blacksmith of antwerp," and is reported to have left his original work among metals to become a painter. this was done in order to marry the lady of his choice, for she refused to join her fate to that of a craftsman. she, however, was ready to marry a painter. quentin, therefore, gave up his hammer and anvil, and began to paint madonnas that he might prosper in his suit. some authorities, however, laugh at this story, and claim that the specimens of iron work which are shown as the early works of matsys date from a time when he would have been only ten or twelve years old, and that they must therefore have been the work of his father, josse matsys, who was a locksmith. the well-cover in antwerp, near the cathedral, is always known as quentin matsys' well. it is said that this was not constructed until , while quentin was born in . the iron work of the tomb of the duke of burgundy, in windsor, is supposed to be the work of quentin matsys, and is considered the finest grille in england. it is wrought with such skill and delicacy that it is more like the product of the goldsmith's art than that of the blacksmith. [illustration: moorish keys, seville] another object of utility which was frequently ornamented was the key. the key of state, especially, was so treated. some are nine or ten inches long, having been used to present to visiting grandees as typical of the "freedom of the city." keys were often decorated with handles having the appearance of gothic tracery. in an old book published in , there is an account of the miraculous keys of st. denis, made of silver, which they apply to the faces of these persons who have been so unfortunate as to be bitten by mad dogs, and who received certain and immediate relief in only touching them. a key in valencia, over nine inches in length, is richly embossed, while the wards are composed of decorative letters, looking at first like an elaborate sort of filigree, but finally resolving themselves into the autographic statement: "it was made by ahmed ahsan." it is a delicate piece of thirteenth or fourteenth century work in iron. another old spanish key has a hebrew inscription round the handle: "the king of kings will open: the king of the whole earth will enter," and, in the wards, in spanish, "god will open, the king will enter." the iron smiths of barcelona formed a guild in the thirteenth century: it is to be regretted that more of their work could not have descended to us. a frank treatment of locks and bolts, using them as decorations, instead of treating them as disgraces, upon the surface of a door, is the only way to make them in any degree effective. as pugin has said, it is possible to use nails, screws, and rivets, so that they become "beautiful studs and busy enrichments." florentine locksmiths were specially famous; there also was a great fashion for damascened work in that city, and it was executed with much elegance. in blacksmith's work, heat was used with the hammer at each stage of the work, while in armourer's or locksmith's work, heat was employed only at first, to achieve the primitive forms, and then the work was carried on with chisel and file on the cold metal. up to the fourteenth century the work was principally that of the blacksmith, and after that, of the locksmith. the mention of arms and armour in a book of these proportions must be very slight; the subject is a vast one, and no effort to treat it with system would be satisfactory in so small a space. but a few curious and significant facts relating to the making of armour may be cited. the rapid decay of iron through rust--rapid, that is to say, in comparison with other metals--is often found to have taken place when the discovery of old armour has been made; so that gold ornaments, belonging to a sword or other weapon, may be found in excavating, while the iron which formed the actual weapon has disappeared. primitive armour was based on a leather foundation, hence the name cuirass, was derived from _cuir_ (leather). in a former book i have alluded to the armour of the nomadic tribes, which is described by pausanias as coarse coats of mail made out of the hoofs of horses, split, and laid overlapping each other, making them "something like dragon's scales," as pausanias explains; adding for the benefit of those who are unfamiliar with dragons' anatomy, "whoever has not _yet_ seen a dragon, has, at any rate, seen a pine cone still green. these are equally like in appearance to the surface of this armour." these horny scales of tough hoofs undoubtedly suggested, at a later date, the use of thick leather as a form of protection, and the gradual evolution may be imagined. the art of the armourer was in early mediæval times the art of the chain maker. the chain coat, or coats of mail, reached in early days as far as the knees. finally this developed into an entire covering for the man, with head gear as well; of course this form of armour allowed of no real ornamentation, for there was no space larger than the links of the chain upon which to bestow decoration. each link of a coat of mail was brought round into a ring, the ends overlapped, and a little rivet inserted. warriors trusted to no solder or other mode of fastening. all the magnificence of knightly apparel was concentrated in the surcoat, a splendid embroidered or gem-decked tunic to the knees, which was worn over the coat of mail. these surcoats were often trimmed with costly furs, ermine or vair, the latter being similar to what we now call squirrel, being part gray and part white. cinderella's famous slipper was made of "vair," which, through a misapprehension in being translated "verre," has become known as a glass slipper. [illustration: armour, showing mail developing into plate] after a bit, the makers of armour discovered that much tedious labor in chain making might be spared, if one introduced a large plate of solid metal on the chest and back. this was in the thirteenth century. the elbows and knees were also treated in this way, and in the fourteenth century, the principle of armour had changed to a set of separate plates fastened together by links. this was the evolution from mail to plate armour. a description of charlemagne as he appeared on the field of battle, in his armour, is given by the monk of st. gall, his biographer, and is dramatic. "then could be seen the iron charles, helmeted with an iron helmet, his iron breast and broad shoulders protected with an iron breast plate; an iron spear was raised on high in his left hand, his right always rested on his unconquered iron falchion.... his shield was all of iron, his charger was iron coloured and iron hearted.... the fields and open spaces were filled with iron; a people harder than iron paid universal homage to the hardness of iron. the horror of the dungeon seemed less than the bright gleam of iron. 'oh, the iron! woe for the iron!' was the confused cry that rose from the citizens. the strong walls shook at the sight of iron: the resolution of young and old fell before the iron." by the end of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, whole suits of armour were almost invariable, and then came the opportunity for the goldsmith, the damascener, and the niellist. some of the leading artists, especially in italy, were enlisted in designing and decorating what might be called the _armour-de-luxe_ of the warrior princes! the armour of horses was as ornate as that of the riders. the sword was always the most imposingly ornamented part of a knight's equipment, and underwent various modifications which are interesting to note. at first, it was the only weapon invariably at hand: it was enormously large, and two hands were necessary in wielding it. as the arquebuse came into use, the sword took a secondary position: it became lighter and smaller. and ever since it is a curious fact that the decorations of swords have been designed to be examined when the sword hangs with the point down; the earlier ornament was adapted to being seen at its best when the sword was held upright, as in action. perhaps the later theory of decoration is more sensible, for it is certain that neither a warrior nor his opponent could have occasion to admire fine decoration at a time when the sword was drawn! that the arts should be employed to satisfy the eye in times of peace, sufficed the later wearers of ornamented swords. toledo blades have always been famous, and rank first among the steel knives of the world. even in roman times, and of course under the moors, toledo led in this department. the process of making a toledo blade was as follows. there was a special fine white sand on the banks of the tagus, which was used to sprinkle on the blade when it was red hot, before it was sent on to the forger's. when the blade was red hot from being steeped four-fifths of its length in flame, it was dropped point first into a bucket of water. if it was not perfectly straight when it was withdrawn, it was beaten into shape, more sand being first put upon it. after this the remaining fifth of the blade was subjected to the fire, and was rubbed with suet while red hot; the final polish of the whole sword was produced by emery powder on wooden wheels. [illustration: damascened helmet] damascening was a favourite method of ornamenting choice suits of armour, and was also applied to bronzes, cabinets, and such pieces of metal as lent themselves to decoration. the process began like niello: little channels for the design were hollowed out, in the iron or bronze, and then a wire of brass, silver, or gold, was laid in the groove, and beaten into place, being afterwards polished until the surface was uniform all over. one great feature of the art was to sink the incision a little broader at the base than at the top, and then to force the softer metal in, so that, by this undercutting, it was held firmly in place. cellini tells of his first view of damascened steel blades. "i chanced," he says, "to become possessed of certain little turkish daggers, the handle of which together with the guard and blade were ornamented with beautiful oriental leaves, engraved with a chisel, and inlaid with gold. this kind of work differed materially from any which i had as yet practised or attempted, nevertheless i was seized with a great desire to try my hand at it, and i succeeded so admirably that i produced articles infinitely finer and more solid than those of the turks." benvenuto had such a humble opinion of his own powers! but when one considers the pains and labour expended upon the arts of damascening and niello, one regrets that the workers had not been inspired to attempt dentistry, and save so much unnecessary individual suffering! on the sword of boabdil are many inscriptions, among them, "god is clement and merciful," and "god is gifted with the best memory." no two sentiments could be better calculated to keep a conqueror from undue excesses. mercia was a headquarters for steel and other metals in the thirteenth century. seville was even then famous for its steel, also, and in the words of a contemporary writer, "the steel which is made in seville is most excellent; it would take too much time to enumerate the delicate objects of every kind which are made in this town." king don pedro, in his will, in the fourteenth century, bequeathes to his son, his "castilian sword, which i had made here in seville, ornamented with stones and gold." swords were baptized; they were named, and seemed to have a veritable personality of their own. the sword of charlemagne was christened "joyeuse," while we all know of arthur's excalibur; roland's sword was called durandel. saragossa steel was esteemed for helmets, and the sword of james of arragon in , "a very good sword, and lucky to those who handled it," was from monzon. the cid's sword was similar, and named tizona. there is a story of a jew who went to the grave of the cid to steal his sword, which, according to custom, was interred with the owner: the corpse is said to have resented the intrusion by unsheathing the weapon, which miracle so amazed the jew that he turned christian! [illustration: moorish sword] german armour was popular. cologne swords were great favourites in england. king arthur's sword was one of these,-- "for all of coleyne was the blade and all the hilt of precious stone." in the british museum is a wonderful example of a wooden shield, painted on a gesso ground, the subject being a knight kneeling before a lady, and the motto: "vous ou la mort." these wooden shields were used in germany until the end of maximilian's reign. the helmet, or heaume, entirely concealed the face, so that for purposes of identification, heraldic badges and shields were displayed. later, crests were also used on the helmets, for the same purpose. certain armourers were very well known in their day, and were as famous as artists in other branches. william austin made a superb suit for the earl of warwick, while thomas stevyns was the coppersmith who worked on the same, and bartholomew lambspring was the polisher. there was a famous master-armourer at greenwich in the days of elizabeth, named jacob: some important arms of that period bear the inscription, "made by me jacob." there is some question whether he was the same man as jacob topf who came from innsbruck, and became court armourer in england in . another famous smith was william pickering, who made exquisitely ornate suits of what we might call full-dress armour. colossal cannon were made: two celebrated guns may be seen, the monster at ghent, called mad meg, and the huge cannon at edinburgh castle, mons meg, dating from . these guns are composed of steel coils or spirals, afterwards welded into a solid mass instead of being cast. they are mammoth examples of the art of the blacksmith and the forge. in germany cannon were made of bronze, and these were simply cast. cross bows obtained great favour in spain, even after the arquebuse had come into use. it was considered a safer weapon to the one who used it. an old writer in remarks, "it has never been known that a man's life has been lost by breaking the string or cord, two things which are dangerous, but not to a considerable extent,"... and he goes on "once set, its shot is secure, which is not the case with the arquebus, which often misses fire." there is a letter from ambassador salimas to the king of hungary, in which he says: "i went to balbastro and there occupied myself in making a pair of cross bows for your majesty. i believe they will satisfy the desires which were required... as your majesty is annoyed when they do not go off as you wish." it would seem as though his majesty's "annoyance" was justifiable; imagine any one dependent upon the shot of a cross bow, and then having the weapon fail to "go off!" nothing could be more discouraging. [illustration: enamelled suit of armour] there is a contemporary treatise which is full of interest, entitled, "how a man shall be armed at his ease when he shall fight on foot." it certainly was a good deal of a contract to render a knight comfortable in spite of the fact that he could see or breathe only imperfectly, and was weighted down by iron at every point. this complete covering with metal added much to the actual noise of battle. froissart alludes to the fact that in the battle of rosebeque, in , the hammering on the helmets made a noise which was equal to that of all the armourers of paris and brussels working together. and yet the strength needed to sport such accoutrements seems to have been supplied. leon alberti of florence, when clad in a full suit of armour, could spring with ease upon a galloping horse, and it is related that aldobrandini, even with his right arm disabled, could cleave straight through his opponent's helmet and head, down to the collar bone, with a single stroke! one of the richest suits of armour in the world is to be seen at windsor; it is of italian workmanship, and is made of steel, blued and gilded, with wonderfully minute decorations of damascene and appliqué work. this most ornate armour was made chiefly for show, and not for the field: for knights to appear in their official capacity, and for jousting at tournaments, which were practically social events. in the days of henry viii. a chronicler tells of a jouster who "tourneyed in harneyse all of gilt from the head piece to the sabattons." many had "tassels of fine gold" on their suits. italian weapons called "lasquenets" were very deadly. in a letter from albrecht dürer to pirckheimer, he alludes to them, as having "roncions with two hundred and eighteen points: and if they pink a man with any of these, the man is dead, as they are all poisoned." bronze is composed of copper with an alloy of about eight or ten per cent. of tin. the fusing of these two metals produces the brown glossy substance called bronze, which is so different from either of them. the art of the bronze caster is a very old and interesting one. the method of proceeding has varied very little with the centuries. a statue to be cast either in silver or bronze would be treated in the following manner. a general semblance of the finished work was first set up in clay; then over this a layer of wax was laid, as thick as the final bronze was intended to be. the wax was then worked with tools and by hand until it took on the exact form designed for the finished product. then a crust of clay was laid over the wax; on this were added other coatings of clay, until quite a thick shell of clay surrounded the wax. the whole was then subjected to fervent heat, and the wax all melted out, leaving a space between the core and the outer shell. into this space the liquid bronze was poured, and after it had cooled and hardened the outer shell was broken off, leaving the statue in bronze exactly as the wax had been. cellini relates an experience in paris, with an old man eighty years of age, one of the most famous bronze casters whom he had engaged to assist him in his work for francis i. something went wrong with the furnace, and the poor old man was so upset and "got into such a stew" that he fell upon the floor, and benvenuto picked him up fancying him to be dead: "howbeit," explains cellini, "i had a great beaker of the choicest wine brought him,... i mixed a large bumper of wine for the old man, who was groaning away like anything, and i bade him most winning-wise to drink, and said: 'drink, my father, for in yonder furnace has entered in a devil, who is making all this mischief, and, look you, we'll just let him bide there a couple of days, till he gets jolly well bored, and then will you and i together in the space of three hours firing, make this metal run, like so much batter, and without any exertion at all.' the old fellow drank and then i brought him some little dainties to eat: meat pasties they were, nicely peppered, and i made him take down four full goblets of wine. he was a man quite out of the ordinary, this, and a most lovable old thing, and what with my caresses and the virtue of the wine, i found him soon moaning away as much with joy as he had moaned before with grief." cellini displayed in this incident his belief in the great principle that the artist should find pleasure in his work in order to impart to that work a really satisfactory quality, and did exactly the right thing at the right minute; instead of trusting to a faltering effort in a disheartened man, he cheered the old bronze founder up to such a pitch that after a day or two the work was completed with triumph and joy to both. in the famous statue of perseus, cellini experienced much difficulty in keeping the metal liquid. the account of this thrilling experience, told in his matchless autobiography, is too long to quote at this point; an interesting item, however, should be noted. cellini used pewter as a solvent in the bronze which had hardened in the furnace. "apprehending that the cause of it was, that the fusibility of the metal was impaired, by the violence of the fire," he says, "i ordered all my dishes and porringers, which were in number about two hundred, to be placed one by one before my tubes, and part of them to be thrown into the furnace, upon which all present perceived that my bronze was completely dissolved, and that my mould was filling," and, such was the relief that even the loss of the entire pewter service of the family was sustained with equanimity; the family, "without delay, procured earthen vessels to supply the place of the pewter dishes and porringers, and we all dined together very cheerfully." edgecumb staley, in the "guilds of florence," speaks of the "pewter fattened perseus:" this is worthy of carlyle. early britons cast statues in brass. speed tells of king cadwollo, who died in , being buried "at st. martin's church near ludgate, his image great and terrible, triumphantly riding on horseback, artificially cast in brass, was placed on the western gate of the city, to the further fear and terror of the saxons!" in bartolomeo morel, who made the celebrated statue of the giralda tower in seville, executed a fifteen branched candelabrum for the cathedral. it is a rich renaissance design, in remarkably chaste and good lines, and holds fifteen statuettes, which are displaced to make room for the candles only during the last few days of lent. a curious form of mediæval trinket was the perfume ball; this consisted of a perforated ball of copper or brass, often ornamented with damascene, and intended to contain incense to perfume the air, the balls being suspended. the earliest metal statuary in england was rendered in latten, a mixed metal of a yellow colour, the exact recipe for which has not survived. the recumbent effigies of henry iii. and queen eleanor are made of latten, and the tomb of the black prince in canterbury is the same, beautifully chased. many of these and other tombs were probably originally covered with gilding, painting, and enamel. the effigies of richard ii. and his queen, anne of bohemia, were made during the reign of the monarch; a contemporary document states that "sir john innocent paid another part of a certain indenture made between the king and nicolas broker and geoffrey prest, coppersmiths of london, for the making of two images, likenesses of the king and queen, of copper and latten, gilded upon the said marble tomb." there are many examples of bronze gates in ecclesiastical architecture. the gates of st. paolo fuori le mura in rome were made in , in constantinople, by stauracius the founder. many authorities think that those at st. mark's in venice were similarly produced. the bronze doors in rome are composed of fifty-four small designs, not in relief, but with the outlines of the subjects inlaid with silver. the doors are in byzantine taste. the bronze doors at hildesheim differ from nearly all other such portals, in the elemental principle of design. instead of being divided into small panels, they are simply blocked off into seven long horizontal compartments on each side, and then filled with a pictorial arrangement of separate figures; only three or four in each panel, widely spaced, and on a background of very low relief. the figures are applied, at scattered distances apart, and are in unusually high modelling, in some cases being almost detached from the door. the effect is curious and interesting rather than strictly beautiful, on the whole; but in detail many of the figures display rare power of plastic skill, proportion, and action. they are, at any rate, very individual: there are no other doors at all like them. they are the work of bishop bernward. unquestionably, one of the greatest achievements in bronze of any age is the pair of gates by lorenzo ghiberti on the baptistery in florence. twenty-one years were devoted to their making, by ghiberti and his assistants, with the stipulation that all figures in the design were to be personal work of the master, the assistants only attending to secondary details. the doors were in place in april, . [illustration: brunelleschi's competitive panel] the competition for the baptistery doors reads like a romance, and is familiar to most people who know anything of historic art. when the young ghiberti heard that the competition was open to all, he determined to go to florence and work for the prize; in his own words: "when my friends wrote to me that the governors of the baptistery were sending for masters whose skill in bronze working they wished to prove, and that from all italian lands many maestri were coming, to place themselves in this strife of talent, i could no longer forbear, and asked leave of sig. malatesta, who let me depart." the result of the competition is also given in ghiberti's words: "the palm of victory was conceded to me by all judges, and by those who competed with me. universally all the glory was given to me without any exception." [illustration: ghiberti's competitive panel] symonds considers the first gate a supreme accomplishment in bronze casting, but criticizes the other, and usually more admired gate, as "overstepping the limits that separate sculpture from painting," by "massing together figures in multitudes at three and sometimes four distances. he tried to make a place in bas-relief for perspective." sir joshua reynolds finds fault with ghiberti, also, for working at variance with the severity of sculptural treatment, by distributing small figures in a spacious landscape framework. it was not really in accordance with the limitations of his material to treat a bronze casting as ghiberti treated it, and his example has led many men of inferior genius astray, although there is no use in denying that ghiberti himself was clever enough to defy the usual standards and rules. fonts were sometimes made in bronze. there is such a one at liege cast by lambert patras, which stands upon twelve oxen. it is decorated with reliefs from the gospels. this artist, patras, was a native of dinant, and lived in the twelfth century. the bronze font in hildesheim is among the most interesting late romanesque examples in germany. it is a large deep basin entirely covered with enrichment of scriptural scenes, and is supported by four kneeling figures, typical of the four rivers of paradise. the conical cover is also covered with scriptural scenes, and surmounted by a foliate knob. among the figures with which the font is covered are the cardinal virtues, flanked by their patron saints. didron considers this a most important piece of bronze from an iconographic point of view theologically and poetically. the archaic qualities of the figures are fascinating and sometimes diverting. in the scene of the baptism of christ the water is positively trained to flow upwards in pyramidal form, in order to reach nearly to the waist, while at either side it recedes to the ground level again,--it has an ingenuous and almost startling suddenness in the rising of its flood! an interesting comment upon the prevalence of early national forms may be deduced, when one observes that on the table, at the last supper, there lies a perfectly shaped pretzel! the great bronze column constructed by st. bernward at hildesheim has the life of christ represented in consecutive scenes in a spiral form, like those ornamenting the column of trajan. down by bernward's grave there is a spring which is said to cure cripples and rheumatics. peasants visit hildesheim on saints' days in order to drink of it, and frequently, after one of these visitations, crutches are found abandoned near by. saxony was famous for its bronze founders, and work was sent forth, from this country, in the twelfth century, all over europe. [illustration: font at hildesheim, th century] orcagna's tabernacle at or san michele is, as symonds has expressed it, "a monumental jewel," and "an epitome of the minor arts of mediæval italy." on it one sees bas-relief carving, intaglios, statuettes, mosaic, the lapidary's art in agate; enamels, and gilded glass, and yet all in good taste and harmony. the sculpture is properly subordinated to the architectonic principle, and one can understand how it is not only the work of a goldsmith, but of a painter. of all bronze workers, perhaps peter vischer is the best known and is certainly one of the best deserving of his wide fame. peter vischer was born about the same time as quentin matsys, between and . he was the most important metal worker in germany. he and adam kraft, of whom mention will be made when we come to deal with sculptural carving, were brought up together as boys, and "when older boys, went with one another on all holidays, acting still as though they were apprentices together." vischer's normal expression was in gothic form. his first design for the wonderful shrine of st. sebald in nuremberg was made by him in , and is still preserved in vienna. it is a pure late-gothic canopy, and i cannot help regretting that the execution was delayed until popular taste demanded more concession towards the renaissance, and it was resolved in , "to have the shrine of st. sebald made of brass." therefore, although the general lines continue to hold a gothic semblance, the shrine has many renaissance features. regret, however, is almost morbid, in relation to such a perfect work of art. italian feeling is evident throughout, and the wealth of detail in figures and foliate forms is magnificent. the centre of interest is the little portrait statuette of peter vischer himself, according to his biographer, "as he looked, and as he daily went about and worked in the foundry." though peter had not been to italy himself, his son hermann had visited the historic land, and had brought home "artistic things that he sketched and drew, which delighted his old father, and were of great use to his brothers." peter vischer had three sons, who all followed him in the craft. his workshop must have been an ideal institution in its line. some remnants of gothic grotesque fancy are to be seen on the shrine, although treated outwardly with renaissance feeling. a realistic life-sized mouse may be seen in one place, just as if it had run out to inspect the work; and the numbers of little tipsy "putti" who disport themselves in all attitudes, in perilous positions on narrow ledges, are full of merry humour. the metal of st. sebald's shrine is left as it came from the casting, and owes much of its charm to the lack of filing, polishing, and pointing usual in such monuments. the molten living expression is retained. only the details and spirit of the figures are renaissance; the gothic plan is hardly disturbed, and the whole monument is pleasing in proportion. the figures are exquisite, especially that of st. peter. [illustration: portrait statuette of peter vischer] a great renaissance work in germany was the grille of the rathaus made for nuremberg by peter vischer the younger. it was of bronze, the symmetrical diapered form of the open work part being supported by chaste and dignified columns of the corinthian order. it was first designed by peter vischer the elder, and revised and changed by the whole family after hermann's return from rome with his renaissance notions. it was sold in to a merchant for old metal; later it was traced to the south of france, where it disappeared. another famous bronze of nuremberg is the well-known "goose man" fountain, by labenwolf. every traveller has seen the quaint half-foolish little man, as he stands there holding his two geese who politely turn away their heads in order to produce the streams of water! with the best bronzes, and with steel used for decorative purposes, the original casting has frequently been only for general form, the whole of the surface finishing being done with a shaping tool, by hand, giving the appearance of a carving in bronze or steel. in japanese bronzes this is particularly felt. the classical bronzes were evidently perfect mosaics of different colours, in metal. pliny tells of a bronze figure of a dying woman, who was represented as having changed colour at the extremities, the fusion of the different shades of bronze being disguised by anklets, bracelets, and a necklace! a curious and very disagreeable work of art, we should say. one sometimes sees in antique fragments ivory or silver eyeballs, and hair and eyelashes made separately in thin strips and coils of metal; while occasionally the depression of the edge of the lips is sufficient to give rise to the opinion that a thin veneer of copper was applied to give colour. the bronze effigies of henry iii. and eleanor, at westminster, were the work of a goldsmith, master william torel, and are therefore finer in quality and are in some respects superior to the average casting in bronze. torel worked at the palace, and the statues were cast in "cire perdue" process, being executed in the churchyard itself. they are considered among the finest bronzes of the period extant. gilding and enamel were often used in bronze effigies. splendid bronzes, cast each in a single flow, are the recumbent figures of two bishops at amiens; they are of the thirteenth century. ruskin says: "they are the only two bronze tombs of her men of the great ages left in france." an old document speaks of the "moulds and imagines" which were in use for casting effigy portraits, in . another good english bronze is that of richard beauchamp at warwick, the work of thomas stevens, which has been alluded to. in westminster abbey, the effigy of aymer de valence, dating from , is of copper, but it is not cast; it is of beaten metal, and is enamelled, probably at limoges. bells and cannon are among the objects of actual utility which were cast in bronze. statues as a rule came later. in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in england, bronze was used to such an extent, that one authority suggested that it should be called the "age of bronze." primitive bells were made of cast iron riveted together: one of these is at the cologne museum, and the irish bells were largely of this description. a great bell was presented to the cathedral of chartres in , by a donor named jean, which affords little clue to his personality. this bell weighed over two tons. there is considerable interest attaching to the subject of the making of bells in the middle ages. even in domestic life bells played quite a part; it was the custom to ring a bell when the bath was ready and to announce meals, as well as to summon the servitors. church bells, both large and small, were in use in england by , according to bede. they were also carried by missionaries; those good saints, patrick and cuthbert, announced their coming like town criers! the shrine of st. patrick's bell has been already described. bells used to be regarded with a superstitious awe, and were supposed to have the ability to dispel evil spirits, which were exorcised with "bell, book, and candle." the bell of st. patrick, inside the great shrine, is composed of two pieces of sheet iron, one of which forms the face, and being turned over the top, descends about half-way down the other side, where it meets the second sheet. both are bent along the edges so as to form the sides of the bell, and they are both secured by rivets. a rude handle is similarly attached to the top. a quaint account is given by the monk of st. gall about a bell ordered by charlemagne. charlemagne having admired the tone of a certain bell, the founder, named tancho, said to him: "lord emperor, give orders that a great weight of copper be brought to me that i may refine it, and instead of tin give me as much silver as i need,--a hundred pounds at least,--and i will cast such a bell for you that this will seem dumb in comparison to it." charlemagne ordered the required amount of silver to be sent to the founder, who was, however, a great knave. he did not use the silver at all, but, laying it aside for his own use, he employed tin as usual in the bell, knowing that it would make a very fair tone, and counting on the emperor's not observing the difference. the emperor was glad when it was ready to be heard, and ordered it to be hung, and the clapper attached. "that was soon done," says the chronicler, "and then the warden of the church, the attendants, and even the boys of the place, tried, one after the other, to make the bell sound. but all was in vain; and so at last the knavish maker of the bell came up, seized the rope, and pulled at the bell. when, lo! and behold! down from on high came the brazen mass; fell on the very head of the cheating brass founder; killed him on the spot; and passed straight through his carcase and crashed to the ground.... when the aforementioned weight of silver was found, charles ordered it to be distributed among the poorest servants of the palace." there is record of bronze bells in valencia as early as , and an ancient mortar was found near monzon, in the ruins of a castle which had formerly belonged to the arabs. round the edge of this mortar was the inscription: "complete blessing, and ever increasing happiness and prosperity of every kind and an elevated and happy social position for its owner." the mortar was richly ornamented. at croyland, abbot egebric "caused to be made two great bells which he named bartholomew and bethelmus, two of middle size, called turketul and tatwyn, and two lesser, pega and bega." also at croyland were placed "two little bells which fergus the brass worker of st. botolph's had lately given," in the church tower, "until better times," when the monks expressed a hope that they should improve all their buildings and appointments. oil that dropped from the framework on which church bells were hung was regarded in florence as a panacea for various ailments. people who suffered from certain complaints were rubbed with this oil, and fully believed that it helped them. the curfew bell was a famous institution; but the name was not originally applied to the bell itself. this leads to another curious bit of domestic metal. the popular idea of a curfew is that of a bell; a bell was undoubtedly rung at the curfew hour, and was called by its name; but the actual curfew (or _couvre feu_) was an article made of copper, shaped not unlike a deep "blower," which was used in order to extinguish the fire when the bell rang. there are a few specimens in england of these curious covers: they stood about ten to fifteen inches high, with a handle at the top, and closed in on three sides, open at the back. the embers were shovelled close to the back of the hearth, and the curfew, with the open side against the back of the chimney, was placed over them, thus excluding all air. horace walpole owned, at strawberry hill, a famous old curfew, in copper, elaborately decorated with vines and the york rose. [illustration: a copper "curfew"] [illustration: sanctuary knocker, durham cathedral] the sanctuary knocker at durham cathedral is an important example of bronze work, probably of the same age as the cathedral door on which it is fastened. they both date from about the eleventh century. ever since , in the episcopate of cynewulf, criminals were allowed to claim sanctuary in durham. when this knocker was sounded, the door was opened, by two porters who had their accommodations always in two little chambers over the door, and for a certain length of time the criminal was under the protection of the church. in speaking of the properties of lead, the old english bartholomew says: "of uncleanness of impure brimstone, lead hath a manner of neshness, and smircheth his hand who toucheth it... a man may wipe off the uncleanness, but always it is lead, although it seemeth silver." weather vanes, made often of lead, were sometimes quite elaborate. one of the most important pieces of lead work in art is the figure of an angel on the chewet of ste. chapelle in paris. originally this figure was intended to be so controlled by clockwork that it would turn around once in the course of the twenty-four hours, so that his attitude of benediction should be directed to all four quarters of the city; but this was not practicable, and the angel is stationary. the cock on the weather vane at winchester was described as early as the tenth century, in the life of st. swithin, by the scribe walstan. he calls it "a cock of elegant form, and all resplendent and shining with gold who occupies the summit of the tower. he regards the world from on high, he commands all the country. before him extend the stars of the north, and all the constellations of the zodiac. under his superb feet he holds the sceptre of the law, and he sees under him all the people of winchester. the other cocks are humble subjects of this one, whom they see thus raised in mid-air above them: he scorns the winds, that bring the rains, and, turning, he presents to them his back. the terrible efforts of the tempest do not annoy him, he receives with courage either snow or lightning, alone he watches the sun as it sets and dips into the ocean: and it is he who gives it its first salute on its rising again. the traveller who sees him afar off, fixes on him his gaze; forgetting the road he has still to follow, he forgets his fatigues: he advances with renewed ardour. while he is in reality a long way from the end, his eyes deceive him, and he thinks that he has arrived." quite a practical tribute to a weather cock! the fact that leaden roofs were placed on all churches and monastic buildings in the middle ages, accounts in part for their utter destruction in case of fire; for it is easy to see how impossible it would be to enter a building in order to save anything, if, to the terror of flames, were added the horror of a leaden shower of molten metal proceeding from every part of the roof at once! if a church once caught fire, that was its end, as a rule. the invention of clocks, on the principle of cog-wheels and weights, is attributed to a monk, named gerbert, who died in . he had been instructor to king robert, and was made bishop of rheims, later becoming pope sylvester ii. clocks at first were large affairs in public places. portable clocks were said to have been first made by carovage, in . [illustration: anglo saxon crucifix of lead] an interesting specimen of mediæval clock work is the old dijon time keeper, which still performs its office, and which is a privilege to watch at high noon. twelve times the bell is struck: first by a man, who turns decorously with his hammer, and then by a woman, who does the same. this staunch couple have worked for their living for many centuries. froissart alludes to this clock, saying: "the duke of burgundy caused to be carried away from the market place at courtray a clock that struck the hours, one of the finest which could be found on either side of the sea: and he conveyed it by pieces in carts, and the bell also, which clock was brought and carted into the town of dijon, in burgundy, where it was deposited and put up, and there strikes the twenty-four hours between day and night." this was in , and there is no knowing how long the clock may have performed its functions in courtray prior to its removal to dijon. the great clock at nuremberg shows a procession of the seven electors, who come out of one door, pass in front of the throne, each turning and doing obeisance, and pass on through another door. it is quite imposing, at noon, to watch this procession repeated twelve times. the clock is called the mannleinlauffen. in the statutes of francis i., there is a clause stating that clockmakers as well as goldsmiths were authorized to employ in their work gold, silver, and all other materials. in wells cathedral is a curious clock, on which is a figure of a monarch, like charles i., seated above the bell, which he kicks with his heels when the hour comes round. he is popularly known as "jack blandiver." this clock came originally from glastonbury. on the hour a little tournament takes place, a race of little mounted knights rushing out in circles and charging each other vigorously. pugin regrets the meaningless designs used by early victorian clock makers. he calls attention to the fact that "it is not unusual to cast a roman warrior in a flying chariot, round one of the wheels of which on close inspection the hours may be descried; or the whole front of a cathedral church reduced to a few inches in height, with the clock face occupying the position of a magnificent rose window!" this is not overdrawn; taste has suffered many vicissitudes in the course of time, but we hope that the future will hold more beauty for us in the familiar articles of the household than have prevailed at some periods in the past. chapter v tapestry a study of textiles is often subdivided into tapestry, carpet-weaving, mechanical weaving of fabrics of a lighter weight, and embroidery. these headings are useful to observe in our researches in the mediæval processes connected with the loom and the needle. tapestry, as we popularly think of it, in great rectangular wall-hangings with rather florid figures from scriptural scenes, commonly dates from the sixteenth century or later, so that it is out of our scope to study its manufacture on an extensive scale. but there are earlier tapestries, much more restrained in design, and more interesting and frequently more beautiful. of these earlier works there is less profusion, for the examples are rare and precious, and seldom come into the market nowadays. the later looms were of course more prolific as the technical facilities increased. but a study of the craft as it began gives one all that is necessary for a proper appreciation of the art of tapestry weaving. the earliest european work with which we have to concern ourselves is the bayeux tapestry. although this is really needlework, it is usually treated as tapestry, and there seems to be no special reason for departing from the custom. some authorities state that the bayeux tapestry was made by the empress matilda, daughter of henry i., while others consider it the achievement of queen matilda, the wife of william the conqueror. she is recorded to have sat quietly awaiting her lord's coming while she embroidered this quaint souvenir of his prowess in conquest. a veritable mediæval penelope, it is claimed that she directed her ladies in this work, which is thoroughly saxon in feeling and costuming. it is undoubtedly the most interesting remaining piece of needlework of the eleventh century, and it would be delightful if one could believe the legend of its construction. its attribution to queen matilda is very generally doubted by those who have devoted much thought to the subject. mr. frank rede fowke gives it as his opinion, based on a number of arguments too long to quote in this place, that the tapestry was not made by queen matilda, but was ordered by bishop odo as an ornament for the nave of bayeux cathedral, and was executed by norman craftsmen in that city. dr. rock also favours the theory that it was worked by order of bishop odo. odo was a brother of william the conqueror and might easily have been interested in preserving so important a record of the battle of hastings. dr. rock states that the tradition that queen matilda executed the tapestry did not arise at all until . the work is on linen, executed in worsteds. fowke gives the length as two hundred and thirty feet, while it is only nineteen inches wide,--a long narrow strip of embroidery, in many colours on a cream white ground. in all, there are six hundred and twenty-three figures, besides two hundred horses and dogs, five hundred and five animals, thirty-seven buildings, forty-one ships, forty-nine trees, making in all the astonishing number of one thousand five hundred and twelve objects! the colours are in varying shades of blue, green, red and yellow worsted. the colours are used as a child employs crayons; just as they come to hand. when a needleful of one thread was used up, the next was taken, apparently quite irrespective of the colour or shade. thus, a green horse will be seen standing on red legs, and a red horse will sport a blue stocking! mr. j. l. hayes believes that these varicoloured animals are planned purposely: that two legs of a green horse are rendered in red on the further side, to indicate perspective, the same principle accounting for two blue legs on a yellow horse! [illustration: detail, bayeux tapestry] the buildings are drawn in a very primitive way, without consideration for size or proportion. the solid part of the embroidery is couched on, while much of the work is only rendered in outline. but the spirited little figures are full of action, and suggest those in the celebrated utrecht psalter. sometimes one figure will be as high as the whole width of the material, while again, the people will be tiny. in the scene representing the burial of edward the confessor, in westminster abbey, the roof of the church is several inches lower than the bier which is borne on the shoulders of men nearly as tall as the tower! the naïve treatment of details is delicious. harold, when about to embark, steps with bare legs into the tide: the water is laid out in the form of a hill of waves, in order to indicate that it gets deeper later on. it might serve as an illustration of the red sea humping up for the benefit of the israelites! the curious little stunted figure with a bald head, in the group of the conference of messengers, would appear to be an abortive attempt to portray a person at some distance--he is drawn much smaller than the others to suggest that he is quite out of hearing! this seems to have been the only attempt at rendering the sense of perspective. then comes a mysterious little lady in a kind of shrine, to whom a clerk is making curious advances; to the casual observer it would appear that the gentleman is patting her on the cheek, but we are informed by thierry that this represents an embroideress, and that the clerk is in the act of ordering the bayeux tapestry itself! conjecture is swamped concerning the real intention of this group, and no certain diagnosis has ever been pronounced! the countess of wilton sees in this group "a female in a sort of porch, with a clergyman in the act of pronouncing a benediction upon her!" every one to his taste. a little farther on there is another unexplained figure: that of a man with his feet crossed, swinging joyously on a rope from the top of a tower. soon after the crowning of harold, may be seen a crowd of people gazing at an astronomic phenomenon which has been described by an old chronicler as a "hairy star." it is recorded as "a blazing starre" such as "never appears but as a prognostic of afterclaps," and again, as "dreadful to be seen, with bloudie haires, and all over rough and shagged at the top." another author complacently explains that comets "were made to the end that the ethereal regions might not be more void of monsters than the ocean is of whales and other great thieving fish!" a very literal interpretation of this "hairy star" has been here embroidered, carefully fitted out with cog-wheels and all the paraphernalia of a conventional mediæval comet. in the scenes dealing with the preparation of the army and the arrangement of their food, there occurs the lassooing of an ox; the amount of action concentrated in this group is really wonderful. the ox, springing clear of the ground, with all his legs gathered up under him, turns his horned head, which is set on an unduly long neck, for the purpose of inspecting his pursuers. no better origin for the ancient tradition of the cow who jumped over the moon could be adduced. and what shall we say of the acrobatic antics of leofwine and gyrth when meeting their deaths in battle? these warriors are turning elaborate handsprings in their last moments, while horses are represented as performing such somersaults that they are practically inverted. in the border of this part of the tapestry, soldiers are seen stripping off the coats of mail from the dead warriors on the battle-field; this they do by turning the tunic inside out and pulling it off at the head, and the resulting attitudes of the victims are quaint and realistic in the extreme! the border has been appropriately described as "a layer of dead men." in the tenth and eleventh centuries one of the regular petitions in the litany was "from the fury of the normans good lord deliver us." the bayeux tapestry was designated, in , as "the noblest monument in the world relating to our old english history." it has passed through most trying vicissitudes, having been used in war time as a canvas covering to a transport wagon, among other experiences. for centuries this precious treasure was neglected and not understood. in his "tour" m. ducarel states: "the priests... to whom we addressed ourselves for a sight of this remarkable piece of antiquity, knew nothing of it; the circumstance only of its being annually hung up in their church led them to understand what we wanted, no person then knowing that the object of our inquiries any ways related to the conqueror." this was in the nineteenth century. anglo-saxon women spent much of their time in embroidering. edith, queen of edward the confessor, was quite noted for her needlework, which was sometimes used to decorate the state robes of the king. formerly there existed at ely cathedral a work very like the bayeux tapestry, recording the deeds of the heroic brihtnoth, the east saxon, who was slain in , fighting the danish forces. his wife rendered his history in needlework, and presented it to ely. unhappily there are no remains of this interesting monument now existing. the nearest thing to the bayeux tapestry in general texture and style is perhaps a twelfth century work in the cathedral at gerona, a little over four yards square, which is worked in crewels on linen, and is ornamented with scenes of an oriental and primitive character, taken mainly from the story of genesis. these tapestries come under the head of needlework. the tapestries made on looms proceed upon a different principle, and are woven instead of embroidered. two kinds of looms were used under varying conditions in different places; high warp looms, or _haute lisse_, and low warp looms, known as _basse lisse_. the general method of making tapestries on a high warp loom has been much the same for many centuries. the warp is stretched vertically in two sets, every other thread being first forward and then back in the setting. m. lacordaire, late director of the gobelins, writes as follows: "the workman takes a spindle filled with worsted or silk... he stops off the weft thread and fastens it to the warp, to the left of the space to be occupied by the colour he has in hand; then, by passing his left hand between the back and the front threads, he separates those that are to be covered with colours; with his right hand, having passed it through the same threads, he reaches to the left side, for the spindle which he brings back to the right; his left hand, then, seizing hold of the warp, brings the back threads to the front, while the right hand thrusts the spindle back to the point whence it started." when a new colour is to be introduced, the artist takes a new shuttle. he fastens his thread on the wrong side of the tapestry (the side on which he works) and repeats the process just described on the strings stretched up and down before him, like harp strings; the work is commenced at the lower part, and worked upwards, so that, when this strictly "hand weaving" is accomplished, it may be crowded down into place by means of a kind of ivory comb, so adjusted that the teeth fit between the warp threads. in tapestry weaving, the warp could be of any inferior but strong thread, for, by the nature of the work, only the woof was visible, the warp being quite hidden and incorporated into the texture under the close lying stitches which met and dove-tailed over it. the worker on a low loom does not see the right side of the work at all, unless he lifts the loom, which is a difficult undertaking. on a high loom, it is only necessary for the worker to go around to the front in order to see exactly what he is doing. the design is put below the work, however, in a low loom, and the work is thus practically traced as the tapestry proceeds. on account of the limitations of the human arm in reaching, the low warp tapestry requires more seams than does that made on the "haute lisse" loom, the pieces being individually smaller. one whole division of the workmen in tapestry establishments used to be known as the "fine drawers," whose whole duty was to join the different pieces together, and also to repair worn tapestries, inserting new stitches for restorations. tapestry repairing was a necessary craft; at rheims some tapestries were restored by jacquemire de bergeres; these hangings had been "much damaged by dogs, rats, mice, and other beasts." it is not stated where they had been hung! high warp looms have been known in europe certainly since the ninth century. there is an order extant, from the bishop of auxerre, who died in , for some "carpets for his church." in the monks of saumur were manufacturing tapestries. beautiful textiles had been used to ornament the church of st. denis as early as , but there is no proof that these were actually tapestries. there is a legend that in a tapestry establishment existed in the district between tours and poitiers. at beauvais, too, the weavers of arras were settled at the time of the norman ravages. king dagobert was a mediæval patron of arts in france. he had the walls of st. denis (which he built) hung with rich tapestries set with pearls and wrought with gold. at the monastery of st. florent, at saumur in , the monks wove tapestries, using floral and animal forms in their designs. at poitiers there was quite a flourishing factory as early as . tapestry was probably first made in france, to any considerable extent, then, in the ninth century. the historian of the monastery of saumur tells us an interesting incident in connection with the works there. the abbot of st. florent had placed a magnificent order for "curtains, canopies, hangings, bench covers, and other ornaments,... and he caused to be, made two pieces of tapestry of large size and admirable quality, representing elephants." while these were about to be commenced, the aforesaid abbot was called away on a journey. the ecclesiastic who remained issued a command that the tapestries should be made with a woof different from that which they habitually used. "well," said they, "in the absence of the good abbot we will not discontinue our employment; but as you thwart us, we shall make quite a different kind of fabric." so they deliberately set to work to make square carpets with silver lions on a red ground, with a red and white border of various animals! abbot william was fortunately pleased with the result, and used lions interchangeably with elephants thereafter in his decorations. at the ninth century tapestry manufactory in poitiers, an amusing correspondence took place between the count of poitou and an italian bishop, in . poitou was at that time noted for its fine breed of mules. the italian bishop wrote to ask the count to send him one mule and one tapestry,--as he expressed it, "both equally marvellous." the count replied with spirit: "i cannot send you what you ask, because for a mule to merit the epithet _marvellous_, he would have to have horns, or three tails, or five legs, and this i should not be able to find. i shall have to content myself with sending you the best that i can procure!" in the abbey of croyland, in england, owned "two large foot cloths woven with lions, to be laid before the high altar on great festivals, and two shorter ones trailed all over with flowers, for the feast days of the apostles." under church auspices in the twelfth century, the tapestry industry rose to its most splendid perfection. when the secular looms were started, the original beauty of the work was retained for a considerable time; in the tenth century german craftsmen worked as individuals, independently of guilds or organizations. in the thirteenth century the work was in a flourishing condition in france, where both looms were in use. the upright loom is still used at the gobelin factory. as an adjunct to the stained glass windows in churches, there never was a texture more harmonious than good mediæval tapestry. in the best tapestries in france were made by the church exclusively; in king rené of anjou bequeathed a magnificent tapestry in twenty-seven subjects representing the apocalypse, to "the church of monsieur st. maurice," at angers. although tapestry was made in larger quantities during the renaissance, the mediæval designs are better adapted to the material. the royal chambers of the kings of england were hung with tapestry, and it was the designated duty of the chamberlain to see to such adornment. in there is mention of a special artist in tapestry, who lived near winchester; his name was sewald, and he was further known as "le tapenyr," which, according to m. g. thomson, signifies tapestrier. one is led to believe that tapestries were used as church adornments before they were introduced into dwellings; for it was said, when queen eleanor of castile had her bedroom hung with tapestries, that "it was like a church." at westminster, a writer of alludes to the "cloths of arras which adorn the choir." sets of tapestries to hang entire apartments were known as "hallings." among the tapestries which belonged to charles v. was one "worked with towers, fallow bucks and does, to put over the king's boat." among early recorded tapestries are those mentioned in the inventory of philip the bold, in , while that of philip the good tells of his specimens, in . nothing can well be imagined more charming than the description of a tapestried chamber in ; the room being finished in white was decorated with paroquets and damsels playing harps. this work was accomplished for the duchess of bavaria by the tapestry maker, jean of florence. flanders tapestry was famous in the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. arras particularly was the town celebrated for the beauty of its work. this famous manufactory was founded prior to , as there is mention of work of that period. before the town became known as arras, while it still retained its original name, nomenticum, the weavers were famous who worked there. in a. d. the woven cloaks of nomenticum were spoken of by flavius vopiscus. the earliest record of genuine arras tapestry occurs in an order from the countess of artois in , when she directs her receiver "de faire faire six tapis à arras." among the craftsmen at arras in was a saracen, named jehan de croisètes, and in there was a worker by the name of huwart wallois. several of its workmen emigrated to lille, in the fifteenth century, among them one simon lamoury and another, jehan de rausart. in the council chamber of ypres was ornamented with splendid tapestries by françois de wechter, who designed them, and had them executed by arras workmen. the van eycks and memlinc also designed tapestries, and there is no doubt that the art would have continued to show a more consistent regard for the demands of the material if raphael had never executed his brilliant cartoons. the effort to be raphaelesque ruined the effect of many a noble piece of technique, after that. in a body of ten craftsmen formed a corporation in paris. the names of several workmen at lille have been handed down to us. in jehan orghet is recorded, and in , willaume, a high-warp worker. penalties for false work were extreme. one of the best known workers in france was bataille, who was closely followed by one dourdain. [illustration: flemish tapestry, "the prodigal son"] a famous arras tapestry was made in by a weaver of the name of michel bernard. it measured over two hundred and eighty-five square yards, and represented the battle of roosebecke. at this time a tapestry worker lived, named jehanne aghehe, one of the first attested women's names in connection with this art. in the treasury of the church of douai there is mention of three cushions made of high loom tapestry presented in by "la demoiselle englise." it is not known who this young lady may have been. france and flanders made the most desirable tapestries in the fourteenth century. in italy the art had little vogue until the fifteenth. very little tapestry was made in spain in the middle ages,--the earliest well known maker was named gutierrez, in the time of philip iv. the picture by velasquez, known as "the weavers," represents the interior of his manufactory. a table cloth in mediæval times was called a "carpett:" these were often very ornate, and it is useful to know that their use was not for floor covering, for the inventories often mention "carpetts" worked with pearls and silver tissue, which would have been singularly inappropriate. the arabs introduced the art of carpet weaving into spain. an oriental, edrisi, writing in the twelfth century, says that such carpets were made at that time in alicante, as could not be produced elsewhere, owing to certain qualities in both air and water which greatly benefited the wool used in their manufacture. in the travels of jean lagrange, the author says that all carpets of smyrna and caramania are woven by women. as soon as a girl can hold a shuttle, they stretch cords between two trees, to make a warp, and then they give her all colours of wools, and leave her to her own devices. they tell her, "it is for you to make your own dowry." then, according to the inborn art instinct of the child, she begins her carpet. naturally, traditions and association with others engaged in the same pursuit assist in the scheme and arrangement; usually the carpet is not finished until she is old enough to marry. "then," continues lagrange, "two masters, two purchasers, present themselves; the one carries off a carpet, and the other a wife." edward ii.. of england owned a tapestry probably of english make, described as "a green hanging of wool wove with figures of kings and earls upon it." there was a roistering britisher called john le tappistere, who was complained of by certain people near oxford, as having seized master john of shoreditch, and assaulted and imprisoned him, confiscating his goods and charging him fifty pounds for ransom. it is not stated what the gentleman from shoreditch had done thus to bring down upon him the wrath of john the weaver! english weavers had rather the reputation of being fighters: in one george le tapicier murdered john le dextre of leicester; while giles de la hyde also slew thomas tapicier in . possibly these rows occurred on account of a practical infringement upon the manufacturing rights of others as set down in the rules of the company. there was a woman in finch lane who produced tapestry, with a cotton back, "after the manner of the works of arras:" this was considered a dishonest business, and the work was ordered to be burnt. roger van der weyden designed a set of tapestries representing the history of herkinbald, the stern uncle who, with his own hand, beheaded his nephew for wronging a young woman. upon his death-bed, herkinbald refused to confess this act as a sin, claiming the murder to have been justifiable and a positive virtue. apparently the higher powers were on his side, too, for, when the priest refused the eucharist to the impertinent herkinbald, it is related that the host descended by a miracle and entered the lips of the dying man. a dramatic story, of which van der weyden made the most, in designing his wonderfully decorative tapestries. the originals were lost, but similar copies remain. as early as tapestries were executed in oudenardes; usually these were composed of green foliage, and known as "verdures." in time the names "verdure" and "oudenarde" became interchangeably associated with this class of tapestry. they represented woodland and hunting scenes, and were also called "tapestry verde," and are alluded to by chaucer. curious symbolic subjects were often used: for instance, for a set of hangings for a banquet hall, what could be more whimsically appropriate than the representation of "dinner," giving a feast to "good company," while "banquet" and "maladies" attack the guests! this scene is followed by the arrest of "souper" and "banquet" by "experience," who condemns them both to die for their cruel treatment of the feasters! there is an old poem written by a monk of chester, named bradshaw, in which a large hall decorated with tapestries is described as follows: "all herbs and flowers, fair and sweet, were strawed in halls, and layd under their feet; cloths of gold, and arras were hanged on the wall, depainted with pictures and stories manifold well wrought and craftely." a set of tapestries was made by some of the monks of troyes, who worked upon the high loom, displaying scenes from the life of the magdalen. this task was evidently not devoid of the lighter elements, for in the bill, the good brothers made charge for such wine as they drank "when they consulted together in regard to the life of the saint in question!" among the most interesting tapestries are those representing scenes from the wars of troy, in south kensington. they are crowded with detail, and in this respect exhibit most satisfactorily the beauties of the craft, which is enhanced by small intricacies, and rendered less impressive when treated in broad masses of unrelieved woven colour. another magnificent set, bearing similar characteristics, is the history of clovis at rheims. there is a fascinating set of english tapestries representing the seasons, at hatfield: these were probably woven at barcheston. the detail of minute animal and vegetable forms--the flora and fauna, as it were in worsted--are unique for their conscientious finish. they almost amount to catalogues of plants and beasts. the one which displays summer is a herbal and a noah's ark turned loose about a full-sized classical deity, who presides in the centre of the composition. among english makers of tapestries was a workman named john bakes, who was paid the magnificent sum of twelve pence a day, while in an entry in another document he is said to have received only fourpence daily. the hunting tapestries belonging to the duke of devonshire are as perfect specimens as any that exist of the best period of the art. they are represented in colour in w. g. thomson's admirable work on tapestries, and are thus available to most readers in some public collection. another splendidly decorative specimen is at hampton court, being a series of the seven deadly sins. they measure about twenty-five by thirteen feet each, and are worked in heavy wools and silks. as technical facility developed, certain weaknesses began to show themselves. tapestry weavers had their favourite figures, which, to save themselves trouble, they would often substitute for others in the original design. arras tapestries were no longer made in the sixteenth century, and the best work of that time was accomplished in the netherlands. about brussels probably stood at the head of the list of cities famous for the production of these costly textiles. the raphael tapestries were made there, by peter van aelst, under the order of pope leo x. they were executed in the space of four years, being finished in , only a year before raphael's death. in the sixteenth century the brussels workers began to make certain "short cuts" not quite legitimate in an art of the highest standing, such as touching up the faces with liquid dyes, and using the same to enhance the effect after the work was finished. a law was passed that this must not be done on any tapestry worth more than twelve pence a yard. in spite of this trickery, the netherlandish tapestries led all others in popularity in that century. it was almost invariable, especially in flemish work, to treat scriptural subjects as dressed in the costume of the period in which the tapestry happened to be made. when one sees the prodigal son attired in a delightful flemish costume of a well-appointed dandy, and adam presented to god the father, both being clothed in netherlandish garments suitable for burgomasters of the sixteenth century, then we can believe that the following description, quoted by the countess of wilton, is hardly overdrawn. "in a corner of the apartment stood a bed, the tapestry of which was enwrought with gaudy colours, representing adam and eve in the garden of eden.... adam was presenting our first mother with a large yellow apple gathered from a tree which scarcely reached his knee.... to the left of eve appeared a church, and a dark robed gentleman holding something in his hand which looked like a pin cushion, but doubtless was intended for a book; he seemed pointing to the holy edifice, as if reminding them that they were not yet married! on the ground lay the rib, out of which eve, who stood a head higher than adam, had been formed: both of them were very respectably clothed in the ancient saxon costume; even the angel wore breeches, which, being blue, contrasted well with his flaming red wings." in france, the leading tapestry works were at tours in the early sixteenth century. a flemish weaver, jean duval, started the work there in . until he and his three sons laboured together with great results, and they left a large number of craftsmen to follow in their footsteps. in italy the art had almost died out in the early sixteenth century, but revived in full and florid force under the raphaelesque influence. king rené of anjou collected tapestries so assiduously that the care and repairing of them occupied the whole time of a staff of workers, who were employed steadily, living in the palace, and sleeping at night in the various apartments in which the hangings were especially costly. queen jeanne, the mother of henri iv., was a skilled worker in tapestry. to quote miss freer in the life of jeanne d'albret, "during the hours which the queen allowed herself for relaxation, she worked tapestry and discoursed with some one of the learned men whom she protected." this queen was of an active mental calibre and one to whom physical repose was most repugnant. she was a regular and pious attendant at church, but sitting still was torture to her, and listening to the droning sermons put her to sleep. so, with a courage to be admired, jeanne "demanded permission from the synod to work tapestry during the sermon. this request was granted; from thenceforth queen jeanne, bending decorously over her tapestry frame, and busy with her needle, gave due attention." the chateau of blois, during the reign of louis xii. and ann of brittany, is described as being regally appointed with tapestries: "those which were hung in the apartments of the king and queen," says the chronicler, "were all full of gold; and the tapestries and embroideries of cloth of gold and of silk had others beneath them ornamented with personages and histories as those were above. indeed, there was so great a number of rich tapestries, velvet carpets, and bed coverings, of gold and silk, that there was not a chamber, hall, or wardrobe, that was not full." in an inventory of the princess of burgundy there occurs this curious description of a tapestry: "the three tapestries of the church militant, wrought in gold, whereon may be seen represented god almighty seated in majesty, and around him many cardinals, and below him many princes who present to him a church." household luxury in england is indicated by a quaint writer in : "in noblemen's houses," he says, "it is not rare to see abundance of arras, rich hangings, of tapestrie... turkie wood, pewter, brasse, and fine linen.... in times past the costly furniture stayed there, whereas now it is discarded yet lower, even unto the inferior artificers, and many farmers... have for the most part learned to garnish their beds with tapestries and hangings, and their tables with carpetts and fine napery." henry viii. was devoted to tapestry collecting, also. an agent who was buying for him in the netherlands in , wrote to the king: "i have made a stay in my hands of two hundred ells of goodly tapestry; there hath not been brought this twenty year eny so good for the price." henry viii. had in his large collection many subjects, among them such characteristic pieces as: "ten peeces of the rich story of king david" (in which bathsheba doubtless played an important part), "seven peeces of the stories of ladies," "a peece with a man and woman and a flagon," "a peece of verdure... having poppinjays at the nether corners," "one peece of susannah," "six fine new tapestries of the history of helena and paris." a set of six "verdure" tapestries was owned by cardinal wolsey, which "served for the hanging of durham hall of inferior days." the hangings in a hall in chester are described as depicting "adam, noe, and his shyppe." in a monk of canterbury was mentioned as a tapestry weaver. at york, norwich, and other cities, were also to be found "arras workers" during the sixteenth century. there was an amusing law suit in , which was brought by a gentleman, charles lister, against one mrs. bridges, for accepting from him, on the understanding of an engagement in marriage, a suite of tapestries for her apartment. he sued for the return of his gifts! among the state papers of james i., there is a letter in which the king remarks "sir francis crane desires to know if my baby will have him to-hasten the making of that suite of tapestry that he commanded him." in florence, the art flourished under the medici. in a regular academy of instruction in tapestry weaving was set up, under the direction of flemish masters. all the leading artists of the golden age furnished designs which, though frequently inappropriate for being rendered in textile, were fine pictures, at any rate. in venice, too, there were work shops, but the influence of italy was flemish in every case so far as technical instruction was concerned. the most celebrated artists of the renaissance made cartoons: raphael, giulio romano, jouvenet, le brun, and numerous others, in various countries. [illustration: tapestry, representing paris in the th century] the gobelins work in paris was inaugurated in the fifteenth century under jean gobelins, a native of rheims. his son, philibert, and later, many descendants persevered steadily at the work; the art prospered under francis i., the whole force of tapestry weavers being brought together at fontainebleau, and under henry ii., the direction of the whole was given to the celebrated artist philibert delorme. in the gobelins was fully established as a larger plant, and has never made another move. the work has increased ever since those days, on much the same general lines. celebrated french artists have designed tapestries: watteau, boucher, and others were interpreted by the brilliant manager whose signature appears on the works, cozette, who was manager from until . with this technical perfection came the death of the art of tapestry: the pictures might as well have been painted on canvas, and all feeling for the material was lost, so that the naïve charm of the original workers ceased to be a part of the production. among european collections now visible, the best is in madrid, where over six hundred tapestries may be seen, chiefly flemish, of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. the collection at the pitti palace in florence comprises six hundred, while in the vatican are preserved the original raphael tapestries. south kensington museum, too, is rich in interesting examples of various schools. it is a very helpful collection to students, especially, although not so large as some others. in , "two well intended statutes" were introduced dealing with curiously opposite matters: one was to encourage linen and tapestry manufacture in england, and the other was "for regulating the packing of herrings!" the famous english mortlake tapestry manufactory was not established until the seventeenth century, and that is rather late for us. the progress of craftsmanship has been steady, especially at the gobelins in france. many other centres of industry developed, however, in various countries. the study of modern tapestry is a branch by itself with which we are unable to concern ourselves now. chapter vi embroideries the materials used as groundwork for mediæval embroideries were rich in themselves. samit was the favourite--shimmering, and woven originally of solid flat gold wire. ciclatoun was also a brilliant textile, as also was cendal. cendal silk is spoken of by early writers. the first use of silk is interesting to trace. a monopoly, a veritable silk trust, was established in , in the roman empire. women were employed at the court of justinian to preside over the looms, and the manufacture of silk was not allowed elsewhere. the only hindrance to this scheme was that the silk itself had to be brought from china. but in the reign of justinian, two monks who had been travelling in the orient, brought to the emperor, as curiosities, some silkworms and cocoons. they obtained some long hollow walking sticks, which they packed full of silkworms' eggs, and thus imported the producers of the raw material. the european silk industry, in fabrics, embroideries, velvets, and such commodities, may owe its origin to this bit of monastic enterprise in . silk garments were very costly, however, and it was not every lady in early times who could have such luxuries. it is said that even the emperor aurelian refused his wife her request for just one single cloak of silk, saying: "no, i could never think of buying such a thing, for it sells for its weight in gold!" fustian and taffeta were less costly, but frequently used in important work, as also were sarcenet and camora. velvet and satin were of later date, not occurring until the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. baudekin, a good silk and golden weave, was very popular. cut velvets with elaborate patterns were made in genoa. the process consisted in leaving the main ground in the original fine rib which resulted from weaving, while in the pattern these little ribs were split open, making that part of a different ply from the rest of the material, in fact, being the finished velvet as we now know it, while the ground remained uncut, and had more the appearance of silk reps. velvet is first mentioned in england in , but probably existed earlier on the continent. both roger de wendover and matthew paris mention a stuff called "imperial:" it was partly gold in weave, but there is some doubt as to its actual texture. baudekin was a very costly textile of gold and silk which was used largely in altar coverings and hangings, such as dossals; by degrees the name became synonymous with "baldichin," and in italy the whole altar canopy is still called a _baldachino_. during royal progresses the streets were always hung with rich cloth of gold. as chaucer makes allusion to streets "by ordinance throughout the city large hanged with cloth of gold, and not with serge," so leland tells how the queen of henry vii. was conducted to her coronation and "all the stretes through which she should pass were clenely dressed... with cloths of tapestry and arras, and some stretes, as cheepe, hanged with rich cloths of gold, velvetts, and silks." and in machyn's diary, he says that "as late as at bow church in london, was hangyd with cloth of gold and with rich arras." the word "satin" is derived from the silks of the mediterranean, called "aceytuni," which became "zetani" in italian, and gradually changed through french and english influence, to "satin." the first mention of it in england is about , when bishop grandison made a gift of choice satins to exeter cathedral. the dalmatic of charlemagne is embroidered on blue satin, although this is a rare early example of the material. at constantinople, also, as early as , baldwin ii. wore satin at his coronation. it was nearly always made in a fiery red in the early days. it is mentioned in a welsh poem of the thirteenth century. benjamin of tudela, a traveller who wrote in , mentions that the jews were living in great numbers in thebes, and that they made silks there at that time. there is record that in the late eleventh century a norman abbot brought home from apulia a quantity of heavy and fine silk, from which four copes were made. french silks were not remarkable until the sixteenth century, while those of the netherlands led all others as early as the thirteenth. shot silks were popular in england in the sixteenth century. york cathedral possessed, in , a "vestment of changeable taffety for good friday." st. dunstan is reported to have once "tinted" a sacerdotal vestment to oblige a lady, thus departing from his regular occupation as goldsmith to perform the office of a dyer of stuff. many rich mediæval textiles were ornamented by designs, which usually show interlaces and animal forms, and sometimes conventional floral ornament. patterns originated in the east, and, through byzantine influence, in italy, and saracenic in spain, they were adopted and modified by europeans. in st. paul's in london owned a hanging "patterned with wheels and two-headed birds." sicilian silks, and many others of the contemporary textiles, display variations of the "tree of life" pattern. this consists of a little conventional shrub, sometimes hardly more than a "budding rod," with two birds or animals advancing vis-à-vis on either side. sometimes these are two peacocks; often lions or leopards and frequently griffins and various smaller animals. whenever one sees a little tree or a single stalk, no matter how conventionally treated, with a couple of matched animals strutting up to each other on either side, this pattern owes its origin to the old tradition of the decorative motive usual in persia and in byzantium, the tree of life, or horn. the origin of patterns does not come within our scope, and has been excellently treated in the various books of lewis day, and other writers on this subject. textiles of italian manufacture may be seen represented in the paintings of the old masters: orcagna, francia, crivelli, and others, who delighted in the rendering of rich stuffs; later, they abound in the creations of veronese and titian. a "favourite italian vegetable," as dr. rock quaintly expresses it, is the artichoke, which, often, set in oval forms, is either outlined or worked solidly in the fabric. almeria was a rich city in the thirteenth century, noted for its textiles. a historian of that period writes: "christians of all nations came to its port to buy and to sell. from thence... they travelled to other parts of the interior of the country, where they loaded their vessels with such goods as they wanted. costly silken robes of the brightest colours are manufactured in almeria." granada was famous too, a little later, for its silks and woven goods. about navagiero wrote: "all sorts of cloth and silks are made there: the silks made at granada are much esteemed all over spain; they are not so good as those that come from italy. there are several looms, but they do not yet know how to work them well. they make good taffetas, sarcenet, and silk serges. the velvets are not bad, but those that are made at valencia are better in quality." marco polo says of the persians in certain sections; "there are excellent artificers in the cities, who make wonderful things in gold, silk, and embroidery.... in veins of the mountains stones are found, commonly called turquoises, and other jewels. there also are made all sorts of arms and ammunition for war, and by the women excellent needlework in silks, with all sorts of creatures very admirably wrought therein." marco polo also reports the king of tartary as wearing on his birthday a most precious garment of gold, while his barons wore the same, and had given them girdles of gold and silver, and "pearls and garments of great price." this khan also "has the tenths of all wool, silk, and hemp, which he causes to be made into clothes, in a house for that purpose appointed: for all trades are bound one day in the week to serve him." he clothed his armies with this tythe wool. in anglo-saxon times a fabric composed of fine basket-weaving of thin flat strips of pure gold was used; sometimes the flat metal was woven on a warp of scarlet silk threads. later strips of gilded parchment were fraudulently substituted for the genuine flat metal thread. often the woof of gold strips was so solid and heavy that it was necessary to have a silk warp of six strands, to support its wear. gold cloth was of varying excellence, however: among the items in an inventory for the earl of warwick in the time of henry vi., there is allusion to "one coat for my lord's body, beat with fine gold; two coats for heralds, beat with demi-gold." it is generally assumed that the first wire-drawing machines were made about in germany; they were not used in england until about . theophilus, however, in the eleventh century, tells "of the instruments through which wires are drawn," saying that they consist of "two irons, three fingers in breadth, narrow above and below, everywhere thin, and perforated with three or four ranges, through which holes wires are drawn." this would seem to be a primitive form of the more developed instrument. wire drawing was introduced into england by christian schutz about . in was incorporated in london, "the worshipful company of gold and silver wire-drawers." the preamble of their charter reads thus: "the trade art of drawing and flattening of gold and silver wire, and making and spinning of gold and silver thread and stuffe." it seems as though there were some kind of work that corresponded to wire-drawing, earlier than its supposed introduction, for a petition was sent to king henry vi. in , by the "wise and worthy communes of london, & the wardens of broderie in the said citie," requesting protection against "deceit and default in the work of divers persons occupying the craft of embroidery;" and in "an act of common council was passed respecting the gold-drawers," showing that the art was known to some extent and practised at that time. in the reign of george ii., in , "an act to prevent the counterfeiting of gold and silver lace and for the settling and adjusting the proportions of fine silver and silk, and for the better making of gold and silver lace," was passed. ecclesiastical vestments were often trimmed with heavy gold fringe, knotted "fretty wise," and the embroideries were further enriched with jewels and small plaques of enamel. matthew paris relates a circumstance of certain garments being so heavily weighted with gold that the clergy could not walk in them, and, in order to get the solid metal out again, it was necessary to burn the garments and thus melt the gold. jewelled robes were often seen in the middle ages; a chasuble is described as having been made for the abbot of st. albans, in the twelfth century, which was practically covered with plaques of gold and precious stones. imagine the unpleasant physical sensation of a bishop in , who was obliged to wear a golden mitre of which the ground was set with large pearls, bordered with balas rubies, and sapphires, and trimmed with indefinite extra pearls! the body of st. cecilia, who was martyred in , was interred in a garment of pure woven gold. the cloth of solid gold which was used for state occasions was called "tissue;" the thin paper in which it was wrapped when it was laid away was known as tissue paper, and mr. william maskell states that the name has clung to it, and that is why thin paper is called "tissue paper" to-day. st. peter's in rome possessed a great pair of silver curtains, which hung at the entrance to the church, given by pope stephen iv. in the eighth century. vitruvius tells how to preserve the gold in old embroidery, or in worn-out textiles where the metal has been extensively used. he says: "when gold is embroidered on a garment which is worn out, and no longer fit for use, the cloth is burnt over the fire in earthen pots. the ashes are thrown into water, and quicksilver added to them. this collects all particles of gold, and unites with them. the water is then poured off, and the residuum placed in a cloth, which, when squeezed with the hands suffers the liquid quicksilver to pass through the pores of the cloth, but retains the gold in a mass within it." an early allusion to asbestos woven as a cloth is made by marco polo, showing that fire-proof fabrics were known in his time. in the province of chinchintalas, "there is a mountain wherein are mines of steel... and also, as was reported, salamanders, of the wool of which cloth was made, which if cast into the fire, cannot burn. but that cloth is in reality made of stone in this manner, as one of my companions a turk, named curifar, a man endued with singular industry, informed me, who had charge of the minerals in that province. a certain mineral is found in that mountain which yields threads not unlike wool; and these being dried in the sun, are bruised in a brazen mortar, and afterwards washed, and whatsoever earthy substance sticks to them is taken away. lastly, these threads are spun like ordinary wool, and woven into cloth. and when they would whiten those cloths, they cast them into the fire for an hour, and then take them out unhurt whiter than snow. after the same manner they cleanse them when they have taken any spots, for no other washing is used to them, besides the fire." in the middle ages it would have been possible, as lady alford suggests, to play the game "animal, vegetable, or mineral" with textiles only! between silk, hemp, cotton, gold, silver, wool, flax, camel's hair, and asbestos, surely the three elements all played their parts. since the first record of eve having "sewn fig leaves together to make aprons," women have used the needle in some form. in england, it is said that the first needles were made by an indian, in , before which time they were imported. the old play, "gammer gurton's needle," is based upon the extreme rarity of these domestic implements, and the calamity occasioned in a family by their loss. there is a curious old story about a needle, which was supposed to possess magic powers. this needle is reported to have worked at night while its owner was resting, saving her all personal responsibility about her mending. when the old lady finally died, another owner claimed this charmed needle, and began at once to test its powers. but, do what she would, she was unable to force a thread through its obstinate eye. at last, after trying all possible means to thread the needle, she took a magnifying glass to examine and see what the impediment was, and, lo! the eye of the needle was filled with a great tear,--it was weeping for the loss of its old mistress, and no one was ever able to thread it again! embroidery is usually regarded as strictly a woman's craft, but in the middle ages the leading needleworkers were often men. the old list of names given by louis farcy has almost an equal proportion of workers of both sexes. but the finest work was certainly accomplished by the conscientious dwellers in cloisters, and the nuns devoted their vast leisure in those days to this art. fuller observes: "nunneries were also good shee-schools, wherein the girls of the neighbourhood were taught to read and work... that the sharpnesse of their wits and suddennesse of their conceits (which even their enemies must allow unto them!) might by education be improved into a judicious solidity." in some of these schools the curriculum included "reading and sewing, threepence a week: a penny extra for manners." an old thirteenth century work, called the "kleine heldenbuch," contains a verse which may be thus translated: "who taught me to embroider in a frame with silk? and to draw and design the wild and tame beasts of the forest and field? also to picture on plain surface: round about to place golden borders, a narrow and a broader one, with stags and hinds lifelike." a study of historic embroidery should be preceded by a general knowledge of the principle stitches employed. one of the simplest forms was chain stitch, in which one stitch was taken through the loop of the stitch just laid. in the middle ages it was often used. sometimes, when the material was of a loose weave, it was executed by means of a little hook--the probable origin of crochet. tapestry stitch, of which one branch is cross-stitch, was formed by laying close single stitches of uniform size upon a canvas specially prepared for this work. [illustration: embroidery on canvas, th century, south kensington museum] fine embroidery in silk was usually executed in long smooth stitches of irregular length, which merged into each other. this is generally known as satin stitch, for the surface of the work is that of a satin texture when the work is completed. this was frequently executed upon linen, and then, when the entire surface had been hidden by the close silk stitches, it was cut out and transferred on a brocade background, this style of rendering being known as appliqué. botticelli recommended this work as most durable and satisfactory: it is oftenest associated with church embroidery. a simple appliqué was also done by cutting out pieces of one material and applying them to another, hiding the edge-joinings by couching on a cord. as an improvement upon painted banners to be used in processions, botticelli introduced this method of cutting out and resetting colours upon a different ground. as vasari says: "this he did that the colors might not sink through, showing the tint of the cloth on each side." but dr. rock points out that it is hardly fair to earlier artificers to give the entire credit for this method of work to botticelli, since such cut work or appliqué was practised in italy a hundred years before botticelli was born! sometimes solid masses of silk or gold thread were laid in ordered flatness upon a material, and then sewn to it by long or short stitches at right angles. this is known as couching, and is a very effective way of economizing material by displaying it all on the surface. as a rule, however, the surface wears off somewhat, but it is possible to execute it so that it is as durable as embroidery which has been rendered in separate stitches. in sicily it was a common practice to use coral in embroideries as well as pearls. coral work is usually called sicilian work, though it was also sometimes executed in spain. the garments worn by the byzantines were very ornate; they were made of woven silk and covered with elaborate devices. in the fourth century the bishop of amasia ridiculed the extravagant dress of his contemporaries. "when men appear in the streets thus dressed," he says, "the passers by look at them as at painted walls. their clothes are pictures, which little children point out to one another. the saintlier sort wear likenesses of christ, the marriage of galilee, and lazarus raised from the dead." allusion was made in a sermon: "persons who arrayed themselves like painted walls" "with beasts and flowers all over them" were denounced! in the early dark ages there was some prejudice against these rich embroideries. in the sixth century the bishop st. cesaire of arles forbade his nuns to embroider robes with precious stones or painting and flowers. king withaf of mercia willed to the abbey of croyland "my purple mantle which i wore at my coronation, to be made into a cope, to be used by those who minister at the holy altar: and also my golden veil, embroidered with the siege of troy, to be hung up in the church on my anniversary." st. asterius preached to his people, "strive to follow in your lives the teachings of the gospel, rather than have the miracles of our redeemer embroidered on your outward dress!" this prejudice, however, was not long lived, and the embroidered vestments and garments continued to hold their popularity all through the middle ages and the renaissance. it has been said on grave authority that "woman is an animal that delights in the toilette," while petrarch, in , recognized the power of fashion over its votaries. "who can see with patience," he writes, "the monstrous fantastical inventions which people of our times have invented to deform rather than adorn their persons? who can behold without indignation their long pointed shoes, their caps with feathers, their hair twisted and hanging down like tails,... their bellies so cruelly squeezed with cords that they suffer as much pain from vanity as the martyrs suffered for religion!" and yet who shall say whether a "dress-reform" laura would have charmed any more surely the eye of the poet? chaucer, in england, also deplores the fashions of his day, alluding to the "sinful costly array of clothing, namely, in too much superfluity or else indisordinate scantiness!" changing fashions have always been the despair of writers who have tried to lay down rules for æsthetic effect in dress. "an englishman," says harrison, "endeavouring some time to write of our attire... when he saw what a difficult piece of work he had taken in hand, he gave over his travail, and onely drue a picture of a naked man unto whom he gave a pair of shears in the one hand and a piece of cloth in the other, to the end that he should shape his apparel after such fashion as himself liked, sith he could find no garment that could please him any while together: and this he called an englishman." edward the confessor wore state robes which had been beautifully embroidered with gold by his accomplished wife, edgitha. in the royal rolls of edward iii., in , we find allusion to two vests of green velvet embroidered respectively with sea sirens and coats of arms. the tunics worn over armour offered great opportunities to the needleworker. they were richly embroidered, usually in heraldic style. when symon, bishop of ely, performed the ceremony of churching for queen philippa, the royal dame bestowed upon him the gown which she wore on that occasion; it is described as a murrey-coloured velvet, powdered with golden squirrels, and was of such voluminous pattern that it was cut over into three copes! bridal gowns were sometimes given to churches, as well. st. louis of france was what might be called temperate in dress. the sire de joinville says he "never saw a single embroidered coat or ornamented saddle in the possession of the king, and reproved his son for having such things. i replied that he would have acted better if he had given them in charity, and had his dress made of good sendal, lined and strengthened with his arms, like as the king his father had done!" at the marriage of the lord of touraine in , the duke of burgundy presented magnificent habits and clothing to his nephew the count of nevers: among these were tunics, ornamented with embroidered trees conventionally displayed on their backs, fronts, and sleeves; others showed heraldic blazonry, while a blue velvet tunic was covered with balas rubies set in pearls, alternating with suns of solid gold with great solitaire pearls as centres. again, in , when the king visited dijon, he presented to the same nephew a set of harnesses for jousting. some of them were composed largely of sheets of beaten gold and silver. in some gold and silver marguerites were introduced also. savonarola reproved the florentine nuns for employing their valuable time in manufacturing "gold laces with which to adorn persons and houses." the florentine gold lace was very popular in england, in the days of henry viii., and later the art was taken up by the "wire-drawers" of england, and a native industry took the place of the imported article. among prohibited gowns in florence was one owned by donna francesca degli albizi, "a black mantle of raised cloth: the ground is yellow, and over it are woven birds, parrots, butterflies, red and white roses, and many figures in vermilion and green, with pavilions and dragons, and yellow and black letters and trees, and many other figures of various colours, the whole lined with cloth in hues of black and vermilion." as one reads this description, it seems as though the artistic sense as much as conscientious scruples might have revolted and led to its banishment! costumes for tournaments were also lavish in their splendour. in benedetto salutati ordered made for such a pageant all the trappings for two horses, worked in two hundred pounds of silver by pollajuolo; thirty pounds of pearls were also used to trim the garments of the sergeants. no wonder savonarola was enthusiastic in his denunciation of such extravagance. henry viii. had "a pair of hose of purple silk and venice gold, woven like a caul." for one of his favoured lady friends, also, there is an item, of a certain sum paid, for one pound of gold for embroidering a nightgown. the unrivalled excellence of english woollen cloths was made manifest at an early period. there was a fabric produced at norwich of such superiority that a law was passed prohibiting monks from wearing it, the reason being that it was considered "smart enough for military men!" this was in . the name of worsted was given to a certain wool because it was made at worsted, a town in norfolk; later the "worsted thread" was sold for needleworkers. ladies made their own gold thread in the middle ages by winding a fine flat gold wire, scarcely of more body than a foil, around a silk thread. patches were embroidered into place upon such clothes or vestments as were torn: those who did this work were as well recognized as the original designers, and were called "healers" of clothes! embroidered bed hangings were very much in order in mediæval times in england. in the eleventh century there lived a woman who had emigrated from the hebrides, and who had the reputation for witchcraft, chiefly based upon the unusually exquisite needlework on her bed curtains! the name of this reputed sorceress was thergunna. bequests in important wills indicate the sumptuous styles which were usual among people of position. the fair maid of kent left to her son her "new bed curtains of red velvet, embroidered with ostrich feathers of silver, and heads of leopards of gold," while in the earl of march bequeathed his "large bed of black satin embroidered with white lions and gold roses, and the escutcheons of the arms of mortimer and ulster." this outfit must have resembled a parisian "first class" funeral! the widow of henry ii. slept in a sort of mourning couch of black velvet, which must have made her feel as if she too were laid out for her own burial! a child's bedquilt was found mentioned in an inventory of furniture at the priory of durham, in , which was embroidered in the four corners with the evangelistic symbols. in the "squier of lowe degree," a fifteenth century romance, there is allusion to a bed, of which the head sheet is described "with diamonds set and rubies bright." the king of england, in , refers, in a letter, to "a bed of gold cloth." wall hangings in bedrooms were also most elaborate, and the effect of a chamber adorned with gold and needlework must have been fairly regal. an embroiderer named delobel made a set of furnishings for the bedroom of louis xiv. the work upon which occupied three years. the subject was the triumph of venus. in south kensington museum there is a fourteenth century linen cloth of german workmanship, upon which occurs the legend of the unicorn, running for protection to a maiden. an old bestiary describes how the unicorn, or as it is there called, the "monocerus," "is an animal which has one horn on its head: it is caught by means of a virgin." the unicorn and virgin, with a hunter in pursuit, is quite a favourite bit of symbolism in the middle ages. another interesting piece of german embroidery in south kensington is a table cloth, worked on heavy canvas, in heraldic style: long decorative inscriptions embellish the corners. a liberal translation of these verses is given by dr. rock, some of the sentences being quaint and interesting to quote. evidently the embroideress indulged in autobiography in the following: "and she, to honour the esquire her husband, wished to adorn and increase his house furniture, and there has worked, with her own hand, this and still many other pretty cloths, to her memory." and in another corner, "now follows here my own birthday. when one wrote my mother's heart was gladdened by my first cry. in the year i gave birth my self to a daughter. her name is emilia catharina, and she has been a proper and praiseworthy child." then, to her children the following address is directed: "do not forget your prayers in the morning. and be temperate in your pleasures. and make yourselves acquainted with the word of god.... i beseech you to be sincere in all matters. that will make you great and glorious. honour everybody according to his station: it will make you honourably known. you, my truly beloved sons, beware of fiery wines... you, my truly beloved daughters, preserve and guard your honour, and reflect before you do anything: many have been led into evil by acting first and thinking afterwards." in another compartment, a lament goes up in which she deplores the death of her husband. "his age was sixty and eight years," she says. "the dropsy has killed him. i, his afflicted anna blickin von liechtenperg who was left behind, have related it with my hand in this cloth, that might be known to my children this greater sorrow which god has sent me." the cloth is a naïve and unusual record of german home life. ecclesiastical embroidery began in the fourth century. in earliest days the work was enhanced with quantities of gold thread. the shroud in which st. cuthbert's body was wrapped is a mass of gold: a latin inscription on the vestments in which the body was clad may be thus translated: "queen to alfred's son and successor, edward the elder, was one aelflaed, who caused this stole and maniple to be made for a gift to fridestan consecrated bishop of winchester, a. d. ." the maniple is of "woven gold, with spaces left vacant for needlework embroidery." such garments for burial were not uncommon; but they have as a rule perished from their long residence underground. st. cuthbert's vestments are splendid examples of tenth century work in england. after the death of king edward ii., and his wife aelflaed, bishop frithestan also having passed away, athelstan, as king, made a pilgrimage to the shrine of st. cuthbert and bestowed these valuable embroideries there. they were removed from the body of the saint in . the style of the work inclines to byzantine. the saxon embroideries must have been very decorative: a robe is described by aldhelme in , as "of a most delicate thread of purple, adorned with black circles and peacocks." at the church at croyland some vestments were decorated with birds of gold cut out and appliqué and at exeter they had "nothing about them but true needlework." in the "liber eliensis," in the muniment room at ely, is an account of a gift to the church by queen emma, the wife of king knut, who "on a certain day came to ely in a boat, accompanied by his wife the queen emma, and the chief nobles of his kingdom." this royal present was "a purple cloth worked with gold and set with jewels for st. awdry's shrine," and the monk thomas assures us that "none other could be found in the kingdom of the english of such richness and beauty of workmanship." the various stitches in english work had their several names, the opus plumarium, or straight overlapping stitches, resembling the feathers of a bird; the opus pluvarium, or cross stitch, and many others. a great deal of work was accomplished by means of appliqué in satin and silk, and sometimes the ground was painted, as has already been described in italian work. in the year matthew paris writes: "about this time the lord pope, innocent iv., having observed that the ecclesiastical ornaments of some englishmen, such as choristers' copes and mitres, were embroidered in gold thread, after a very desirable fashion, asked where these works were made, and received in answer, 'england.' then," said the pope, "england is surely a garden of delight for us; it is truly a never failing spring, and there where many things abound much may be extorted." this far sighted pope, with his semi-commercial views, availed himself of his discovery. in the days of anastatius, ecclesiastical garments were spoken of by name according to the motive of their designs: for instance, the "peacock garment," the "elephant chasuble," and the "lion cope." fuller tells of the use of a pall as an ecclesiastical vestment, remarking tersely: "it is made up of lamb's wool and superstition." mediæval embroiderers in england got into certain habits of work, so that there are some designs which are almost as hall-marks to english work; the cherubim over the wheel is especially characteristic, as is also the vase of lilies, and various heraldic devices which are less frequently found in the embroidered work of european peoples. the syon cope is perhaps the most conspicuous example of the mediæval embroiderer's art. it was made by nuns about the end of the thirteenth century, in a convent near coventry. it is solid stitchery on a canvas ground, "wrought about with divers colours" on green. the design is laid out in a series of interlacing square forms, with rounded and barbed sides and corners. in each of these is a figure or a scriptural scene. the orphreys, or straight borders which go down both fronts of the cope, are decorated with heraldic charges. much of the embroidery is raised, and wrought in the stitch known as opus anglicanum. the effect was produced by pressing a heated metal knob into the work at such points as were to be raised. the real embroidery was executed on a flat surface, and then bossed up by this means until it looked like bas-relief. the stitches in every part run in zig-zags, the vestments, and even the nimbi about the heads, are all executed with the stitches slanting in one direction, from the centre of the cope outward, without consideration of the positions of the figures. each face is worked in circular progression outward from the centre, as well. the interlaces are of crimson, and look well on the green ground. the wheeled cherubim is well developed in the design of this famous cope, and is a pleasing decorative bit of archaic ecclesiasticism. in the central design of the crucifixion, the figure of the lord is rendered in silver on a gold ground. the anatomy is according to the rules laid down by an old sermonizer, in a book entitled "the festival," wherein it is stated that the body of christ was "drawn on the cross as a skin of parchment on a harrow, so that all his bones might be told." with such instruction, there was nothing left for the mediæval embroiderers but to render the figure with as much realistic emaciation as possible. the heraldic ornaments on the syon cope are especially interesting to all students of this graceful art. it is not our purpose here to make much allusion to this aspect of the work, but it is of general interest to know that on the orphreys, the devices of most of the noble families of that day appear. [illustration: detail of the syon cope] english embroidery fell off greatly in excellence during the wars of the roses. in the later somewhat degenerate raised embroidery, it was customary to represent the hair of angels by little tufted curls of auburn silk! many of the most important examples of ancient ecclesiastical embroidery are in south kensington museum. a pair of orphreys of the fifteenth century, of german work (probably made at cologne), shows a little choir of angels playing on musical instruments. these figures are cut out and applied on crimson silk, in what was called "cut work." this differed entirely from what modern embroiderers mean by cut work, as has been explained. the dalmatic of charlemagne is given by louis farcy to the twelfth century. he calls it the dalmatic of leo iii. but lady alford claims for this work a greater antiquity. certainly, as one studies its details, one is convinced that it is not quite a gothic work, nor yet is it byzantine; for the figures have all the grace of greek work prior to the age of byzantine stiffness. it is embroidered chiefly in gold, on a delicate bluish satin ground, and has not been transferred, although it has been carefully restored. the central ornament on the front is a circular composition, and the arrangement of the figures both here and on the back suggests that sir edward burne jones must have made a study of this magnificent dalmatic, from which it would seem that much of his inspiration might have been drawn. the composition is singularly restful and rhythmical. the little black outlines to the white silk faces, and to the glowing figures, give this work a peculiarly decorative quality, not often seen in other embroideries of the period. it is unique and one of the most valuable examples of its art in the world. it is now in the treasury of the vatican. when charlemagne sang the gospel at high mass on the day of his coronation, this was his vestment. it must have been a strangely gorgeous sight when cola di rienzi, according to lord lindsay, took this dalmatic, and placed it over his armour, and, with his crown and truncheon, ascended to the palace of the popes! a very curious italian piece of the fourteenth century is an altar frontal, on which the subjects introduced are strange. it displays scenes from the life of st. ubaldo, with some incidents also in that of st. julian hospitaler. st. ubaldo is seen forgiving a mason who, having run a wall across his private grounds, had knocked the saint down for remonstrating. another scene shows the death bed of the saint, and the conversion of a possessed man at the foot of the bed: a lady is throwing her arms above her head in astonishment while the evil spirit flies from its victim into the air. later, the saint is seen going to the grave in a cart drawn by oxen. [illustration: dalmatic of charlemagne] the peacock was symbolical both of knightly vigilance and of christian watchfulness. an old anglo-norman, osmont, writes: "the eye-speckled feathers should warn a man that never too often can he have his eyes wide open, and gaze inwardly upon his own heart." these dear people were so introspective and self-conscious, always looking for trouble--in their own motives, even--that no doubt many good impulses perished unnoticed, while the originator was chasing mental phantoms of heresy and impurity. painting and jewelry were sometimes introduced in connection with embroideries. in the celebrated cope of st. john lateran, the faces and hands of the personages are rendered in painting; but this method was more generally adopted in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when sincerity counted for less than effect, and when genuine religious fervour for giving one's time and best labour to the lord's service no longer dominated the workers. gold thread was used extensively in english work, and spangles were added at quite an early period, as well as actual jewels set in floral designs. the finest work was accomplished in the gothic period, before the renaissance came with its aimless scrolls to detract from the dignity of churchly ornament. in the sixteenth century the winged angels have often a degenerate similitude to tightly laced coryphées, who balance themselves upon their wheels as if they were performing a vaudeville turn. they are not as dignified as their archaic predecessors. very rich funeral palls were in vogue in the sixteenth century. a description of prince arthur's burial in relates how numerous palls were bestowed, apparently much as friends would send wreaths or important floral tributes to-day. "the lord powys went to the queere doore," writes leland, "where two gentlemen ushers delivered him a riche pall of cloth of gould of tissue, which he offered to the corpse, where two officers of the armes received it, and laid it along the corpse. the lord dudley in like manner offered a pall... the lord grey ruthen offered another, and every each of the three earls offered to the corpse three palls of the same cloth of gould... all the palls were layd crosse over the corpse." the account of the obsequies of henry vii. also contains mention of these funeral palls: the earls and dukes came in procession, from the vestry, with "certain palls, which everie of them did bring solemnly between their hands and coming in order one before another as they were in degree, unto the said herse, they kissed their said palls... and laid them upon the king's corpse." at ann of cleves' burial the same thing was repeated, in . finally these rich shimmering hangings came to be known in england as "cloth of pall," whether they were used for funerals or coronations, for bridals or pageants. the london city guilds possessed magnificent palls; especially well known is that of the fishmongers, with its kneeling angels swinging censers; this pall is frequently reproduced in works on embroidery. it is embroidered magnificently with angels, saints, and strange to say, mermaids. the peacock's wings of the angels make a most decorative feature in this famous piece of old embroidery. the arms of the company are also emblazoned. french embroiderers are known by name in many instances; in allusion was made to "clement le brodeur," who furnished a cope for the count of artois, and in a magnificent set of hangings was made for the queen, by one gautier de poulleigny. nicolas waquier was armourer and embroiderer to king john in . among court workers in were perrin gale, and henriet gautier. in the "book of rules" by etienne boileau, governing the "embroiderers and embroideresses of the city of paris," one of the chief laws was that no work should be permitted in the evening, "because the work of the night cannot be so good or so satisfactory as that accomplished in the day." when one remembers the facilities for evening lighting in the middle ages, one fully appreciates the truth of this statement. matthew paris, in his life of st. alban, tells of an excellent embroideress, christine, prioress of margate, who lived in the middle of the twelfth century. in the thirteenth century several names occur. adam de bazinge made, in , by order of henry iii. of england, a cope for the bishop of hereford. cunegonde, abbess of goss, in styria, accomplished numerous important works in that period. also, henry iii. employed jean de sumercote to make jewelled robes of state. on a certain thirteenth century chasuble are the words "penne fit me" (penne made me), pointing to the existence of a needleworker of that name. among the names of the fourteenth century are those of gautier de bruceles, renier de treit, gautier de poulogne, and jean de laon, while jean harent of calais is recorded as having worked, for mme. d'artois, in , a robe decorated "a bestelettes et a testes." these names prove that the art had been taught in many cities and countries: ogier de gant, jean de savoie, etienne le hongre, and roger de varennes, all suggest a cosmopolitan and dispersed number of workers, who finally all appeared in paris. rené d'anjou had in his employ a worker in embroidery, named pierre du villant. this artist executed a set of needlework pieces for the cathedral of angers, of such important proportions that they were known collectively as "la grande broderie." in , when they were put in place, a special mass was performed by way of a dedication. the letter which accompanied this princely donation contained the following sentences: "we, rené, by the grace of god... give... to this church... the adornments for a chapell all composd of golden embroidery, comprising five pieces" (which are enumerated) "and an altar cloth illustrated with scenes from the passion of our saviour.... given in our castle in angers, the fourth day of march, . rené." [illustration: embroidery, th century, cologne] in another altar frontal was presented. two other rich chapels were endowed by rené. one was known as la chapelle joyeuse, and the other as la grande chapelle des trépassés. it is likely that the same embroiderer executed the pieces of all these. a guild of embroiderers was in standing in seville in , where ordinances were enforced to protect from fraud and otherwise to regulate this industry. the same laws were in existence in toledo. one of the finest and largest pieces of embroidery in spain is known as the tent of ferdinand and isabella. this was used in , when certain english ambassadors were entertained. the following is their description of its use. "after the tilting was over, the majesties returned to the palace, and took the ambassadors with them, and entered a large room... and there they sat under a rich cloth of state of crimson velvet, richly embroidered, with the arms of castile and aragon." a curious effect must have been produced by a piece of embroidery described in the inventory of charles v., as "two little pillows with savage beasts having the heads of armed men, and garnished with pearls." after the reformation it became customary to use ecclesiastical ornaments for domestic purposes. heylin, in his "history of the reformation," makes mention of many "private men's parlours" which "were hung with altar cloths, and their tables and beds covered with copes instead of carpetts and coverlids." katherine of aragon, while the wife of henry viii., consoled herself in her unsatisfactory life by needlework: it is related that she and her ladies "occupied themselves working with their own hands something wrought in needlework, costly and artificially, which she intended to the honour of god to bestow upon some churches." katherine of aragon was such a devoted needlewoman, in fact, that on one occasion burnet records that she stepped out to speak to two ambassadors, with a skein of silk about her neck, and explained that she had been embroidering with her ladies when they were announced. in an old sonnet she is thus commemorated: "she to the eighth king henry married was and afterwards divorced, when virtuously, although a queen, yet she her days did pass in working with the needle curiously." queen elizabeth was also a clever embroiderer; she worked a book-cover for katherine parr, bearing the initials k. p., and it is now in the bodleian library at oxford. mary queen of scots was also said to be skilful with her needle; in fact it seems to have been the consolation of most queens in their restricted existence in those centuries. dr. rock considers that the "corporal" which mary queen of scots had bound about her eyes at the time of her execution, was in reality a piece of her own needle-work, probably wrought upon fine linen. knight, in describing the scene in his "picturesque history of england," says: "then the maid kennedy took a handkerchief edged with gold, in which the eucharist had formerly been enclosed, and fastened it over her eyes;" so accounts differ and traditions allow considerable scope for varied preferred interpretation. it is stated that catherine de medicis was fond of needlework, passing her evenings embroidering in silk "which was as perfect as was possible," says brantôme. anne of brittany instructed three hundred of the children of the nobles at her court, in the use of the needle. these children produced several tapestries, which were presented by the queen to various churches. the volatile countess of shrewsbury, the much married "bess of hardwick," was a good embroideress, who worked, probably, in company with the queen of scots when that unfortunate woman was under the guardianship of the earl of shrewsbury. one of these pieces is signed e. s., and dated . a form of intricate pattern embroidery in black silk on fine linen was executed in spain in the sixteenth century, and was known as "black work." viscount falkland owns some important specimens of this curious work. it was introduced into england by katherine of aragon, and became very popular, being exceedingly suitable and serviceable for personal adornment. the black was often relieved by gold or silver thread. the petit point, or single square stitch on canvas, became popular in england during the reign elizabeth. it suggested gobelins tapestry, on a small scale, when finished, although the method of execution is quite different, being needlework pure and simple. in elizabeth's time was incorporated the london company of broderers, which flourished until about the reign of charles i., when there is a complaint registered that "trade was so much decayed and grown out of use, that a great part of the company, for want of employment, were much impoverished." raised embroidery, when it was padded with cotton, was called stump work. this was made extensively by the nuns of little gidding in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. decided changes and developments took place in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in all forms of embroidery, but these are not for us to consider at present. a study of historic samples alone is most tempting, but there is no space for the intrusion of any subject much later than the renaissance. chapter vii sculpture in stone (_france and italy_) sculpture is not properly speaking the "plastic art," as is often understood. the real meaning of sculpture is work which is cut into form, whereas plastic art is work that is moulded or cast into form. terra cotta, which is afterwards baked, is plastic; and yet becomes hard; thus a tanagra figurine is an example of plastic art, while a florentine marble statuette is a product of sculpture. the two are often confounded. we shall allude to them under different heads, taking for our consideration now only such sculpture as is the result of cutting in the stone. the work of luca della robbia will not be treated as sculpture in this book. luca della robbia is a worker in plastic art, while adam kraft, hewing directly at the stone, is a sculptor. we have no occasion to study the art of the sculptor who produces actual statues; only so far as sculpture is a companion to architecture, and a decorative art, does it come within the scope of the arts and crafts. figure sculpture, then, is only considered when strictly of a monumental character. in attacking such a subject as sculpture in the middle ages it is impossible to do more than indicate the general tendencies in different countries. but there are certain defined characteristics an observance of which will make clear to any reader various fundamental principles by which it is easy to determine the approximate age and style of works. in the first place, the great general rule of treatment of stone in the north and in the south is to be mentioned. in the northern countries, france, germany, and england, the stone which was employed for buildings and their decorations was obtainable in large blocks and masses; it was what, for our purposes, we will call ordinary stone, and could be used in the solid; therefore it was possible for carving in the north to be rendered as deeply and as roundly as the sculptor desired. in southern countries, however, and chiefly in italy, the stone used for building was not ordinary, but semi-precious stone. marble, porphyry, and alabaster were available; and the use of such material led to a different ideal in architecture and decoration,--that of incrustation instead of solid piling. these valuable stones of italy could not be used, generally speaking, in vast blocks, into which the chisel was at liberty to plough as it pleased; when a mass of marble or alabaster was obtained, the æsthetic soul of the italian craftsman revolted against shutting up all that beauty of veining and texture in the confines of a solid square, of which only the two sides should ever be visible, and often only one. so he cut his precious block into slices: made slabs and shallow surfaces of it, and these he laid, as an outward adornment to his building, upon a substructure of brick or rubble. it is easy to perceive, then, the difference of the problem of the sculptors of the north and the south. the plain, solid northern building was capable of unlimited enrichment by carving; this carving, when deeply cut, with forcible projection, acted as a noble embellishment in which the principal feature was a varied play of light and shade; the stone having little charm of colour or texture in itself, depended for its beauty entirely upon its bold relief, its rounded statuary, and its well shaped chiselled ornament. the shallow surface, already beautiful, both in colour and texture, in the southern building material, called only for enrichment in low relief: ornament only slightly raised from the level or simply perforating the thin slab of glowing stone on which it was used was the more usual choice of the italian craftsman. this statement applies, of course, only to general principles of the art of sculpture; there is some flat bas-relief in the north, and some rounded sculpture in the south; but as a rule the tendencies are as they have just been outlined. another difference between sculpture in the north and south is due to the fact that in italy the work was individual, as a rule, and in france it was the labour of a guild or company. in italy it is usually known who was the author of any striking piece of sculpture, while in france it is the exception when a work is signed, or the names of artisans recorded. in italy, then, each piece was made more with a view to its own display, than as a part of a building, while in france statuary was regarded as an integral part of the architecture, and rows of figures were used as commonly as rows of columns in italy. it is tragic to think of the personal skill and brilliancy of all these great french craftsmen being absorbed in one general reputation, while there were undoubtedly among them great art personalities who would have stood equally with the pisani if they had been recognized. a good deal of flat carving, especially in the interlace and acanthus of ravenna, was accomplished by commencing with a series of drilled holes, which were afterwards channelled into each other and formed patterns. when the subsequent finish is not particularly delicate, it is quite easy to detect these symmetrical holes, but the effect, under the circumstances, is not objectionable. [illustration: carved capital from ravenna] the process of cutting a bas-relief was generally to outline the whole with an incision, and then cut away the background, leaving the simple elevated flat value, the shape of the proposed design. the modelling was then added by degrees, until the figure looked like half of a rounded object. while it is often unpractical to refer one's readers to examples of work in far and various countries, and advise them instantly to examine them, it is frequently possible to call attention to well-produced plates in certain modern art books which are in nearly every public library. to understand thoroughly the use of the drill in flat sculpture, i wish my readers would refer to fig. in mr. russell sturgis's "artist's way of working," vol. ii. in a quaint treatise on belles lettres in france nearly two centuries ago, by carlencas, the writer says: "it is to no great purpose to speak of the gothick sculptures: for everybody knows that they are the works of a rude art, formed in spite of nature and rules: sad productions of barbrous and dull spirits, which disfigure our old churches." fie on a frenchman who could so express himself! we recall the story of how viollet le duc made the people of paris appreciate the wonderful carvings on notre dame. all the rage in france was for greek and roman remains, and the people persisted in their adoration of the antique, but would not deign to look nearer home, at their great mediæval works of art. so the architect had plaster casts made of the principal figures on the cathedral, and these were treated so as to look like ancient marble statues; he then opened an exhibition, purporting to show new discoveries and excavations among antiques. the exhibition was thronged, and everyone was deeply interested, expressing the greatest admiration for the marvellously expressive sculptures. viollet le duc then admitted what he had done, and confessing that these treasures were to be found in their native city, advised them to pay more attention to the beauties of gothic art in paris. we will not enter into a discussion of the relative merits of northern and southern art; whether the great revival really originated in france or italy; but this is certain: nicolo pisano lived in the latter half of the thirteenth century, while the great sculptures of notre dame, paris, and those of chartres, were executed half a century earlier. but prior to either were the byzantine and romanesque sculptures in italy and southern france. our attention must first be turned to them. charles eliot norton's definition of this word romanesque is as satisfactory as any that could be instanced: "it very nearly corresponds to the term of romance as applied to language. it signifies the derivation of the main elements, both in plan and construction, from the works of the later roman empire. but romanesque architecture" (and this applies equally to sculpture) "was not, as it has been called, a corrupted imitation of the roman architecture, any more than the provençal or the italian language was a corrupted imitation of the latin. it was a new thing, the slowly matured product of a long period of many influences." all mediæval carving was subordinate to architecture, therefore every piece of carving was designed with a view to being suitable to appear in some special place. the most striking difference between mediæval and later sculpture is that the latter is designed as a thing apart, an object to be stood anywhere to be admired for its intrinsic merit, instead of being a functional component in a general scheme for beautifying a given building. the use of the interlace in all primitive arts is very interesting. it undoubtedly began in an unconscious imitation of local architecture. for instance, in the british isles, the building in earliest times was with wattles: practically walls of basket work. william of malmsbury says that glastonbury was "a mean structure of wattle work," while of the monastery of iona, it is related that in , columba "sent forth his monks to gather twigs to build his hospice." british baskets were famous even so far away as rome. so the first idea of ornament was to copy the interlacing forms. the same idea was worked out synchronously in metal work, and in illuminated books. carving in stone, wood, and ivory, show the same influence. debased roman sculptural forms were used in italy during the fourth and fifth centuries. then justinian introduced the byzantine which was grafted upon the roman, producing a characteristic and fascinating though barbaric combination. this was the romanesque, or romano-byzantine, in the north of italy generally being recognized as the lombard style. the sculptures of this period, from the fifth to the thirteenth century, are blunt and heavy, but full of quaint expression due to the elemental and immature conditions of the art. many of the old byzantine carvings are to be seen in italy. the lombards, when invading northern italy, brought with them a mighty smith, paul the deacon, who had much skill with the hammer. when these rude norsemen found themselves among the æsthetic treasures of byzantium, and saw the fair italian marbles, and the stately work of theodoric and justinian, they were inflamed with zeal for artistic expression, and began to hew and carve rough but spirited forms out of the pisan and carrara stones. the animals which they sculptured were, as ruskin has said, "all alive: hungry and fierce, wild, with a life-like spring." the byzantine work was quiescent: the designs formal, decent, and monumental. but the lombards threw into their work their own restless energy, and some of their cruelty and relentlessness. queen theodolinda, in her palace at monza, encouraged the arts; it was because of her appreciative comprehension of such things that st. gregory sent her the famous iron crown, of which a description has been given, on the occasion of the baptism of her son. under the influence of these subsequently civilized barbarians many of the greatest specimens of carving in north italy came into being. the most delightful little stumpy saints and sacred emblems may be found on the façade of st. michele at pavia, and also at lucca, and on the baptistery at parma. the sculptor who produced these works at parma was a very interesting craftsman, named antelami. his descent from the cross is one of the most striking pieces of early sculpture before the pisani. he lived in the twelfth century. the figures are of byzantine proportions and forms, but have a good deal of grace and suggestion of movement. among the early names known in italy is that of magister orso, of verona. another, in the ninth century, was magister pacifico, and in the twelfth there came guglielmus, who carved the charming naïve wild hunting scenes on the portal of st. zeno of verona. these reliefs represent theodoric on horseback, followed by an able company of men and horses which, according to legend, were supplied by the infernal powers. the eyes of these fugitives have much expression, being rendered with a drill, and standing out in the design as little black holes--fierce and effective. there is a fine round window at st. zeno at verona, designed and executed by one briolottus, which, intended to represent the wheel of fortune, is decorated all over with little clinging figures, some falling and some climbing, and has the motto: "i elevate some mortals and depose others: i give good or evil to all: i clothe the naked and strip the clothed: in me if any one trust he will be turned to derision." perhaps the most wonderful carvings on the church of st. zeno at verona are over the arched entrance to the crypt. these, being chiefly grotesque animal forms, are signed by adaminus. among the humourous little conceits is a couple of strutting cocks carrying between them a dead fox slung on a rod. ruskin has characterized the carvings at verona, especially those on the porch, as being among the best examples of the true function of flat decorative carving in stone. he says: "the primary condition is that the mass shall be beautifully rounded, and disposed with due discretion and order;... sculpture is essentially the production of a pleasant bossiness or roundness of surface. the pleasantness of that bossy condition to the eye is irrespective of imitation on one side, and of structure on the other." the more one considers this statement, the more he is convinced of its comprehensiveness. if the lights and shadows fall pleasantly, how little one stops to inquire, "what is the subject? do i consider that horse well proportioned, or do i not? is that woman in good drawing?" effectiveness is almost independent of detail, except as that detail affects the law of proportion. there are varying degrees of relief: from flat (where the ornament is hardly more than incised, and the background planed away) to a practically solid round figure cut almost entirely free of its ground. in venice, until the revival in the thirteenth century, the greek byzantine influence was marked. there is no more complete storehouse of the art of the east adapted to mediæval conditions than the church of st. mark's. if space permitted, nothing could be more delightful than to examine in detail these marvellous capitals and archivolts which ruskin has so lovingly immortalized for english readers. of all decorative sculpture there is none more satisfying from the ornamental point of view than the byzantine interlace and vine forms so usual in venice. the only place where these may be seen to even greater advantage is ravenna. the pierced marble screens and capitals, with their restful combinations of interlacing bands and delicate foliate forms, are nowhere surpassed. the use of the acanthus leaf conventionalized in a strictly primitive fashion characterizes most of the byzantine work in italy. with these are combined delightful stiff peacocks, and curious bunches of grapes, rosettes, and animal forms of quaint grotesqueness. such work exemplifies specially what has been said regarding the use of flat thin slabs for sculptural purposes in the south of europe. nearly all these carvings are executed in fine marbles and alabasters. the chief works of this period in the round are lions and gryphons supporting columns as at ancona and perugia, and many other italian cities. in rome there were several sculptors of the name of peter. one of them, peter amabilis, worked about ; and another, peter le orfever, went to england and worked on the tomb of edward the confessor at westminster. in bologna is an interesting crucifix probably carved in the eighth or ninth century. christ's figure is upon the cross and that of his mother stands near. the sculptor was petrus albericus. on the cross is an inscription in the form of a dialogue: "my son?" "what, mother?" "are you god?" "i am." "why do you hang on the cross?" "that mankind may not perish." the masters of stone and wood were among the early guilds and corporations of florence. charlemagne patronized this industry and helped to develop it. of craftsmen in these two branches exclusive of master builders, and recognized artists, there were, in , about a hundred and forty-six members of the guild. italy was backward for a good while in the progress of art, for while great activities were going on in the north, the doge of venice in was obliged to import artists from constantinople to decorate st. mark's church. the tombs of this early period in italy, as elsewhere, are significant and beautiful. recumbent figures, with their hands devoutly pressed together, are usually seen, lying sometimes on couches and sometimes under architectural canopies. the first great original italian sculptor of the renaissance was nicola pisano. he lived through almost the whole of the thirteenth century, being born about , and dying in . what were the early influences of nicola pisano, that helped to make him so much more more modern, more truly classic, than any of his age? in the first place, he was born at the moment when interest in ancient art was beginning to awaken; the early thirteenth century. in the campo santo of pisa may be seen two of the most potent factors in his æsthetic education, the greek sarcophagus on which was carved the hunting of meleager, and the greek urn with bacchic figures wreathing it in classic symmetry. with his mind tuned to the beautiful, the boy nioola gazed at the work of genuine pagan greek artists, who knew the sinuousness of the human form and the joy of living with no thought of the morrow. these joyous pagan elements, grafted on solemn religious surroundings and influences, combined to produce his peculiar genius. basing his early endeavours on these specimens of genuine classical greek art, there resulted his wonderful pulpits at pisa and siena, and his matchlessly graceful little madonnas denote the hellenistic sentiment for beauty. his work was a marked departure from the byzantine and romanesque work which constituted italian sculpture up to that period. an examination of his designs and methods proves his immense originality. by profession he was an architect. of his pulpit in siena charles eliot norton speaks with much appreciation. alluding to the lions used as bases to its columns, he says: "these are the first realistic representations of living animals which the mediæval revival of art has produced; and in vivacity and energy of rendering, and in the thoroughly artistic treatment of leonine spirit and form, they have never been surpassed." it is usually claimed that one may learn much of the rise of gothic sculpture by studying the models in the south kensington museum. in a foot-note to such a statement in a book edited by ruskin, the indignant editor has observed, "you cannot do anything of the kind. pisan sculpture can only be studied in the original marble: half its virtue is in the chiselling!" nicola was assisted in the work on his shrine of st. dominic at bologna by one fra guglielmo agnelli, a monk of a very pious turn, who, nevertheless, committed a curious theft, which was never discovered until his own death-bed confession. he absconded with a bone of st. dominic, which he kept for private devotions all his subsequent life! an old chronicler says, naïvely: "if piety can absolve from theft, fra guglielmo is to be praised, though never to be imitated." [illustration: pulpit of nicola pisano, pisa] andrea pisano was nicola's greatest scholar, though not his son. he took the name of his master after the mediæval custom. his work was largely in bronze, and the earlier gates of the baptistery in florence are by him. we have already alluded to the later gates by ghiberti, when speaking of bronze. andrea had the honour to teach the celebrated orcagna,--more painter than sculptor,--whose most noted work in this line was the tabernacle at or san michele. among the loveliest of the figures sculptured by the pisani are the angels standing in a group, blowing trumpets, on the pulpit at pistoja, the work of giovanni. among nicola's pupils were his son giovanni, donatello, arnolfo di cambio, and lorenzo maitani, who executed the delightful sculptures on the façade of the cathedral of orvieto,--perhaps the most interesting set of bas-reliefs in detail of the early renaissance, although in general symmetrical "bossiness" of effect, so much approved by ruskin, they are very uneven. in this respect they come rather under the head of realistic than of decorative art. lorenzo maitani was a genuine leader of his guild of craftsmen, and superintended the large body of architects who worked at orvieto, stone masons, mosaicists, bronze founders, painters, and minor workmen. he lived until , and practically devoted his life to orvieto. it is uncertain whether any of the pisani were employed in any capacity, although for a time it was popularly supposed that the four piers on the façade were their work. an iconographic description of these sculptures would occupy too much time here, but one or two features of special interest should be noted: the little portrait relief of the master maitani himself occurs on the fourth pier, among the elect in heaven, wearing his workman's cap and carrying his architect's square. only his head and shoulders can be seen at the extreme left of the second tier of sculptures. in accordance with an early tradition, that virgil was in some wise a prophet, and that he had foretold the coming of christ, he is here introduced, on the second pier, near the base, crowned with laurel. the incident of the cutting off of the servant's ear, by peter, is positively entertaining. peter is sawing away industriously at the offending member; a fisherman ought to understand a more deft use of the knife! in the scenes of the creation, depicted on the first pier, maitani has proved himself a real nature lover in the tender way he has demonstrated the joy of the birds at finding the use of their wings. the earliest sculptures in france were very rude,--it was rather a process than an art to decorate a building with carvings as the gauls did! but the latent race talent was there; as soon as the romanesque and byzantine influences were felt, a definite school of sculpture was formed in france; almost at once they seized on the best elements of the craft and abandoned the worthless, and the great note of a national art was struck in the figures at chartres, paris, rheims, and other cathedrals of the ile de france. prior to this flowering of art in northern france, the churches of the south of france developed a charming romanesque of their own, a little different from that in italy. a monk named tutilon, of the monastery of st. gall, was among the most famous sculptors of the romanesque period. another name is that of hughes, abbot of montier-en-der. at the end of the tenth century one morard, under the patronage of king robert, built and ornamented the church of st. germain des près, paris, while guillaume, an abbot at dijon, was at the head of the works of forty monasteries. guillaume probably had almost as wide an influence upon french art as st. bernward had on the german, or nicola pisano on that of italy. in metz were two noted architects, adelard and gontran, who superintended the building of fourteen churches, and an early chronicler says that the expense was so great that "the imperial treasury would scarce have sufficed for it." at arles are two of the most famous monuments of romanesque art, the porches of st. trophime, and of st. gilles. the latter exhibits almost classical feeling and influence; the former is much blunter and more byzantine; both are highly interesting for purposes of study, being elaborately ornamented with figure sculptures and other decorative motives. abbot suger, the art-craftsman par excellence of the ile de france, was the sculptor in chief of st. denis from to . this magnificent façade is harmonious in its treatment, betokening plainly that one brain conceived and carried out the plan. we have not the names of the minor architects and sculptors who were employed, but doubtless they were the scholars and followers of suger, and rendered work in a similar manner. there are some names which have been handed down from early times in normandy: one otho, another garnier, and a third, anquetil, while a crucifix carved by auquilinus of moissac was popularly believed to have been created by divine means. if one will compare the statues of st. trophime of arles with those at st. denis, it will be found that the latter are better rounded, those at st. trophime being coarsely blocked out; although at first glance one would say that there was little to choose between them. the old font at amiens is very ancient, older than the church. it is seven feet long, and stands on short square piers: it resembles a stone coffin, and was apparently so made that a grown person might be baptized by immersion, by lying at full length. angels holding scrolls are carved at its four corners, otherwise it is very plain. there is an ancient byzantine crucifix at amiens, on which the figure of our lord is fully draped, and on his head is a royal crown instead of thorns. the figure, too, is erect, as if to invite homage by its outstretched arms, instead of suggesting that the arms had to bear the weight of the body. indeed, it is a christ triumphant and regnant though crucified--a very unusual treatment of the subject in the middle ages. it was brought from the east, in all probability, by a returning warrior from the crusades. the foundation of chartres was very early: the first bishop st. aventin occupied his see as early as a. d. the early gothic type in figure sculpture is always characterized by a few features in common, though different districts produced varying forms and facial expressions. the figures are always narrow, and much elongated, from a monumental sentiment which governed the design of the period. the influence of the caryatid may have remained in the consciousness of later artists, leading them to make their figures conform so far as expedient to the proportions of the columns which stood behind them and supported them. in any case, it was considered an indispensable condition that these proportions should be maintained, and has come to be regarded as an architectural necessity. as soon as sculptors began to consider their figures as realistic representations of human beings instead of ornamental motives in their buildings, the art declined, and poor results followed. the west porch of chartres dates from the twelfth century. the church was injured by fire in . in certain restorations were made, and an old chronicle says that at that time it was quite fire-proof, remarking: "it has nothing to fear from any earthly fire from this time to the day of judgment, and will save from fires eternal the many christians who by their alms have helped in its rebuilding." the whole edifice was consecrated by st. louis on oct. , . the king gave the north porch, and several of the windows, and the whole royal family was present at this impressive function. about the time of william the conqueror it became customary to carve effigies on tombstones, at first simple figures in low relief lying on flat slabs: this idea being soon elaborated, however, into canopied tombs, which grew year by year more ornate, until gothic structures enriched with finials and crockets began to be erected in churches to such an extent that the interior of the edifice was quite filled with these dignified little buildings. in many instances it is quite impossible to obtain any view of the sanctuary except looking directly down the central aisle; the whole ambulatory is often one continuous succession of exquisite sepulchral monuments. [illustration: tomb of the son of st. louis, st. denis] perhaps the most satisfying monument of french gothic style is the tomb of the elder son of st. louis at st. denis. the majesty of the recumbent figure is striking, but the little procession of mourners about the main body of the tomb is absolutely unrivalled in art of this character. the device of little weeping figures surrounding the lower part of a tomb is also carried out in an exquisite way on the tomb of aymer de valence in westminster. some interesting saints are carved on the north portal of amiens, among others, st. ulpha, a virgin who is chiefly renowned for having lived in a chalk cave near amiens, where she was greatly annoyed by frogs. undaunted, she prayed so lustily and industriously, that she finally succeeded in silencing them! the thirteenth century revival in france was really a new birth; almost more than a renaissance. it is a question among archæologists if france was not really more original and more brilliant than italy in this respect. a glance at such figures as the virgin from the gilded portal at amiens, and another virgin from the same cathedral, will show the change which came over the spirit of art in that one city during the thirteenth century. the figure on the right door of the western façade is a work of the early part of the century. she is grave and dignified in bearing, her hand extended in favour, while the child gives the blessing in calm majesty. this figure has the spirit of a goddess receiving homage, and bestowing grace: it is conventional and monumental. the virgin from the gilded portal is of a later generation. her attention is given to the child, and her aspect is human and spirited,--almost merry. it may be said to be less religious than the other statue, but it is filled with more modern grace and charm, and glorifies the idea of happy maternity: every angle and fold of the drapery is full of life and action without being over realistic. there is much in common between this pleasing statue and the virgins of the pisani in italy. professor moore considers the statue of the virgin on the portal of the virgin at the west end of notre dame in paris as about the best example of gothic figure sculpture in france. he says further that the finest statues in portals of any age are those of the north porch at paris. the virgin here is marvellously fine also. it combines the dignity and monumental qualities of the first of the virgins at amiens, with the living buoyancy of the virgin on the gilded portal. it is the clear result of a study of nature grafted on byzantine traditions. it dates from . while sculpture was practised chiefly by monastic artists, it retained the archaic and traditional elements. when trained carvers from secular life began to take the chisel, the spirit of the world entered in. for a time this was a marked improvement: later the pendulum swung too far, and decadence set in. a favourite device on carved tympana above portals was the last judgment. michael with the scales, engaged in weighing souls, was the tall central figure, and the two depressed saucers of the scales help considerably in filling the triangular space usually left over a gothic doorway. at chartres, there is an example of this subject, in which mortal sin, typified by a devil and two toads, are being weighed against the soul of a departed hero. as is customary in such compositions, a little devil is seen pulling on the side of the scale in which he is most interested! one of the most cheerful and delightful figures at chartres is that of the very tall angel holding a sun dial, on the corner of the south tower. a certain optimistic inconsequence is his chief characteristic, as if he really believed that the hours bore more of happiness than of sorrow to the world. there is no limit to the originality and the symbolic messages of the gothic grotesques. two whole books might be written upon this subject alone to do it justice; but a few notable instances of these charming little adornments to the stern structures of the middle ages must be noticed here. the little medallions at amiens deserve some attention. they represent the virtues and vices, the follies, and other ethical qualities. some of them deal with scriptural scenes. "churlishness" is figured by a woman kicking over her cup-bearer. apropos of her attitude, ruskin observes that the final forms of french churlishness are to be discovered in the feminine gestures in the can-can. he adds: "see the favourite print shops in paris." times have certainly changed little! one of these amiens reliefs, signifying "rebellion," is that of a man snapping his fingers at his bishop! another known as "atheism" is variously interpreted. a man is seen stepping out of his shoes at the church porch. ruskin explains this as meaning that the infidel is shown in contradistinction to the faithful who is supposed to have "his feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;" but abbé roze thinks it more likely that this figure represents an unfrocked monk abandoning the church. one of these displays the beasts in nineveh, and a little squat monkey, developing into a devil, is wittily characterized by ruskin as reversing the darwinian theory. the statues above these little quatrefoils are over seven feet in height, differing slightly, and evidently portrait sculptures inspired by living models, adapted to their more austere use in this situation. a quiet and inconspicuous example of exquisite refinement in gothic bas-relief is to be seen in the medallioned "portail aux libraires" at the cathedral in rouen. this doorway was built in by jean davi, who must have been one of the first sculptors of his time. the medallions are a series of little grotesques, some of them ineffably entertaining, and others expressive of real depth of knowledge and thought. ruskin has eulogized some of these little figures: one as having in its eye "the expression which is never seen but in the eye of a dog gnawing something in jest, and preparing to start away with it." again, he detects a wonderful piece of realism and appreciative work in the face of a man who leans with his head on his hand in thought: the wrinkles pushed up under his eye are especially commended. in the south transept at amiens is a piece of elaborate sculpture in four compartments, which are the figures of many saints. there is a legend in connection with those figures: when the millers were about to select a patron saint, they agreed to choose the saint on whose head a dove, released for the purpose, should alight; but as the bird elected to settle on the head of a demon, they abandoned their plan! the figures in these carvings are almost free of the ground; they appear to be a collection of separate statuettes, the scenes being laid in three or four planes. it is not restrained bas-relief; but the effect is extremely rich. the sculptures in high relief, but in more conventional proportion than these, which occur on the dividing wall between the choir and the north aisle, are thoroughly satisfactory. they are coloured; they were executed in , and they represent scenes in the life of the baptist. in the panel where salomé is portrayed as dancing, a grave little monkey is seen watching her from under the table. the similar screen surrounding the sanctuary at paris was the work of the chief cathedral architect, jean renoy, with whom worked his nephew, jehan le bouteiller. these stone carved screens are quite usual in the ile de france. the finest are at chartres, where they go straight around the ambulatory, the whole choir being fenced in, as it were, about the apse, by this exquisite work. this screen is more effective, too, for being left in the natural colour of the stone: where these sculptures are painted, as they usually are, they suggest wood carvings, and have not as much dignity as when the stone is fully recognized. the door of st. marcel has the oldest carving on notre dame in paris. the plate representing the iron work, in chapter iv., shows the carving on this portal, which is the same that has biscornette's famous hinges. the central figure of st. marcel himself presents the saint in the act of reproving a naughty dragon which had had the indiscretion to devour the body of a rich but wicked lady. the dragon is seen issuing from the dismantled tomb of this unfortunate person. the dragon repented his act, when the saint had finished admonishing him, and showed his attachment and gratitude for thus being led in paths of rectitude, by following the saint for four miles, apparently walking much as a seal would walk, beseeching the saint to forgive him. but marcel was firm, and punished the serpent, saying to him: "go forth and inhabit the deserts or plunge thyself into the sea;" and, as st. patrick rid the celtic land of snakes, so st. marcel seems to have banished dragons from fair france. [illustration: carvings around choir ambulatory, chartres] at chartres there are eighteen hundred statues, and almost as many at amiens and at rheims and paris. one reason for the superiority of french figure sculpture in the thirteenth century, over that existing in other countries, is that the french used models. there has been preserved the sketch book of a mediæval french architect, vilard de honcourt, which is filled with studies from life: and why should we suppose him to be the only one who worked in this way? rheims cathedral is the mecca of the student of mediæval sculpture. the array of statues on the exterior is amazing, and a walk around the great structure reveals unexpected riches in corbels, gargoyles, and other grotesques, hidden at all heights, each a veritable work of art, repaying the closest study, and inviting the enthusiast to undue extravagance at a shop in the vicinity, which advertises naïvely, that it is an "artistical photograph laboratory." on the door of st. germain l'auxerrois in paris, there is a portrait statue of st. geneviève, holding a lighted candle, while "the devil in little" sits on her shoulder, exerting himself to blow it out! it is quite a droll conceit of the thirteenth century. of the leaf forms in gothic sculpture, three styles are enough to generalize about. the early work usually represented springlike leaves, clinging, half-developed, and buds. later, a more luxuriant foliage was attempted: the leaves and stalks were twisted, and the style was more like that actually seen in nature. then came an overblown period, when the leaves were positively detached, and the style was lost. the foliage was no longer integral, but was applied. there is little of the personal element to be exploited in dealing with the sculptors in the middle ages. until the days of the renaissance individual artists were scarcely recognized; master masons employed "imagers" as casually as we would employ brick-layers or plasterers; and no matter how brilliant the work, it was all included in the general term "building." the first piece of signed sculpture in france is a tympanum in the south transept at paris, representing the stoning of stephen. it is by jean de chelles, in . st. louis of france was a patron of arts, and took much interest in his sculptors. there were two jean de montereau, who carved sacred subjects in quite an extraordinary way. jean de soignoles, in , was designated as "macon et ymageur." one of the chief "imageurs," as they were called, was jacques haag, who flourished in the latter half of the fifteenth century, in amiens. this artist was imprisoned for sweating coin, but in the king pardoned him. he executed large statues for the city gates, of st. michael and st. firmin, in and . there was a sculptor in paris in the fourteenth century, one hennequin de liege, who made several tombs in black and white marble, among them that of blanche de france, and the effigy of queen philippa at westminster. it was customary both in france and england to use colour on gothic architecture. it is curious to realize that the façade of notre dame in paris was originally a great colour scheme. a literary relic, the "voyage of an armenian bishop," named martyr, in the year , alludes to the beauty of this cathedral of paris, as being ablaze with gold and colour. an old record of the screen of the chapel of st. andrew at westminster mentions that it was "adorned with curious carvings and engravings, and other imagery work of birds, flowers, cherubims, devices, mottoes, and coats of arms of many of the chief nobility painted thereon. all done at the cost of edmond kirton, abbot, who lies buried on the south side of the chapel under a plain gray marble slab." h. keepe, who wrote of westminster abbey in , mentioned the virgin over the chapter house door as being "all richly enamelled and set forth with blue, some vestigia of all which are still remaining, whereby to judge of the former splendour and beauty thereof." accounts make frequent mention of painters employed, one being "peter of spain," and another william of westminster, who was called the "king's beloved painter." king rené of anjou was an amateur of much versatility; he painted and made many illuminations: among other volumes, copies of his own works in prose and verse. aside from his personal claim to renown in the arts, he founded a school in which artists and sculptors were included. one of the chief sculptors was jean poncet, who was followed in the king's favour by his son pons poncet. poor pons was something of a back-slider, being rather dissipated; but king rené was fond of him, and gave him work to do when he was reduced to poverty. the monument to his nurse, tiphanie, at saumur, was entrusted to pons poncet. after the death of pons, the chief sculptor of the court was jacques moreau. chapter viii sculpture in stone (_england and germany_) a progressive history of english sculpture in stone could be compiled by going from church to church, and studying the tympana, over the doors, in romanesque and norman styles, and in following the works in the spandrils between the arches in early gothic work. first we find rude sculptures, not unlike those in france. the saxon work like the two low reliefs now to be seen in chichester cathedral show dug-out lines and almost flat modelling; then the norman, slightly rounded, are full of historic interest and significance, though often lacking in beauty. the two old panels alluded to, now in chichester, were supposed to have been brought from selsea cathedral, having been executed about the twelfth century. there is a good deal of byzantine feeling in them; one represents the raising of lazarus, and the other, our lord entering the house of mary and martha. the figures are long and stiff, and there is a certain quality in the treatment of draperies not unlike that in the figures at chartres. then follows the very early gothic, like the delightful little spandrils in the chapter house at salisbury, and at westminster, familiar to all travellers. they are full of life, partly through the unanatomic contortions by means of which they are made to express their emotions. often one sees elbows bent the wrong way to emphasize the gesture of denunciation, or a foot stepping quite across the instep of its mate in order to suggest speed of motion. early gothic work in england is usually bas-relief; one does not find the statue as early as in france. in william of sens went over to england, to work on canterbury cathedral, and after that french influence was felt in most of the best english work in that century. before the year there was little more than ornamented spaces, enriched by carving; after that time, figure sculpture began in earnest, and, in statues and in effigies, became a large part of the craftsmanship of the thirteenth century. the transition was gradual. first small separate heads began to obtain, as corbels, and were bracketed at the junctures of the arch-mouldings in the arcade and triforium of churches. then on the capitals little figures began to emerge from the clusters of foliage. in many cases the figures are very inferior to the faces, as if more time and study had been given to expressing emotions than to displaying form. the grotesque became very general. satire and caricature had no other vehicle in the middle ages than the carvings in and out of the buildings, for the cartoon had not yet become possible, and painting offered but a limited scope to the wit, especially in the north; in italy this outlet for humour was added to that of the sculptor. of the special examples of great figure sculpture in england the façade at wells is usually considered the most significant. the angel choir at lincoln, too, has great interest; there is real power in some of the figures, especially the angel with the flaming sword driving adam and eve from eden, and the one holding aloft a small figure,--probably typical of the creation. at salisbury, too, there is much splendid figure sculpture; it is cause for regret that the names of so few of the craftsmen have survived. wells cathedral is one of the most interesting spots in which to study english gothic sculpture. its beautiful west front is covered with tier after tier of heroes and saints; it was finished in . this is the year that cimabue was three years old; niccola pisano had lived during its building, amiens was finished forty-six years later, and orvieto was begun thirty-six years later. it is literally the earliest specimen of so advanced and complete a museum of sculpture in the west. many critics have assumed that the statues on the west front of wells were executed by foreign workmen; but there are no special characteristics of any known foreign school in these figures. messrs. prior and gardner have recently expressed their opinion that these statues, like most of the thirteenth century work in england, are of native origin. the theory is that two kinds of influence were brought to bear to create english "imagers." in the first place, goldsmiths and ivory carvers had been making figures on a small scale: their trade was gradually expanded until it reached the execution of statues for the outside ornament of buildings. the figures carved by such artists are inclined to be squat, these craftsmen having often been hampered by being obliged to accommodate their design to their material, and to treat the human figure to appear in spaces of such shapes as circles, squares, and trefoils. another class of workers who finally turned their attention to statuary, were the carvers of sepulchral slabs: these slabs had for a long time shown the effigies of the deceased. this theory accounts for both types of figures that are found in english gothic,--the extremely attenuated, and the blunt squat statues. at wells it would seem that both classes of workmen were employed, some of the statues being short and some extremely tall. they were executed, evidently, at different periods, the façade being gradually decorated, sometimes in groups of several statues, and sometimes in simple pairs. this theory, too, lends a far greater interest to the west front than the theory that it was all carried out at once, from one intentional design. st. nicholas, the patron saint of baptism, is here represented, holding a child on his arm, and standing in water up to his knees. the water, being treated in a very conventional way, coiling about the lower limbs, is so suggestive of tiers of flat discs, that it has won for this statue the popular name of "the pancake man," for he certainly looks as if he had taken up his position in the midst of a pile of pancakes, into which he had sunk. the old statue of st. hugh at lincoln is an attractive early gothic work. in he was removed from his precarious perch on the top of a stone pinnacle, and was placed more firmly afterwards. in a letter from the clerk of the works this process was described. "i must acquaint you that i took down the antient image of st. hugh, which is about six foot high, and stood upon the summit of a stone pinnacle at the south corner of the west front... and pulled down twenty-two feet of the pinnacle itself, which was ready to tumble into ruins, the shell being but six inches thick, and the ribs so much decayed that it declined visibly.... i hope to see the saint fixed upon a firmer basis before the winter." on the top of a turret opposite st. hugh is the statue of the swineherd of stowe. this personage became famous through contributing a peck of silver pennies toward the building of the cathedral. as is usually the case, the saint and the donor therefore occupy positions of equal exaltation! the swineherd is equipped with a winding horn. a foolish tradition without foundation maintains that this figure does not represent the swineherd at all, but is a play upon the name of bishop bloet,--the horn being intended to suggest "blow it!" it seems hardly possible to credit the mediæval wit with no keener sense of humour than to perpetrate such a far-fetched pun. the lincoln imp, who sits enthroned at the foot of a cul-de-lampe in the choir, is so familiar to every child, now, through his photographs and casts, that it is hardly necessary to describe him. but many visitors to the cathedral fail to come across the old legend of his origin. it is as follows: "the wind one day brought two imps to view the new minster at lincoln. both imps were greatly impressed with the magnitude and beauty of the structure, and one of them, smitten by a fatal curiosity, slipped inside the building to see what was going on. his temerity, however, cost him dear, for he was so petrified with astonishment, that his heart became as stone within him, and he remained rooted to the spot. the other imp, full of grief at the loss of his brother, flew madly round the minster, seeking in vain for the lost one. at length, being wearied out, he alighted, quite unwittingly, upon the shoulders of a certain witch, and was also, and in like manner, instantly turned to stone. but the wind still haunts the minster precincts, waiting their return, now hopelessly desolate, now raging with fury." a verse, also, is interesting in this connection: "the bishop we know died long ago, the wind still waits, nor will he go, till he has a chance of beating his foe. but the devil hopped without a limp, and at once took shape as the lincoln imp. and there he sits atop of a column, and grins at the people who gaze so solemn, moreover, he mocks at the wind below, and says: 'you may wait till doomsday, o!'" the effigies in the round church at the temple in london have created much discussion. they represent crusaders, two dating from the twelfth century, and seven from the thirteenth. most of them have their feet crossed, and the british antiquarian mind has exploited and tormented itself for some centuries in order to prove, or to disprove, that this signifies that the warriors were crusaders who had actually fought. there seems now to be rather a concensus of opinion that they do not represent knights templars, but "associates of the temple." as none of them can be certainly identified, this controversy would appear to be of little consequence to the world at large. the effigies are extremely interesting from an artistic point of view, and, in repairing them, in , mr. richardson discovered traces of coloured enamels and gilding, which must have rendered them most attractive. henry iii. of england was a genuine art patron, and even evinced some of the spirit of socialism so dear to the heart of william morris, for the old records relate that the master mason, john of gloucester, was in the habit of taking wine each day with the king! this shows that henry recognized the levelling as well as the raising power of the arts. in the king sent five casks of wine to the mason, in payment for five with which john of gloucester had accommodated his majesty at oxford! this is an intimate and agreeable departure from the despotic and grim reputation of early kings of england. in the greatest mediæval craftsman in england was alan de walsingham, who built the great octagon from which ely derives its chief character among english cathedrals. in a fourteenth century manuscript in the british museum is a tribute to him, which is thus translated by dean stubbs (now bishop of truro): "a sacrist good and prior benign, a builder he of genius fine: the flower of craftsmen, alan, prior, now lying entombed before the choir... and when, one night, the old tower fell, this new one he built, and mark it well." this octagon was erected to the glory of god and to st. etheldreda, the queen abbess of ely, known frequently as st. awdry. around the base of the octagon, at the crests of the great piers which carry it, prior alan had carved the deeds of the saint in a series of decorative bosses which deserve close study. the scene of her marriage, her subsequently taking the veil at coldingham, and the various miracles over which she presided, terminate in the death and "chesting" of the saint. this ancient term is very literal, as the body was placed in a stone coffin above the ground, and therefore the word "burial" would be incorrect. the tomb of queen eleanor in westminster is of purbeck marble, treated in the style of southern sculpture, being cut in thin slabs and enriched with low relief ornamentation. the recumbent effigy is in bronze, and was cast, as has been stated, by master william torel. master walter of durham painted the lower portion. master richard crundale was in charge of the general work. master john of st. albans worked in about , and was designated "sculptor of the king's images." there was at this time a school of sculpture at the abbey. this westminster school of artificers supplied statuettes and other sculptured ornaments to order for various places. one of the craftsmen was alexander "le imaginator." in the rolls of the works at westminster, there is an entry, "master john, with a carpenter and assistant at st. albans, worked on the lectern." this referred to a copy which was ordered of a rarely beautiful lectern at st. albans' cathedral, which had been made by the "incomparable walter of colchester." labour was cheap! there is record of three shillings being paid to john benet for three capitals! among westminster labourers was one known as brother ralph, the convert; this individual was a reformed jew. among the craftsmen selected to receive wine from the convent with "special grace" is the goldsmith, master r. de fremlingham, who was then the abbey plumber. there was a master mason in , who worked at westminster and in various other places on his majesty's service. this was william ramsay, who also superintended the building then in progress at st. paul's, and was a man of such importance in his art, that the mayor and aldermen ordered that he should "not be placed on juries or inquests" during the time of his activity. he was also chief mason at the tower. but in spite of the city fathers it was not possible to keep this worthy person out of court! for he and some of his friends, in , practically kidnapped a youth of fourteen named robert huberd, took him forcibly from his appointed guardian, and married him out of hand to william ramsay's daughter agnes, the reason for this step being evidently that the boy had money. upon the complaint of his guardian, robert was given his choice whether he would remain with his bride or return to his former home. he deliberately chose his new relations, and so, as the marriage was quite legal according to existing laws, everything went pleasantly for master william! it made no difference, either, in the respect of the community or the king for the master mason; in , he was appointed to superintend the building at windsor, and was made a member of the common council in . verily, the old testament days were not the last in which every man "did that which was right in his own eyes." carter gives some curious historical explanations of some very quaint and little-known sculptures in a frieze high up in the chapel of edward the confessor in westminster. one of them represents the trial of queen emma, and is quite a spirited scene. the little accusing hands raised against the central figure of the queen, are unique in effect in a carving of this character. queen emma was accused of so many misdemeanours, poor lady! she had agreed to marry the enemy of her kingdom, king canute: she gave no aid to her sons, edward the confessor and alfred, when in exile; and she was also behaving in a very unsuitable manner with alwin, bishop of winchester: she seems to have been versatile in crime, and it is no wonder that she was invited to withdraw from her high estate. the burial of henry v. is interestingly described in an old manuscript of nearly contemporary origin: "his body was embalmed and cired and laid on a royal carriage, and an image like to him was laid upon the corpse, open: and with divers banners, and horses, covered with the arms of england and france, st. edward and st. edmund... and brought with great solemnity to westminster, and worshipfully buried; and after was laid on his tomb a royal image like to himself, of silver and gilt, which was made at the cost of queen katherine... he ordained in his life the place of his sepulchre, where he is now buried, and every daye iii. masses perpetually to be sungen in a fair chapel over his sepulchre." this exquisite arrangement of a little raised chantry, and the noble tomb itself, was the work of master mapilton, who came from durham in . mr. w. r. lethaby calls attention to the practical and expedient way in which mediæval carvers of effigies utilized their long blocks of stone: "notice," he says, "how... the angels at the head and the beast at the foot were put in just to square out the block, and how all the points of high relief come to one plane so that a drawing board might be firmly placed on the statue." only such cutting away as was actually necessary was encouraged; the figure was usually represented as putting the earthly powers beneath his feet, while angels ministered at his head. st. louis ordered a crown of thorns to be placed on his head when he was dying, and the crown of france placed at his feet. the little niches around the tombs, in which usually stood figures of saints, were called "hovels." it is amusing to learn this to-day, with our long established association of the word with poverty and squalor. henry vii. left directions for the design of his tomb. among other stipulations, it was to be adorned with "ymages" of his patron saints "of copper and gilte." henry then "calls and cries" to his guardian saints and directs that the tomb shall have "a grate, in manner of a closure, of coper and gilte," which was added by english craftsmen. inside this grille in the early days was an altar, containing a unique relic,--a leg of st. george. sculpture and all other decorative arts reached their ultimatum in england about the time of the construction of henry vii.'s chapel at westminster. the foundation stone was laid in , by henry himself. of the interesting monuments and carvings contained in it, the most beautiful is the celebrated bronze figure by torregiano on the tomb of the king and queen, which was designed during their lives. torregiano was born in , and died in , so he is not quite a mediæval figure, but in connection with his wonderful work we must consider his career a moment. vasari says that he had "more pride than true artistic excellence." he was constantly interfering with michelangelo, with whom he was a student in florence, and on one memorable occasion they came to blows: and that was the day when "torregiano struck michelangelo on the nose with his fist, using such terrible violence and crushing that feature in such a manner that the proper form could never be restored to it, and michelangelo had his nose flattened by that blow all his life." so torregiano fled from the medicean wrath which would have descended upon him. after a short career as a soldier, impatient at not being rapidly promoted, he returned to his old profession of a sculptor. he went to england, where, says vasari, "he executed many works in marble, bronze, and wood, for the king." the chief of these was the striking tomb of henry vii. and the queen. torregiano's agreement was to make it for a thousand pounds: also there is a contract which he signed with henry viii., agreeing to construct a similar tomb also for that monarch, to be one quarter part larger than that of henry vii., but this was not carried out. st. anthony appears on a little sculptured medallion on the tomb of henry vii., with a small pig trotting beside him. this is st. anthony of vienna, not of padua. his legend is as follows. in an old document, newcourt's repertorium, it is related that "the monks of st. anthony with their importunate begging, contrary to the example of st. anthony, are so troublesome, as, if men give them nothing, they will presently threaten them with st. anthony's fire; so that many simple people, out of fear or blind zeal, every year use to bestow on them a fat pig, or porker, which they have ordinarily painted in their pictures of st. anthony, whereby they may procure their good will and their prayers, and be secure from their menaces." torregiano's contract read that he should "make well, surely, cleanly, and workmanlike, curiously, and substantially" the marble tomb with "images, beasts, and other things, of copper, gilte." another craftsman who exercised his skill in this chapel was lawrence imber, image maker, and in the names of john hudd, sculptor, and nicolas delphyn, occur. some of the figures and statuettes on the tomb were also made by drawswerd of york. on the outer ribs of henry vii.'s chapel may be detected certain little symmetrically disposed bosses, which at first glance one would suppose to be inconspicuous crockets. but in an admirable spirit of humour, the sculptor has here carved a series of griffins, in procession, holding on for dear life, in the attitudes of children sliding down the banisters. they are delightfully animated and amusing. the well-known figures of the vices which stand around the quadrangle at magdalen college, oxford, are interpreted by an old latin manuscript in the college. the statues should properly be known as the virtues and vices, for some of them represent such moral qualities as vigilance, sobriety, and affection. it is indeed a shock to learn from this presumably authoritative source, that the entertaining figure of a patient nondescript animal, upon whose back a small reptile clings, is _not_ intended to typify "back biting," but is intended for a "hippopotamus, or river-horse, carrying his young one upon his shoulders; this is the emblem of a good tutor, or fellow of the college, who is set to watch over the youth." but a large number of the statues are devoted to the vices, which generally explain themselves. [illustration: grotesque from oxford, popularly known as "the backbiter"] no more spirited semi-secular carvings are to be seen in england than the delightful row of the "beverly minstrels." they stand on brackets round a column in st. mary's church, beverly, and are exhibited as singing and playing on musical instruments. they were probably carved and presented by the minstrels or waits, themselves, or at any rate at their expense, for an angel near by holds a tablet inscribed: "this pyllor made the meynstyrls." these "waits" were quite an institution, being a kind of police to go about day and night and inspect the precincts, announcing break of day by blowing a horn, and calling the workmen together by a similar signal. the figures are of about the period of henry vii. [illustration: the "beverly minstrels"] the general excellence of sculpture in germany is said to be lower than that of france; in fact, such mediæval german sculpture as is specially fine is based upon french work. still, while this statement holds good in a general way, there are marked departures, and examples of extremely interesting and often original sculpture in germany, although until the work of such great masters as albrecht dürer, adam kraft, and viet stoss, the wood carver, who are much later, there is not as prolific a display of the sculptor's genius as in france. the figures on the choir screen at hildesheim are rather heavy, and decidedly romanesque; but the whole effect is most delightful. some of the heads have almost gothic beauty. the screen is of about , and the figures are made of stucco; but it is exceptionally good stucco, very different in character from the later work, which browning has designated as "stucco twiddlings everywhere." much good german sculpture may be seen in nüremberg. the schöner brunnen, the beautiful fountain, is a delight, in spite of the fact that one is not looking at the original, which was relegated to the museum for safe keeping long ago. the carving, too, on the frauenkirche, and st. sebald's, and on st. lorenz, is as fine as anything one will find in germany. another exception stands out in the memory. nothing is more exquisite than the bride's door, at st. sebald's, in nüremberg; the figures of the wise and foolish virgins who guard the entrance could hardly be surpassed in the realm of realistic sculpture, retaining at the same time a just proportion of monumental feeling. they are bewitching and dainty, full of grace not often seen in german work of that period. the figures on the outside of bamberg cathedral are also as fine as anything in france, and there are some striking examples at naumburg, but often the figures in german work lack lightness and length, which are such charming elements in the french gothic sculptures. at strasburg the cathedral is generally conceded to be the most interesting and ornate of the thirteenth century work in germany, although, as has been indicated, french influence is largely responsible. a very small deposit of this influence escaped into the netherlands, and st. gudule in brussels shows some good carving in gothic style. a gruesome statue on st. sebald's in nüremberg represents the puritanical idea of "the world," by exhibiting a good-looking young woman, whose back is that of a corpse; the shroud is open, and the half decomposed body is displayed, with snakes and toads depredating upon it. among the early renaissance artists in nüremberg, was hans decker, who was named in the burgher lists of . he may have had influence upon the youth of adam kraft, whose great pyx in st. lorenz's is known to everyone who has visited germany. adam kraft was born in nüremberg in the early fifteenth century and his work is a curious link between gothic and renaissance styles. his chief characteristic is expressed by p. j. rée, who says: "the essence of his art is best described as a naïve realism sustained by tender and warm religious zeal." adam kraft carved the stations of the cross, to occupy, on the road to st. john's cemetery in nüremberg, the same relative distances apart as those of the actual scenes between pilate's house and golgotha. easter sepulchres were often enriched with very beautiful sculptures by the first masters. adam kraft carved the noble scene of the burial of christ in st. john's churchyard in nüremberg. [illustration: st. lorenz church, nuremberg, showing adam kraft's pyx, and the hanging medallion by veit stoss] it is curious that the same mind and hand which conceived and carved these short stumpy figures, should have made the marvel of slim grace, the tabernacle, or pyx, at st. lorenz. a figure of the artist kneeling, together with two workmen, one old and one young, supports the beautiful shrine, which rears itself in graduated stages to the tall gothic roof, where it follows the curve of a rib, and turns over at the top exactly like some beautiful clinging plant departing from its support, and flowering into an exquisitely proportioned spiral. it suggests a gigantic crozier. before it was known what a slender metal core followed this wonderful growth, on the inside, there was a tradition that kraft had discovered "a wonderful method for softening and moulding hard stones." the charming relief by kraft on the weighing office exhibits quite another side of his genius; here three men are engaged in weighing a bale of goods in a pair of scales: a charming arrangement of proportion naturally grows out of this theme, which may have been a survival in the mind of the artist of his memory of the numerous tympana with the judgment of michael weighing souls. the design is most attractive, and the decorative feeling is enhanced by two coats of arms and a little gothic tracery running across the top. when adam kraft died in , the art of sculpture practically ceased in nüremberg. [illustration: relief by adam kraft] chapter ix carving in wood and ivory if the germans were somewhat less original than the french, english, and italians in their stone carving, they made up for this deficiency by a very remarkable skill in wood carving. being later, in period, this art was usually characterized by more naturalism than that of sculpture in stone. in germany the art of sculpture in wood is said to have been in full favour as early as the thirteenth century. there are two excellent wooden monuments, one at laach erected to count palatine henry iii., who died in , and another to count henry iii. of sayne, in . the carving shows signs of the transition to gothic forms. large wooden crucifixes were carved in germany in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. byzantine feeling is usual in these figures, which are frequently larger than life. mediæval wood carving developed chiefly along the line of altar pieces and of grotesque adornments of choir stalls. among the most interesting of these are the "miserere" seats, of which we shall speak at more length. the general methods of wood carving resemble somewhat those of stone carving; that is to say, flat relief, round relief, and entirely disengaged figures occur in both, while in both the drill is used as a starting point in many forms of design. as with the other arts, this of carving in wood emanated from the monastery. [illustration: carved box-wood pyx, th century] the monk tutilo, of st. gall, was very gifted. the old chronicle tells us that "he was eloquent, with a fine voice, skilful in carving, and a painter. a musician, like his companions, but in all kinds of wind and stringed instruments... he excelled everybody. in building and in his other arts he was eminent." tutilo was a monk of the ninth century. a celebrated wood carving of the thirteenth century, on a large scale, is the door of the church of st. sabina in rome. it is divided into many small panels, finely carved. these little reliefs are crowded with figures, very spirited in action. painted and carved shields and hatchments were popular. the italian artists made these with great refinement. sometimes stucco was employed instead of genuine carving, and occasionally the work was embossed on leather. they were painted in heraldic colours, and gold, and nothing could be more decorative. even giotto produced certain works of this description, as well as a carved crucifix. altar pieces were first carved and painted, the backgrounds being gilded. by degrees stucco for the figures came in to replace the wood: after that, they were gradually modelled in lower relief, until finally they became painted pictures with slightly raised portions, and the average florentine altar piece resulted. with the advance in painting, and the ability to portray the round, the necessity for carved details diminished. orders from a great distance were sometimes sent to the florentine masters of wood,--the choir stalls in cambridge, in king's college chapel, were executed by them, in spite of the fact that torregiano alluded to them as "beasts of english." an early french wood carver was girard d'orleans, who, in , carved for charles v. "ung tableau de boys de quatre pieces." ruskin considers the choir stalls in amiens the best worth seeing in france; he speaks of the "carpenter's work" with admiration, for no nails are used, nor is the strength of glue relied upon; every bit is true "joinery," mortised, and held by the skill and conscientiousness of its construction. of later work in wood it is a magnificent example. the master joiner, arnold boulin, undertook the construction of the stalls in . he engaged anton avernier, an image maker, to carve the statuettes and figures which occur in the course of the work. another joiner, alexander hust, is reported as working as well, and in , both he and boulin travelled to rouen, to study the stalls in the cathedral there. two franciscan monks, "expert and renowned in working in wood," came from abbeville to give judgment and approval, their expenses being paid for this purpose. jean troupin, a "simple workman at the wages of three sous a day," was added to the staff of workers in , and in one of the stalls he has carved his own portrait, with the inscription, "jan troupin, god take care of thee." in the entire work was completed, and was satisfactorily terminated on st. john's day, representing the entire labour of six or eight men for about fourteen years. in the fifteenth century germany led all countries in the art of wood carving. painting was nearly always allied to this art in ecclesiastical use. the sculptured forms were gilded and painted, and, in some cases, might almost be taken for figures in faience, so high was the polish. small altars, with carved reredos and frontals, were very popular, both for church and closet. the style employed was pictorial, figures and scenes being treated with great naturalism. one of the famous makers of such altar pieces was lucas möser, in the earlier part of the fifteenth century. a little later came hans schülein, and then followed freidrich herlin, who carved the fine altar in rothenburg. jorg syrlin of ulm and his son of the same name cover the latter half of the century. bavaria was the chief province in which sculptors in wood flourished. the figures are rather stumpy sometimes, and the draperies rather heavy and lacking in delicate grace, but the works are far more numerous than those of other districts, and vary enormously in merit. then followed the great carvers of the early renaissance--adam kraft, and veit stoss, contemporaries of peter vischer and albrecht dürer, whom we must consider for a little, although they hardly can be called mediæval workmen. veit stoss was born in the early fifteenth century, in nüremberg. he went to cracow when he was about thirty years of age, and spent some years working hard. he returned to his native city, however, in , and worked there for the rest of his life. a delicate specimen of his craft is the rosenkranztafel, a wood carving in the germanic museum, which exhibits medallions in relief, representing the communion of saints, with a wreath of roses encircling it. around the border of this oblong composition there are small square reliefs, and a last judgment which is full of grim humour occupies the lower part of the space. among the amusing incidents represented, is that of a redeemed soul, quite naked, climbing up a vine to reach heaven, in which god the father is in the act of "receiving" adam and eve, shaking hands most sociably! the friends of this aspiring climber are "boosting" him from below; the most deliciously realistic proof that stoss had no use for the theory of a winged hereafter! veit stoss was a very versatile craftsman. besides his wonderful wood carvings, for which he is chiefly noted, he was a bridge-builder, a stone-mason, a bronze caster, painter of altars, and engraver on copper! like all such variously talented persons, he suffered somewhat from restlessness and preferred work to peace,--but his compensation lay in the varied joys of creative works. his naturalism was marked in all that he did: a naïve old chronicler remarks that he made some life-sized coloured figures of adam and eve, "so fashioned that one was _afraid_ that they were alive!" veit stoss was an interesting individual. he was not especially moral in all his ways, narrowly escaping being executed for forgery; but his brilliancy as a technician was unsurpassed. he lived until , when he died in nüremberg as a very old man. one of his most delightful achievements is the great medallion with an open background, which hangs in the centre of the church of st. lorenz. it shows two large and graceful figures,--mary and the angel gabriel, the subject being the annunciation. a wreath of angels and flowers surrounds the whole, with small medallions representing the seven joys of the virgin. it is a masterly work, and was presented by anton tucher in . veit stoss was the leading figure among wood carvers of the renaissance, although albrecht dürer combined this with his many accomplishments, as well. some of the carvings in wood in the chapel of henry vii. at westminster, are adapted from drawings by albrecht dürer, and are probably the work of germans. two of these, derrick van grove and giles van castel, were working at st. george's, windsor, about the same time. the very finest example of nüremberg carving, however, is the famous wooden madonna, which has been ascribed to peter vischer the younger, both by herr von bezold and by cecil headlam. it seems very reasonable after a study of the other works of this remarkable son of peter vischer, for there is no other carver of the period, in all nüremberg, who could have executed such a flawlessly lovely figure. one of the noted wood carvers in spain in the renaissance, was alonso cano. he was a native of granada and was born in . his father was a carver of "retablos," and brought the boy up to follow his profession. cano was also a painter of considerable merit, but as a sculptor in wood he was particularly successful. his first conspicuous work was a new high altar for the church of lebrija, which came to him on account of the death of his father, who was commencing the work in , when his life was suddenly cut off. alonso made this altar so beautifully, that he was paid two hundred and fifty ducats more than he asked! columns and cornices are arranged so as to frame four excellent statues. these carvings have been esteemed so highly that artists came to study them all the way from flanders. the altar is coloured, like most of the spanish retablos. cano was a pugnacious character, always getting into scrapes, using his stiletto, and being obliged to shift his residence on short notice. it is remarkable that his erratic life did not interfere with his work, which seems to have gone calmly on in spite of domestic and civic difficulties. among his works at various places, where his destiny took him, was a tabernacle for the cathedral of malaga. he had worked for some time at the designs for this tabernacle, when it was whispered to him that the bishop of malaga intended to get a bargain, and meant to beat him down in his charges. so, packing up his plans and drawings, and getting on his mule. cano observed, "these drawings are either to be given away for nothing, or else they are to bring two thousand ducats." the news of his departure caused alarm among those in authority, and he was urged to bring back the designs, and receive his own price. cano carved a life-size crucifix for queen mariana, which she presented to the convent of monserrati at madrid. alonso cano entered the church and became canon of the cathedral of granada. but all his talents had no effect upon his final prosperity: he died in extreme want in , the cathedral records showing that he was the recipient of charity, five hundred reals being voted to "the canon cano, being sick and very poor, and without means to pay the doctor." another record mentions the purchase of "poultry and sweet-meats" also for him. cano made one piece of sculpture in marble, a guardian angel for the convent at granada, but this no longer exists. some of his architectural drawings are preserved in the louvre. ford says that his st. francesco in toledo is "a masterpiece of cadaverous ecstatic sentiment." the grotesques which played so large a part in church art are bewailed by st. bernard: "what is the use," he asks, "of those absurd monstrosities displayed in the cloisters before the reading monks?... why are unclean monkeys and savage lions, and monstrous centaurs and semi-men, and spotted tigers, and fighting soldiers, and pipe-playing hunters, represented?" then st. bernard inadvertently admits the charm of all these grotesques, by adding: "the variety of form is everywhere so great, that marbles are more pleasant reading than manuscripts, and the whole day is spent in looking at them instead of in meditating on the law of god." st. bernard concludes with the universal argument: "oh, god, if one is not ashamed of these puerilities, why does not one at least spare the expense?" a hundred years later, the clergy were censured by the prior de coinsi for allowing "wild cats and lions" to stand equal with the saints. [illustration: miserere stall; an artisan at work] the real test of a fine grotesque--a genuine gothic monster--is, that he shall, in spite of his monstrosity, retain a certain anatomical consistency: it must be conceivable that the animal organism could have developed along these lines. in the thirteenth century, this is always possible; but in much later times, and in the renaissance, the grotesques simply became comic and degraded, and lacking in humour: in a later chapter this idea will be developed further. the art of the choir stalls and miserere seats was a natural ebullition of the humourous instinct, which had so little opportunity for exploiting itself in monastic seclusion. the joke was hidden away, under the seat, out of sight of visitors, or laymen: inconspicuous, but furtively entertaining. there was no self-consciousness in its elaboration, it was often executed for pure love of fun and whittling; and for that very reason embodies all the most attractive qualities of its art. there was no covert intention to produce a genre history of contemporary life and manners, as has sometimes been claimed. these things were accidentally introduced in the work, but the carvers had no idea of ministering to this or any other educational theory. like all light-hearted expression of personality, the miserere stalls have proved of inestimable worth to the world of art, as a record of human skill and genial mirth. [illustration: miserere stall, ely: noah and the dove] a good many of the vices of the times were portrayed on the miserere seats. the "backbiter" is frequently seen, in most unlovely form, and two persons gossiping with an "unseen witness" in the shape of an avenging friend, looking on and waiting for his opportunity to strike! gluttons and misers are always accompanied by familiar devils, who prod and goad them into such sin as shall make them their prey at the last. among favourite subjects on miserere seats is the "alewife." no wonder ale drinking proved so large a factor in the jokes of the fraternity, for the rate at which it was consumed, in this age when it took the place of both tea and coffee, was enormous. the inmates of st. cross hospital, winchester, who were alluded to as "impotents," received daily one gallon of beer each, with two extra quarts on holidays! if this were the allowance of pensioners, what must have been the proportion among the well-to-do? in there is a record of a dishonest beer seller who gave only a pint for a penny drink, instead of the customary quart! the subject of the alewife who had cheated her customers, being dragged to hell by demons, is often treated by the carvers with much relish, in the sacred precincts of the church choir! [illustration: miserere stall; the fate of the ale-wife] at ludlow there is a relief which shows the unlucky lady carried on the back of a demon, hanging with her head upside down, while a smiling "recording imp" is making notes in a scroll concerning her! in one of the chester mysteries, the ale wife is made to confess her own shortcomings: "some time i was a taverner, a gentle gossip and a tapster, of wine and ale a trusty brewer, which woe hath me wrought. of cans i kept no true measure, my cups i sold at my pleasure, deceiving many a creature, though my ale were nought!" there is a curious miserere in holderness representing a nun between two hares: she is looking out with a smile, and winking! at ripon the stalls show jonah being thrown to the whale, and the same jonah being subsequently relinquished by the sea monster. the whale is represented by a large bland smiling head, with gaping jaws, occurring in the midst of the water, and jonah takes the usual "header" familiar in mediæval art, wherever this episode is rendered. a popular treatment of the stall was the foliate mask; stems issuing from the mouth of the mask and developing into leaves and vines. this is an entirely foolish and unlovely design: in most cases it is quite lacking in real humour, and makes one think more of the senseless roman grotesques and those of the renaissance. the mediæval quaintness is missing. at beverly a woman is represented beating a man, while a dog is helping himself out of the soup cauldron. the misereres at beverly date from about . animals as musicians, too, were often introduced,--pigs playing on viols, or pipes, an ass performing on the harp, and similar eccentricities may be found in numerous places, while reynard the fox in all his forms abounds. the choir stalls at lincoln exhibit beautiful carving and design: they date from the fourteenth century, and were given by the treasurer, john de welburne. there are many delightful miserere seats, many of the selections in this case being from the legend of reynard the fox. abbot islip of westminster was a great personality, influencing his times and the place where his genius expressed itself. he was very constant and thorough in repairing and restoring at the abbey, and under his direction much fine painting and illuminating were accomplished. the special periods of artistic activity in most of the cathedrals may be traced to the personal influence of some cultured ecclesiastic. a very beautiful specimen of english carving is the curious oak chest at york cathedral, on which st. george fighting the dragon is well rendered. however, the termination of the story differs from that usually associated with this legend, for the lady leads off the subdued dragon in a leash, and the very abject crawl of the creature is depicted with much humour. mediæval ivory carving practically commenced with the fourth century; in speaking of the tools employed, it is safe to say that they corresponded to those used by sculptors in wood. it is generally believed by authorities that there was some method by which ivory could be taken from the whole rounded surface of the tusk, and then, by soaking, or other treatment, rendered sufficiently malleable to be bent out into a large flat sheet: for some of the large mediæval ivories are much wider than the diameter of any known possible tusk. there are recipes in the early treatises which tell how to soften the ivory that it may be more easily sculptured: in the mappae clavicula, in the twelfth century, directions are given for preparing a bath in which to steep ivory, in order to make it soft. in the sloane ms. occurs another recipe for the same purpose. ahab's "ivory house which he made" must have been either covered with a very thin veneer, or else the ivory was used as inlay, which was often the case, in connection with ebony. ezekiel alludes to this combination. ivory and gold were used by the greeks in their famous chryselephantine statues, in which cases thin plates of ivory formed the face, hands, and exposed parts, the rest being overlaid with gold, this art originated with the brothers dip�nus and scillis, about b. c., in crete. "in sculpturing ivory," says theophilus, "first form a tablet of the magnitude you may wish, and superposing chalk, portray with a lead the figures according to your pleasure, and with a pointed instrument mark the lines that they may appear: then carve the grounds as deeply as you wish with different instruments, and sculp the figures or other things you please, according to your invention and skill." he tells how to make a knife handle with open work carvings, through which a gold ground is visible: and extremely handsome would such a knife be when completed, according to theophilus' directions. he also tells how to redden ivory. "there is likewise an herb called 'rubrica,' the root of which is long, slender, and of a red colour; this being dug up is dried in the sun and is pounded in a mortar with the pestle, and so being scraped into a pot, and a lye poured over it, is then cooked. in this, when it has well boiled, the bone of the elephant or fish or stag, being placed, is made red." mediæval chessmen were made in ivory: very likely the need for a red stain was felt chiefly for such pieces. the celebrated consular diptychs date from the fourth century onwards. it was the custom for consuls to present to senators and other officials these little folding ivory tablets, and the adornment of diptychs was one of the chief functions of the ivory worker. some of them were quite ambitious in size; in the british museum is a diptych measuring over sixteen inches by five: the tusk from which this was made must have been almost unique in size. it is a byzantine work, and has the figure of an angel carved upon it. gregory the great sent a gift of ivory to theodolinda, queen of the lombards, in . this is decorated with three figures, and is a most interesting diptych. the earliest diptych, however, is of the year , known as the diptych of probus, on which may be seen a bas-relief portrait of emperor honorius. on the diptych of philoxenus is a greek verse signifying, "i, philoxenus, being consul, offer this present to the wise senate." an interesting diptych, sixteen inches by six, is inscribed, "flavius strategius apius, illustrious man, count of the most fervent servants, and consul in ordinary." this consul was invested in ; the work was made in rome, but it is the property of the cathedral of orviedo in spain, where it is regarded as a priceless treasure. claudian, in the fourth century, alludes to diptychs, speaking of "huge tusks cut with steel into tablets and gleaming with gold, engraved with the illustrious name of the consul, circulated among great and small, and the great wonder of the indies, the elephant, wanders about in tuskless shame!" in magaster, a city which according to marco polo, was governed by "four old men," they sold "vast quantities of elephants' teeth." rabanus, a follower of alcuin, born in , was the author of an interesting encyclopædia, rejoicing in the comprehensive title, "on the universe." this work is in twenty-two books, which are supposed to cover all possible subjects upon which a reader might be curious.... the seventeenth book is on "the dust and soil of the earth," under which uninviting head he includes all kinds of stones, common and precious; salt, flint, sand, lime, jet, asbestos, and the persian moonstone, of whose brightness he claims that it "waxes and wanes with the moon." later he devotes some space to pearls, crystals, and glass. metals follow, and marbles and _ivory_, though why the latter should be classed among minerals we shall never understand. [illustration: ivory tabernacle, ravenna] the roman diptychs were often used as after-dinner gifts to distinguished guests. they were presented on various occasions. in the epistles of symmachus, the writer says: "to my lord and prince i sent a diptych edged with gold. i presented other friends also with these ivory note books." while elephant's tusks provided ivory for the southern races, the more northern peoples used the walrus and narwhale tusks. in germany this was often the case. the fabulous unicorn's horn, which is so often alluded to in early literature, was undoubtedly from the narwhale, although its possessor always supposed that he had secured the more remarkable horn which was said to decorate the unicorn. triptychs followed diptychs in natural sequence. these, in the middle ages, were usually of a devotional character, although sometimes secular subjects occur. letters were sometimes written on ivory tablets, which were supposed to be again used in forwarding a reply. st. augustine apologizes for writing on parchment, explaining, "my ivory tablets i sent with letters to your uncle; if you have any of my tablets, please send them in case of similar emergencies." tablets fitted with wax linings were used also in schools, as children now use slates. ivory diptychs were fashionable gifts and keepsakes in the later roman imperial days. they took the place which had been occupied in earlier days by illuminated books, such as were produced by lala of cyzicus, of whom mention will be made in connection with book illuminators. [illustration: the nativity; ivory carving] after the triptychs came sets of five leaves, hinged together; sometimes these were arranged in groups of four around a central plaque. often they were intended to be used as book covers. occasionally the five leaves were made up of classical ivories which had been altered in such a way that they now had christian significance. the beautiful diptych in the bargello, representing adam in the earthly paradise, may easily have been originally intended for orpheus, especially since eve is absent! the treatment is rather classical, and was probably adapted to its later name. some diptychs which were used afterwards for ecclesiastical purposes, show signs of having had the consular inscription erased, and the wax removed, while christian sentiments were written or incised within the book itself. parts of the service were also occasionally transcribed on diptychs. in milan the rites contain these passages: "the lesson ended, a scholar, vested in a surplice, takes the ivory tablets from the altar or ambo, and ascends the pulpit;" and in another place a similar allusion occurs: "when the deacon chants the alleluia, the key bearer for the week hands the ivory tablets to him at the exit of the choir." anastatius, in his life of pope agatho, tells of a form of posthumous excommunication which was sometimes practised: "they took away from the diptychs... wherever it could be done, the names and figures of these patriarchs, cyrus, sergius, paul, pyrrhus, and peter, through whom error had been brought among the orthodox." among ivory carvings in carlovingian times may be cited a casket with ornamental colonettes sent by eginhard to his son. in , louis le debonaire owned a statuette, a diptych, and a coffer, while in the archbishop of rheims placed an order for ivory book covers, for the works of st. jerome, a lectionary, and other works. the largest and best known ivory carving of the middle ages is the throne of maximian, archbishop of ravenna. this entire chair, with an arched back and arms, is composed of ivory in intricately carved plaques. it is considerably over three feet in height, and is a superb example of the best art of the sixth century. photographs and reproductions of it may be seen in most works dealing with this subject. scenes from scripture are set all over it, divided by charming meanders of deeply cut vine motives. some authorities consider the figures inferior to the other decorations: of course in any delineation of the human form, the archaic element is more keenly felt than when it appears in foliate forms or conventional patterns. diptychs being often taken in considerable numbers and set into large works of ivory, has led some authorities to suppose that the ravenna throne was made of such a collection; but this is contradicted by passeri in , who alludes to the panels in the following terms: "they might readily be taken by the ignorant for diptychs.... this they are not, for they cannot be taken from the consular diptychs which had their own ornamentation, referring to the consultate and the insignia, differing from the sculpture destined for other purposes. hence they are obviously mistaken who count certain tablets as diptychs which have no ascription to any consul, but represent the muses, bacchantes, or gods. these seem to me to have been book covers." probably the selected form of an upright tablet for the majority of ivory carvings is based on economic principles: the best use of the most surface from any square block of material is to cut it in thin slices. in their architecture the southern mediæval builders so treated stone, building a substructure of brick and laying a slab or veneer of the more costly material on its surface: with ivory this same principle was followed, and the shape of the tusk, being long and narrow, naturally determined the form of the resulting tablets. the throne of ivan iii. in moscow and that of st. peter in rome are also magnificent monuments of this art. ivory caskets were the chief manifestation of taste in that medium, during the period of transition from the eighth century until the revival of byzantine skill in the tenth century. this form of sculpture was at its best at a time when stone sculpture was on the decline. there is a fascinating book cover in ravenna which is a good example of sixth century work of various kinds. in the centre, christ is seen, enthroned under a kind of palmetto canopy; above him, on a long panel, are two flying angels displaying a cross set in a wreath; at either end stand little squat figures, with balls and crosses in their hands. scenes from the miracles of our lord occupy the two side panels, which are subdivided so that there are four scenes in all; they are so quaint as to be really grotesque, but have a certain blunt charm which is enhanced by the creamy lumpiness of the material in which they are rendered. the healing of the blind, raising of the dead, and the command to the man by the pool to take up his bed and walk, are accurately represented; the bed in this instance is a form of couch with a wooden frame and mattress, the carrying of which would necessitate an unusual amount of strength on the part of even a strong, well man. one of the most naïve of these panels of the miracles is the curing of "one possessed:" the boy is tied with cords by the wrists and ankles, while, at the touch of the master, a little demon is seen issuing from the top of the head of the sufferer, waving its arms proudly to celebrate its freedom! underneath is a small scene of the three children in the fiery furnace; they look as if they were presenting a vaudeville turn, being spirited in action, and very dramatic. below all, is a masterly panel of jonah and the whale,--an old favourite, frequently appearing in mediæval art. the whale, positively smiling and sportive, eagerly awaits his prey at the right. jonah is making a graceful dive from the ship, apparently with an effort to land in the very jaws of the whale. at the opposite side, the whale, having coughed up his victim, looks disappointed, while jonah, in an attitude of lassitude suggestive of sea-sickness, reclines on a bank; an angel, with one finger lifted as if in reproach, is hurrying towards him. an ingenuous ivory carving of the ninth century in carlovingian style is a book cover on which is depicted the finding of st. gall, by tame bears in the wilderness. these bears, walking decorously on their hind legs, are figured as carrying bread to the hungry saint: one holds a long french loaf of a familiar pattern, and the other a breakfast roll! bernward of hildesheim had a branch for ivory carving in his celebrated academy, to which allusion has been made. ivory drinking horns were among the most beautiful and ornate examples of secular ivories. they were called oliphants, because the tusks of elephants were chiefly used in their manufacture. in the earl of ormonde leaves in his will "a little white horn of ivory garnished at both ends with gold," and in st. paul's in the thirteenth century, there is mention of "a great horn of ivory engraved with beasts and birds." the horn of ulphas at york is an example of the great drinking horns from which the saxons and danes, in early days, drank in token of transfer of lands; as we are told by an old chronicler, "when he gave the horn that was to convey his estate, he filled it with wine, and went on his knees before the altar... so that he drank it off in testimony that thereby he gave them his lands." this horn was given by ulphas to the cathedral with certain lands, a little before the conquest, and placed by him on the altar. interesting ivories are often the pastoral staves carried by bishops. that of otho bishop of hildesheim in is inscribed in the various parts: "persuade by the lower part; rule by the middle; and correct by the point." these were apparently the symbolic functions of the crozier. the french gothic ivory croziers are perhaps more beautiful than others, the little figures standing in the carved volutes being especially delicate and graceful. [illustration: pastoral staff; ivory, german, th century] before a mediæval bishop could perform mass he was enveloped in a wrapper, and his hair was combed "respectfully and lightly" (no tugging!) by the deacon. this being a part of the regular ceremonial, special carved combs of ivory, known as liturgical combs, were used. many of them remain in collections, and they are often ornamented in the most delightful way, with little processions and scriptural scenes in bas-relief. in the regalia of england, there was mentioned among things destroyed in , "one old comb of horn, worth nothing." according to davenport, this may have been the comb used in smoothing the king's hair on the occasion of a coronation. the rich pulpit at aix la chapelle is covered with plates of gold set with stones and ivory carvings; these are very fine. it was given to the cathedral by the emperor henry ii. the inscription may be thus translated: "artfully brightened in gold and precious stones, this pulpit is here dedicated by king henry with reverence, desirous of celestial glory: richly it is decorated with his own treasures, for you, most holy virgin, in order that you may obtain the highest gain as a future reward for him." the sentiment is not entirely disinterested; but are not motives generally mixed? st. bernard preached a crusade from this pulpit in . the ivory carvings are very ancient, and remarkably fine, representing figures from the greek myths. ivory handles were usual for the fly-fan, or flabellum, used at the altar, to keep flies and other insects away from the elements. one entry in an inventory in might be confusing if one did not know of this custom: the article is mentioned as "one muscifugium de pecock" meaning a fly-fan of peacock's feathers! small round ivory boxes elaborately sculptured were used both for reserving the host and for containing relics. in the inventory of the church of st. mary hill, london, was mentioned, in the fifteenth century, "a lytill yvory cofyr with relyks." at durham, in , there is an account of an "ivory casket conteining a vestment of st. john the baptist," and in the fourteenth century, in the same collection, was "a tooth of st. gendulphus, good for the falling sickness, in a small ivory pyx." [illustration: ivory mirror case; earth th century] ivory mirror backs lent themselves well to decorations of a more secular nature: these are often carved with the siege of the castle of love, and with scenes from the old romances; tournaments were very popular, with ladies in balconies above pelting the heroes with roses as large as themselves, and the tutor aristotle "playing horse" was a great favourite. little elopements on horseback were very much liked, too, as subjects; sometimes rows of heroes on steeds appear, standing under windows, from which, in a most wholesale way, whole nunneries or boarding-schools seem to be descending to fly with them. one of these mirrors shows huon of bordeaux playing at chess with the king's daughter: another represents a castle, which occupies the upper centre of the circle, and under the window is a drawbridge, across which passes a procession of mounted knights. one of these has paused, and, standing balancing himself in a most precarious way on the pommels of his saddle, is assisting a lady to descend from a window. below are seen others, or perhaps the same lovers, in a later stage of the game, escaping in a boat. at the windows are the heads of other ladies awaiting their turn to be carried off. [illustration: ivory mirror case, ] an ivory chest of simple square shape, once the property of the rev. mr. bowle, is given in detail by carter in the ancient specimens, and is as interesting an example of allegorical romance as can be imagined. observe the attitude of the knight who has laid his sword across a chasm in order to use it as a bridge. he is proceeding on all fours, with unbent knees, right up the sharp edge of the blade! among small box shrines which soon developed in christian times from the consular diptychs is one, in the inventory of roger de mortimer, "a lyttle long box of yvory, with an ymage of our ladye therein closed." the differences in expression between french, english, and german ivory carvings is quite interesting. the french faces and figures have always a piquancy of action: the nose is a little retroussée and the eyelids long. the german shows more solidity of person, less transitoriness and lightness about the figure, and the nose is blunter. the english carvings are often spirited, so as to be almost grotesque in their strenuousness, and the tool-mark is visible, giving ruggedness and interest. nothing could be more exquisite than the gothic shrines in ivory made in the thirteenth century, but descriptions, unless accompanied by illustrations, could give little idea of their individual charm, for the subject is usually the same: the virgin and child, in the central portion of the triptych, while scenes from the passion occupy the spaces on either side, in the wings. statuettes in the round were rare in early christian times: one of the good shepherd in the basilewski collection is almost unique, but pyxes in cylindrical form were made, the sculpture on them being in relief. in small ivory statuettes it was necessary to follow the natural curve of the tusk in carving the figure, hence the usual twisted, and sometimes almost contorted forms often seen in these specimens. later, this peculiarity was copied in stone, unconsciously, simply because the style had become customary. one of the most charming little groups of figures in ivory is in the louvre, the coronation of the virgin. the two central figures are flanked by delightful jocular little angels, who have that characteristic close-lipped, cat-like smile, which is a regular feature in all french sculpture of the gothic type. in a little triptych of the fourteenth century, now in london, there is the rather unusual scene of joseph, sitting opposite the virgin, and holding the infant in his arms. among the few names of mediæval ivory carvers known, are henry de grès, in , héliot, , and henry de senlis, in . héliot is recorded as having produced for philip the bold "two large ivory tablets with images, one of which is the... life of monsieur st. john baptist." this polite description occurs in the accounts of amiot arnaut, in . a curious freak of the gothic period was the making of ivory statuettes of the virgin, which opened down the centre (like the iron maiden of nüremberg), and disclosed within a series of scriptural scenes sculptured on the back and on both sides. these images were called vierges ouvrantes, and were decidedly more curious than beautiful. in the british museum is a specimen of northern work, a basket cut out from the bone of a whale; it is norse in workmanship, and there is a runic inscription about the border, which has been thus translated: "the whale's bones from the fishes' flood i lifted on fergen hill: he was dashed to death in his gambols and aground he swam in the shallows." fergen hill refers to an eminence near durham. [illustration: chessman from lewis] some very ancient chessmen are preserved in the british museum, in particular a set called the lewis chessmen. they were discovered in the last century, being laid bare by the pick axe of a labourer. these chessmen have strange staring eyes; when the workman saw them, he took them for gnomes who had come up out of the bowels of the earth, to annoy him, and he rushed off in terror to report what proved to be an important archæological discovery. one of the chessmen of charlemagne is to be seen in paris: he rides an elephant, and is attended by a cortège, all in one piece. sometimes these men are very elaborate ivory carvings in themselves. as mr. maskell points out that bishops did not wear mitres, according to high authority, until after the year , it is unlikely that any of the ancient chessmen in which the bishop appears in a mitre should be of earlier date than the eleventh century. there is one fine anglo-saxon set of draughts in which the white pieces are of walrus ivory, and the black pieces, of genuine jet. paxes, which were passed about in church for the kiss of peace, were sometimes made of ivory. there are few remains of early spanish ivory sculpture. among them is a casket curiously and intricately ornamented and decorated, with the following inscription: "in the name of god, the blessing of god, the complete felicity, the happiness, the fulfilment of the hope of good works, and the adjourning of the fatal period of death, be with hagib seifo.... this box was made by his orders under the inspection of his slave nomayr, in the year ." ivory caskets in spain were often used to contain perfumes, or to serve as jewel boxes. it was customary, also, to use them to convey presents of relics to churches. ivory was largely used in spain for inlay in fine furniture. king don sancho ordered a shrine, in , to contain the relics of st. millan. the ivory plaques which are set about this shrine are interesting specimens of spanish art under oriental domination. under one little figure is inscribed apparitio scholastico, and remirus rex under another, while a figure of a sculptor carving a shield, with a workman standing by him, is labelled "magistro and ridolpho his son." few individual ivory carvers are known by name. a french artist, jean labraellier, worked in ivory for charles v. of france; and in germany it must have been quite a fashionable pursuit in high life; the elector of saxony, august the pious, who died in , was an ivory worker, and there are two snuff-boxes shown as the work of peter the great. the elector of brandenburgh and maximilian of bavaria both carved ivory for their own recreation. in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there were many well-known sculptors who turned their attention to ivory; but our researches hardly carry us so far. for a moment, however, i must touch on the subject of billiard balls. it may interest our readers to know that the size of the little black dot on a ball indicates its quality. the nerve which runs through a tusk, is visible at this point, and a ball made from the ivory near the end of the tusk, where the nerve has tapered off to its smallest proportions, is the best ball. the finest balls of all are made from short stubby tusks, which are known as "ball teeth." the ivory in these is closer in grain, and they are much more expensive. very large tusks are more liable to have coarse grained bony spaces near the centre. chapter x inlay and mosaic there are three kinds of inlay, one where the pattern is incised, and a plastic filling pressed in, and allowed to harden, on the principle of a niello; another, where both the piece to be set in and the background are cut out separately; and a third, where a number of small bits are fitted together as in a mosaic. the pavement in siena is an example of the first process. the second process is often accomplished with a fine saw, like what is popularly known as a jig saw, cutting the same pattern in light and dark wood, one layer over another; the dark can then be set into the light, and the light in the dark without more than one cutting for both. the mosaic of small pieces can be seen in any of the southern churches, and, indeed, now in nearly every country. it was the chief wall treatment of the middle ages. [illustration: marble inlay from lucca] about the year , maestro giudetto ornamented the delightful church of st. michele at lucca. this work, or at least the best of it, is a procession of various little partly heraldic and partly grotesque animals, inlaid with white marble on a ground of green serpentine. they are full of the best expression of mediæval art. the lion of florence, the hare of pisa, the stork of perugia, the dragon of pistoja, are all to be seen in these simple mosaics, if one chooses to consider them as such, hardly more than white silhouettes, and yet full of life and vigour. the effect is that of a vast piece of lace,--the real cut work of the period. absurd little trees, as space fillers, are set in the green and white marble. every reader will remember how ruskin was enthusiastic over these little creatures, and no one can fail to feel their charm. the pavements at the florentine baptistery and at san miniato are interesting examples of inlay in black and white marble. they are early works, and are the natural forerunners of the marvellous pavement at siena, which is the most remarkable of its kind in the world. the pavement masters worked in varying methods. the first of these was the joining together of large flat pieces of marble, cut in the shapes of the general design, and then outlining on them an actual black drawing by means of deeply cut channels, filled with hard black cement. the channels were first cut superficially and then emphasized and deepened by the use of a drill, in a series of holes. [illustration: detail of pavement, baptistery, florence] later workers used black marbles for the backgrounds, red for the ground, and white for the figures, sometimes adding touches of yellow inlay for decorations, jewels, and so forth. some of the workers even used gray marble to represent shadows, but this was very difficult, and those who attempted less chiaroscuro were more successful from a decorator's point of view. this work covered centuries. the earliest date of the ornamental work in siena is . from to domenico del coro, a famous worker in glass and in intarsia, was superintendent of the works. the beauty and spirit of much of the earlier inlay have been impaired by restoration, but the whole effect is unique, and on so vast a scale that one hesitates to criticize it just as one hesitates to criticize the windows at gouda. one compartment of the floor is in genuine mosaic, dating from . the designer is unknown, but the feeling is very sienese; romulus and remus are seen in their customary relation to the domesticated wolf, while the symbolical animals of various italian cities are arranged in a series of circles around this centrepiece. one of the most striking designs is that of absalom, hanging by his hair. it is in sharp black and white, and the foliage of the trees is remarkably decorative, rendered with interesting minutiæ. this is attributed to pietro del minella, and was begun in . a very interesting composition is that of the parable of the mote and the beam. this is an early work, about ; it shows two gentlemen in the costume of the period, arguing in courtly style, one apparently declaiming to the other how much better it would be for him if it were not for the mote in his eye, while from the eye of the speaker himself extends, at an impossible angle, a huge wedge of wood, longer than his head, from which he appears to suffer no inconvenience, and which seems to have defied the laws of gravitation! the renowned matteo da siena worked on the pavement; he designed the scene of the massacre of the innocents--it seems to have been always his favourite subject. he was apparently of a morbid turn. in pinturicchio was paid for a work on the floor: "to master bernardino pinturicchio, ptr., for his labour in making a cartoon for the design of fortune, which is now being made in the cathedral, on this th day of march, lires for our said master alberto." the mosaic is in red, black, and white, while other coloured marbles are introduced in the ornamental parts of the design, several of which have been renewed. fortune herself has been restored, also, as have most of the lower figures in the composition. her precariousness is well indicated by her action in resting one foot on a ball, and the other on an unstable little boat which floats, with broken mast, by the shore. she holds a sail above her head, so that she is liable to be swayed by varying winds. the three upper figures are in a better state of preservation than the others. [illustration: detail of pavement, siena; "fortune," by pinturicchio] there was also in france some interest in mosaic during the eleventh century. at st. remi in rheims was a celebrated pavement in which enamels were used as well as marbles. among the designs which appeared on this pavement, which must have positively rivalled siena in its glory, was a group of the seven arts, as well as numerous biblical scenes. it is said that certain bits of valuable stone, like jasper, were exhibited in marble settings, like "precious stones in a ring." there were other french pavements, of the eleventh century, which were similar in their construction, in which terra cotta was employed for the reds. "pietra dura" was a mosaic laid upon either a thick wood or a marble foundation. lapis lazuli, malachite, and jasper were used largely, as well as bloodstones, onyx, and rosso antico. in florentine pietra dura work, the inlay of two hard and equally cut materials reached its climax. arnolfo del cambio, who built the cathedral of sta. maria fiore in florence, being its architect from till , was the first in that city to use coloured slabs and panels of marble in a sort of flat mosaic on a vast scale on the outside of buildings. his example has been extensively followed throughout italy. the art of pietra dura mosaic began under cosimo i. who imported it, if one may use such an expression, from lombardy. it was used chiefly, like gobelins tapestry, to make very costly presents, otherwise unprocurable, for grandees and crowned heads. for a long time the work was a royal monopoly. there are several interesting examples in the pitti palace, in this case in the form of tables. flowers, fruits, shells, and even figures and landscapes have been represented in this manner. six masters of the art of pietra dura came from milan in , to instruct the florentines: and a portrait of cosimo i. was the first important result of their labours. it was executed by maestro francesco ferucci. the medicean mausoleum in florence exhibits magnificent specimens of this craft. in the time of ferdinand i. the art was carried by florentines to india, where it was used in decorating some of the palaces. under ferdinand ii. pietra dura reached its climax, there being in florence at this time a most noted frenchman, luigi siriès, who settled in florence in . he refined the art by ceasing to use the stone as a pigment in producing pictures, and employing it for the more legitimate purposes of decoration. some of the large tables in the pitti are his work. flowers and shells on a porphyry ground were especially characteristic of siriès. there was a famous inlayer of tables, long before this time, named antonio leopardi, who lived from to . the inlay of wood has been called marquetry and intarsia, and was used principally on furniture and choir stalls. labarte gives the origin of this art in italy to the twelfth century. the guild of carpenters in florence had a branch of intarsiatura workers, which included all forms of inlay in wood. it is really more correct to speak of intarsia when we allude to early italian work, the word being derived from "interserere," the latin for "insert;" while marquetry originates in france, much later, from "marqueter," to mark. italian wood inlay began in siena, where one manuello is reported to have worked in the cathedral in . intarsia was also made in orvieto at this time. vasari did not hold the art in high estimation, saying that it was practised by "those persons who possessed more patience than skill in design," and i confess to a furtive concurrence in vasari's opinion. he criticizes it a little illogically, however, when he goes on to say that the "work soon becomes dark, and is always in danger of perishing from the worms and by fire," for in these respects it is no more perishable than any great painting on canvas or panel. vasari always is a little extreme, as we know. the earliest italian workers took a solid block of wood, chiselled out a sunken design, and then filled in the depression with other woods. the only enemy to such work was dampness, which might loosen the glue, or cause the small thin bits to swell or warp. the glue was applied always when the surfaces were perfectly clean, and the whole was pressed, being screwed down on heated metal plates, that all might dry evenly. in there were thirty-four workshops of intarsia makers in florence. the personal history of several of the italian workers in inlay is still available, and, as it makes a craft seem much more vital when the names of the craftsmen are known to us, it will be interesting to glance at a few names of prominent artists in this branch of work. bernardo agnolo and his family are among them; and domenico and giovanni tasso were wood-carvers who worked with michelangelo. among the "novelli," there is a quaint tale called "the fat ebony carver," which is interesting to read in this connection. benedetto da maiano, one of the "most solemn" workers in intarsia in florence, became disgusted with his art after one trying experience, and ever after turned his attention to other carving. vasari's version of the affair is as follows. benedetto had been making two beautiful chests, all inlaid most elaborately, and carried them to the court of hungary, to exhibit the workmanship. "when he had made obeisance to the king, and had been kindly received, he brought forward his cases and had them unpacked... but it was then he discovered that the humidity of the sea voyage had softened the glue to such an extent that when the waxed cloths in which the coffers had been wrapped were opened, almost all the pieces were found sticking to them, and so fell to the ground! whether benedetto stood amazed and confounded at such an event, in the presence of so many nobles, let every one judge for himself." a famous family of wood inlayers were the del tasso, who came from s. gervasio. one of the brothers, giambattista, was a wag, and is said to have wasted much time in amusement and standing about criticizing the methods of others. he was a friend of cellini, and all his cronies pronounce him to have been a good fellow. on one occasion he had a good dose of the spirit of criticism, himself, from a visiting abbot, who stopped to see the medicean tomb, where tasso happened to be working. tasso was requested to show the stranger about, which he did. the abbot began by depreciating the beauty of the building, remarking that michelangelo's figures in the sacristy did not interest him, and on his way up the stairs, he chanced to look out of a window and caught sight of brunelleschi's dome. when the dull ecclesiastic began to say that this dome did not merit the admiration which it raised, the exasperated tasso, who was loyal to his friends, could stand no more. il lasca recounts what happened: "pulling the abbot backward with force, he made him tumble down the staircase, and he took good care to fall himself on top of him, and calling out that the frater had been taken mad, he bound his arms and legs with cords... and then taking him, hanging over his shoulders, he carried him to a room near, stretched him on the ground, and left him there in the dark, taking away the key." we will hope that if tasso himself was too prone to criticism, he may have learned a lesson from this didactic monastic, and was more tolerant in the future. of the work of canozio, a worker of about the same time, matteo colaccio in , writes, "in visiting these intarsiad figures i was so much taken with the exquisiteness of the work that i could not withold myself from praising the author to heaven!" he refers thus ecstatically to the stalls at st. antonio at padua, which were inlaid by canozio, assisted by other masters. for his work in the church of st. domenico in reggio, the contract called for some curious observances: he was bound by this to buy material for fifty lire, to work one third of the whole undertaking for fifty lire, to earn another fifty lire for each succeeding third, and then to give "forty-eight planks to the lady," whatever that may mean! among the instruments mentioned are: "two screw profiles: one outliner: four one-handed little planes: rods for making cornices: two large squares and one grafonetto: three chisels, one glued and one all of iron: a pair of big pincers: two little axes: and a bench to put the tarsia on." pyrography has its birth in intarsia, where singeing was sometimes employed as a shading in realistic designs. in the study of the palace at urbino, there is mention of "arm chairs encircling a table all mosaicked with tarsia, and carved by maestro giacomo of florence," a worker of considerable repute. one of the first to adopt the use of ivory, pearl, and silver for inlay was andrea massari of siena. in this same way inlay of tortoise-shell and brass was made,--the two layers were sawed out together, and then counterchanged so as to give the pattern in each material upon the other. cabinets are often treated in this way. ivory and sandal-wood or ebony, too, have been sometimes thus combined. in spain cabinets were often made of a sort of mosaic of ebony and silver; in a prohibtion was issued against using silver in this way, since it was becoming scarce. in de luna's "diologos familiarea," a spanish work of , the following conversation is given: "how much has your worship paid for this cabinet? it is worth more than forty ducats. what wood is it made of? the red is of mahogany, from habaña, and the black is made of ebony, and the white of ivory. you will find the workmanship excellent." this proves that inlaid cabinets were usual in spain. ebony being expensive, it was sometimes simulated with stain. an old fifteenth century recipe says: "take boxwood and lay in oil with sulphur for a night, then let it stew for an hour, and it will become as black as coal." an old italian book enjoins the polishing of this imitation ebony as follows: "is the wood to be polished with burnt pumice stone? rub the work carefully with canvas and this powder, and then wash the piece with dutch lime water so that it may be more beautifully polished... then the rind of a pomegranate must be steeped, and the wood smeared over with it, and set to dry, but in the shade." inlay was often imitated; the elaborate marquetry cabinets in sta. maria della grazia in milan which are proudly displayed are in reality, according to mr. russell sturgis, cleverly painted to simulate the real inlaid wood. mr. hamilton jackson says that these, being by luini, are intended to be known as paintings, but to imitate intarsia. intarsia was made also among the monasteries. the olivetans practised this art extensively, and, much as some monasteries had scriptoria for the production of books, so others had carpenter's shops and studios where, according to michele caffi, they showed "great talent for working in wood, succeeding to the heirship of the art of tarsia in coloured woods, which they got from tuscany." one of the more important of the olivetan monasteries was st. michele in bosco, where the noted worker in tarsia, fra raffaello da brescia, made some magnificent choir stalls. in these were finished, but they were largely destroyed by the mob in the suppression of the convents in the eighteenth century. in eighteen of the stalls were saved, bought by the marquis malvezzi, and placed in st. petronio. he tried also to save the canopies, but these had been sold for firewood at about twopence each! the stalls of st. domenico at bologna are by fra damiano of bergamo; it is said of him that his woods were coloured so marvellously that the art of tarsia was by him raised to the rank of that of painting! he was a dominican monk in bologna most of his life. when charles v. visited the choir of st. domenico, and saw these stalls, he would not believe that the work was accomplished by inlay, and actually cut a piece out with his sword by way of investigation. castiglione the courtier expresses himself with much admiration of the work of fra damiano, "rather divine than human." of the technical perfection of the workmanship he adds: "though these works are executed with inlaid pieces, the eye cannot even by the greatest exertion detect the joints.... i think, indeed, i am certain, that it will be called the eighth wonder of the world." (count castiglione did not perhaps realize what a wonderful world he lived in!) but at any rate there is no objection to subscribing to his eulogy: "all that i could say would be little enough of his rare and singular virtue, and on the goodness of his religious and holy life." another frate who wrote about that time alluded to fra damiano as "putting together woods with so much art that they appear as pictures painted with the brush." in germany there was some interesting intarsia made by the elfen brothers, of st. michael's in hildesheim, who produced beautiful chancel furniture. hans stengel of nüremberg, too, was renowned in this art. after the renaissance marquetry ran riot in france, but that is out of the province of our present study. the art of mosaic making has changed very little during the centuries. nearly all the technical methods now used were known to the ancients. in fact, this art is rather an elemental one, and any departure from old established rules is liable to lead the worker into a new craft; his art becomes that of the inlayer or the enameller when he attempts to use larger pieces in cloissons, or to fuse bits together by any process. mosaic is a natural outgrowth from other inlaying; when an elaborate design had to be set up, quite too complicated to be treated in tortuously-cut large pieces, the craftsman naturally decided to render the whole work with small pieces, which demanded less accurate shaping of each piece. originally, undoubtedly, each bit of glass or stone was laid in the soft plaster of wall or floor; but now a more labour saving method has obtained; it is amusing to watch the modern rest-cure. instead of an artist working in square bits of glass to carry out his design, throwing his interest and personality into the work, a labourer sits leisurely before a large cartoon, on which he glues pieces of mosaic the prescribed colour and size, mechanically fitting them over the design until it is completely covered. then this sheet of paper, with the mosaic glued to it, is slapped on to the plaster wall, having the stones next to the plaster, so that, until it is dry, all that can be seen is the sheet of paper apparently fixed on the wall. but lo! the grand transformation! the paper is washed off, leaving in place the finished product--a very accurate imitation of the picture on which the artist laboured, all in place in the wall, every stone evenly set as if it had been polished--entirely missing the charm of the irregular faceted effect of an old mosaic--again mechanical facility kills the spirit of an art. much early mosaic, known as cosmati work, is inlaid into marble, in geometric designs; twisted columns of this class of work may be seen in profusion in rome, and the façade of orvieto is similarly decorated. our illustration will demonstrate the technical process as well as a description. the mosaic base of edward the confessor's shrine is inscribed to the effect that it was wrought by peter of rome. it was a dignified specimen of the best cosmati. all the gold glass which once played its part in the scheme of decoration has been picked out, and in fact most of the pieces in the pattern are missing. [illustration: ambo at ravello; specimen of cosmati mosaic] the mosaic pavement in westminster abbey presbytery is as fine an example of roman cosmati mosaic as one can see north of the alps. an inscription, almost obliterated, is interpreted by mr. lethaby as signifying, that in the year "henry iii. being king, and odericus the cementarius, richard de ware, abbot, brought the porphyry and divers jaspers and marbles of thaso from rome." in another place a sort of enigma, drawn from an arbitrary combination of animal forms and numbers, marks a chart for determining the end of the world! there is also a beautiful mosaic tomb at westminster, inlaid with an interlacing pattern in a ground of marble, like the work so usual in rome, and in palermo, and other southern centres of the art. while the material used in mosaic wall decoration is sometimes a natural product, like marble, porphyry, coral, or alabaster, the picture is composed for the most part of artificially prepared smalts--opaque glass of various colours, made in sheets and then cut up into cubes. an infinite variety in gradations of colour and texture is thus made possible. the gold grounds which one sees in nearly all mosaics are constructed in an interesting way. each cube is composed of plain rather coarse glass, of a greenish tinge, upon which is laid gold leaf. over this leaf is another film of glass, extremely thin, so that the actual metal is isolated between two glasses, and is thus impervious to such qualities in the air as would tarnish it or cause it to deteriorate. to prevent an uninteresting evenness of surface on which the sun's rays would glint in a trying manner, it was usual to lay the gold cubes in a slightly irregular manner, so that each facet, as it were, should reflect at a different angle, and the texture, especially in the gold grounds, never became monotonous. one does not realize the importance of this custom until one sees a cheap modern mosaic laid absolutely flat, and then it is evident how necessary this broken surface is to good effect. any one who has tried to analyze the reason for the superiority of old french stained glass over any other, will be surprised, if he goes close to the wall, under one of the marvellous windows of chartres, for instance, and looks up, to see that the whole fabric is warped and bent at a thousand angles,--it is not only the quality of the ancient glass, nor its colour, that gives this unattainable expression to these windows, but the accidental warping and wear of centuries have laid each bit of glass at a different angle, so that the refraction of the light is quite different from any possible reflection on the smooth surface of a modern window. the dangers of a clear gold ground were, felt more fully by the workers at ravenna and rome, than in venice. architectural schemes were introduced to break up the surface: clouds and backgrounds, fields of flowers, and trees, and such devices, were used to prevent the monotony of the unbroken glint. but in venice the decorators were brave; their faith in their material was unbounded, and they not only frankly laid gold in enormous masses on flat wall and cupola, but they even moulded the edges and archivolts without separate ribs or strips to relieve them; the gold is carried all over the edges, which are rounded into curves to receive the mosaic, so that the effect is that of the entire upper part of the church having been _pressed_ into shape out of solid gold. the lights on these rounded edges are incomparably rich. it is equally important to vary the plain values of the colour, and this was accomplished by means of dilution and contrast in tints instead of by unevenness of surface, although in many of the most satisfactory mosaics, both means have been employed. plain tints in mosaic can be relieved in a most delightful way by the introduction of little separate cubes of unrelated colour, and the artist who best understands this use of mass and dot is the best maker of mosaic. the actual craft of construction is similar everywhere, but the use of what we may regard as the pigment has possibilities similar to the colours of a painter. the manipulation being of necessity slow, it is more difficult to convey the idea of spontaneity in design than it is in a fresco painting. to follow briefly the history of mosaic as used in the dark ages, the middle ages, and the period of the renaissance, it is interesting to note that by the fourth century mosaic was the principal decoration in ecclesiastical buildings. contantine employed this art very extensively. of his period, however, few examples remain. the most notable is the little church of sta. constanza, the vaults of which are ornamented in this way, with a fine running pattern of vines, interspersed with figures on a small scale. the libel pontificalis tells how constantine built the basilica of st. agnese at the request of his daughter, and also a baptistery in the same place, where constance was baptized, by bishop sylvester. among the most interesting early mosaics is the apse of the church of st. pudentiana in rome. barbet de jouy, who has written extensively on this mosaic, considers it to be an eighth century achievement. but a later archæologist, m. rossi, believes it to have been made in the fourth century, in which theory he is upheld by m. vitet. the design is that of a company of saints gathered about the throne on which god the father sits to pass judgment. in certain restorations and alterations made in two of these figures were cut away, and the lower halves of those remaining were also removed, so that the figures are now only half length. the faces and figures are drawn in a very striking manner, being realistic and full of graceful action, very different from the mosaics of a later period, which were dominated by byzantine tradition. in france were many specimens of the mosaics of the fifth century. but literary descriptions are all that have survived of these works, which might once have been seen at nantes, tours, and clermont. [illustration: mosaic from ravenna; theodora and her suite, th century] ravenna is the shrine of the craft in the fifth and sixth centuries. it is useless in so small a space to attempt to describe or do justice to these incomparable walls, where gleam the marvellous procession of white robed virgins, and where glitters the royal cortège of justinian and theodora. the acme of the art was reached when these mural decorations were planned and executed, and the churches of ravenna may be considered the central museum of the world for a study of mosaic. among those who worked at ravenna a few names have descended. these craftsmen were, cuserius, paulus, janus, statius and stephanus, but their histories are vague. theodoric also brought some mosaic artists from rome to work in ravenna, which fact accounts for a latin influence discernible in these mosaics, which are in many instances free from byzantine stiffness. the details of the textiles in the great mosaics of justinian and theodora are rarely beautiful. the chlamys with which justinian is garbed is covered with circular interlaces with birds in them; on the border of the empress's robe are embroideries of the three magi presenting their gifts; on one of the robes of the attendants there is a pattern of ducks swimming, while another is ornamented with leaves of a five-pointed form. there is a mosaic in the tomb of galla placida in ravenna, representing st. lawrence, cheerfully approaching his gridiron, with the cross and an open book encumbering his hands, while in a convenient corner stands a little piece of furniture resembling a meat-safe, containing the four gospels. the saint is walking briskly, and is fully draped; the gridiron is of the proportions of a cot bedstead, and has a raging fire beneath it,--a gruesome suggestion of the martyrdom. no finer examples of the art of the colourist in mosaic can be seen than in the procession of virgins at san apollinaire nuovo in ravenna. cool, restrained, and satisfying, the composition has all the elements of chromatic perfection. in the golden background occasional dots of light and dark brown serve to deepen the tone into a slightly bronze colour. the effect is especially scintillating and rich, more like hammered gold than a flat sheet. the colours in the trees are dark and light green, while the virgins, in brown robes, with white draperies over them, are relieved with little touches of gold. the whole tone being thus green and russet, with purplish lines about the halos, is an unusual colour-scheme, and can hardly carry such conviction in a description as when it is seen. in the east, the church of sta. sophia at constantinople exhibited the most magnificent specimens of this work; the building was constructed under constantine, by the architects anthemius and isidore, and the entire interior, walls and dome included, was covered by mosaic pictures. among important works of the seventh century is the apse of st. agnese, in rome. honorius decorated the church, about , and it is one of the most effective mosaics in rome. at st. john lateran, also, pope john iv. caused a splendid work to be carried out, which has been reported as being as "brilliant as the sacred waters." in the eighth century a magnificent achievement was accomplished in the monastery of centula, in picardie, but all traces of this have been lost, for the convent was burnt in . the eighth was not an active century for the arts, for in leo's edict was sent forth, prohibiting all forms of image worship, and at a council at constantinople in it was decided that all iconographic representation and all use of symbols (except in the sacrament) were blasphemous. idolatrous monuments were destroyed, and the iconoclasts continued their devastations until the death of theophilus in . fortunately this wave of zeal was checked before the destruction of the mosaics in ravenna and rome, but very few specimens survived in france. in the ninth century a great many important monuments were added, and a majority of the mosaics which may still be seen, date from that time: they are not first in quality, however, although they are more numerous. after this, there was a period of inanition, in this art as in all others, while the pseudo-prophets awaited the ending of the world. after the year had passed, and the astonished people found that they were still alive, and that the world appeared as stable as formerly, interest began to revive, and the new birth of art produced some significant examples in the field of mosaic. there was some activity in germany, for a time, the versatile bishop bernward of hildesheim adding this craft to his numerous accomplishments, although it is probable that his works resembled the graffiti and inlaid work rather than the mosaics composed of cubes of smalt. at the monastery of monte cassino in the eleventh century was an interesting personality,--the abbé didier, its superior. about he brought workers from constantinople, who decorated the apse and walls of the basilica under his direction. at the same time, he established a school at the monastery, and the young members were instructed in the arts and crafts of mosaic and inlay, and the illumination of books. greek influence was thus carried into italy through monte cassino. in the twelfth century the celebrated suger of st. denis decorated one of the porches of his church with mosaic, in smalt, marbles, and gold; animal and human forms were introduced in the ornament. but this may not have been work actually executed on the spot, for another narrator tells us that suger brought home from italy, on one of his journeys, a mosaic, which was placed over the door at st. denis; as it is no longer in its position, it is not easy to determine which account is correct. the mosaics at st. mark's in venice were chiefly the work of two centuries and a half. greek artists were employed in the main, bringing their own tesseræ and marbles. in there was special activity in this line, at the time when the venetians took constantinople. after this, an establishment for making the smalts and gold glass was set up at murano, and venice no longer imported its material. the old cathedral at torcello has one of the most perfect examples of the twelfth century mosaic in the world. the entire west end of the church is covered with a rich display of figures and scriptural scenes. a very lurid hell is exhibited at the lower corner, in the depths of which are seen stewing, several saracens, with large hoop earrings. their faces are highly expressive of discomfort. this mosaic is full of genuine feeling; one of the subjects is amphitrite riding a seahorse, among those who rise to the surface when "the sea gives up its dead." the redeemed are seen crowding round abraham, who holds one in his bosom; they are like an infant class, and are dressed in uniform pinafores, intended to look like little ecclesiastical vestments! the dead who are being given up by the earth are being vomited forth by wild animals--this is original, and i believe, almost the only occasion on which this form of literal resurrection is represented. in the thirteenth century a large number of mosaic artists appeared in florence, many of whose names and histories are available. in the baptistery, andrea tafi, who lived between and , decorated the cupola. with him were two assistants who are known by name--apollonius a greek, which in part accounts for the stiff byzantine figures in this work, and another who has left his signature, "jacobus sancti francisci frater"--evidently a monastic craftsman. gaddo gaddi also assisted in this work, executing the prophets which occur under the windows, and professing to combine in his style "the greek manner and that of cimabue." apollonius taught andrea tafi how to compose the smalt and to mix the cement, but this latter was evidently unsuccessful, for in the next century the mosaic detached itself and fell badly, when agnolo gaddi, the grandson of gaddo, was engaged to restore it. tafi, gaddi, and jacobus were considered as a promising firm, and they undertook other large works in mosaic. they commenced the apse at pisa, which was finished in by vicini, cimabue designing the colossal figure of christ which thus dominates the cathedral. vasari says that andrea tafi was considered "an excellent, nay, a divine artist" in his specialty. andrea, himself more modest, visited venice, and deigned to take instruction from greek mosaic workers, who were employed at st. mark's. one of them, apollonius, became attached to tafi, and this is how he came to accompany him to florence. the work on the baptistery was done actually _in situ_, every cube being set directly in the plaster. the work is still extant, and the technical and constructive features are perfect, since their restoration. it is amusing to read vasari's patronizing account of tafi; from the late renaissance point of view, the mosaic worker seemed to be a barbarous goth at best: "the good fortune of andrea was really great," says vasari, "to be born in an age which, doing all things in the rudest manner, could value so highly the works of an artist who really merited so little, not to say nothing!" gaddo gaddi was a painstaking worker in mosaic, executing some works on a small scale entirely in eggshells of varying tints. in the baroncelli chapel in florence is a painting by taddeo gaddi, in which occur the portraits of his father, gaddo gaddi, and andrea tafi. about this time the delightful mosaic at st. clemente, in rome, was executed. with its central cross and graceful vine decorations, it stands out unique among the groups of saints and seraphs, of angels and hierarchies, of most of the roman apsidal ornaments. the mosaic in the basilica of st. john lateran is by jacopo torriti. in the design there are two inconspicuous figures, intentionally smaller than the others, of two monks on their knees, working, with measure and compass. these represent jacopo torriti and his co-worker, camerino. one of them is inscribed (translated) "jacopo torriti, painter, did this work," and the other, "brother jacopo camerino, companion of the master worker, commends himself to the blessed john." the tools and implements used by mosaic artists are represented in the hands of these two monks. torriti was apparently a greater man in some respects than his contemporaries. he based his art rather on roman than greek tradition, and his works exhibit less byzantine formality than many mosaics of the period. on the apse of sta. maria maggiore there appears a signature, "jacopo torriti made this work in mosaic." gaddo gaddi also added a composition below the vault, about . the well-known mosaic called the navicella in the atrium of st. peter's, rome, was originally made by giotto. it has been much restored and altered, but some of the original design undoubtedly remains. giotto went to rome to undertake this work in ; but the present mosaic is largely the restoration of bernini, who can hardly be considered as a sympathetic interpreter of the early florentine style. vasari speaks of the navicella as "a truly wonderful work, and deservedly eulogized by all enlightened judges." he marvels at the way in which giotto has produced harmony and interchange of light and shade so cleverly: "with mere pieces of glass" (vasari is so naïvely overwhelmed with ignorance when he comes to deal with handicraft) especially on the large sail of the boat. in venice, the mascoli chapel was ornamented by scenes from the life of the virgin, in . the artist was michele zambono, who designed and superintended the work himself. at or san michele in florence, the painter peselli, or guliano arrigo, decorated the tabernacle, in . among other artists who entered the field of mosaic, were baldovinetti and domenico ghirlandajo, the painter who originated the motto: "the only painting for eternity is mosaic." in the sixteenth century the art of mosaic ceased to observe due limitations. the ideal was to reproduce exactly in mosaic such pictures as were prepared by titian, pordenone, raphael, and other realistic painters. georges sand, in her charming novel, "les maitres mosaïstes," gives one the atmosphere of the workshops in venice in this later period. tintoretto and zuccato, the aged painter, are discussing the durability of mosaic:--"since it resists so well," says zuccato, "how comes it that the seignory is repairing all the domes of st. mark's, which to-day are as bare as my skull?" to which tintoretto makes answer: "because at the time when they were decorated with mosaics, greek artists were scarce in venice. they came from a distance, and remained but a short time: their apprentices were hastily trained, and executed the works entrusted to them without knowing their business, and without being able to give them the necessary solidity. now that this art has been cultivated in venice, century after century, we have become as skilful as even the greeks were." the two sons of zuccato, who are engaged in this work, confide to each other their trials and difficulties in the undertaking: like artists of all ages, they cannot easily convince their patrons that they comprehend their art better than their employers! francesco complains of the procurator, who is commissioned to examine the work: "he is not an artist. he sees in mosaic only an application of particles more or less brilliant. perfection of tone, beauty of design, ingenuity of composition, are nothing to him.... did i not try in vain the other day to make him understand that the old pieces of gilded crystal used by our ancestors and a little tarnished by time, were more favourable to colour than those manufactured to-day?" "indeed, you make a mistake, messer francesco," said he, "in handing over to the bianchini all the gold of modern manufacture. the commissioners have decided that the old will do mixed with the new."... "but did i not in vain try to make him understand that this brilliant gold would hurt the faces, and completely ruin the effect of colour?"... the answer of the procurator was, "the bianchini do not scruple to use it, and their mosaics please the eye much better than yours," so his brother valerio, laughing, asks, "what need of worrying yourself after such a decision as that? suppress the shadows, cut a breadth of material from a great plate of enamel and lay it over the breast of st. nicaise, render st. cecilia's beautiful hair with a badly cut tile, a pretty lamb for st. john the baptist, and the commission will double your salary and the public clap its hands. really, my brother, you who dream of glory, i do not understand how you can pledge yourself to the worship of art." "i dream of glory, it is true," replied francesco, "but of a glory that is lasting, not the vain popularity of a day. i should like to leave an honoured name, if not an illustrious one, and make those who examine the cupolas of st. mark's five hundred years hence say, 'this was the work of a conscientious artist.'" a description follows of the scene of the mosaic workers pursuing their calling. "here was heard abusive language, there the joyous song; further on, the jest; above, the hammer: below, the trowel: now the dull and continuous thud of the tampon on the mosaics, and anon the clear and crystal like clicking of the glassware rolling from the baskets on to the pavement, in waves of rubies and emeralds. then the fearful grating of the scraper on the cornice, and finally the sharp rasping cry of the saw in the marble, to say nothing of the low masses said at the end of the chapel in spite of the racket." [illustration: mosaic in bas-relief, naples] the zuccati were very independent skilled workmen, as well as being able to design their own subjects. they were, in the judgment of georges sand, superior to another of the masters in charge of the works, bozza, who was less of a man, although an artist of some merit. later than these men, there were few mosaic workers of high standing; in florence the art degenerated into a mere decorative inlay of semi-precious material, heraldic in feeling, costly and decorative, but an entirely different art from that of the greeks and romans. lapis-lazuli with gold veinings, malachite, coral, alabaster, and rare marbles superseded the smalts and gold of an elder day. chapter xi illumination of books one cannot enter a book shop or a library to-day without realizing how many thousands of books are in constant circulation. there was an age when books were laboriously but most beautifully written, instead of being thus quickly manufactured by the aid of the type-setting machine; the material on which the glossy text was executed was vellum instead of the cheap paper of to-day, the illustrations, instead of being easily reproduced by photographic processes, were veritable miniature paintings, most decorative, ablaze with colour and fine gold,--in these times it is easy to forget that there was ever a period when the making of a single book occupied years, and sometimes the life-time of one or two men. in those days, when the transcription of books was one of the chief occupations in religious houses, the recluse monk, in the quiet of the scriptorium, was, in spite of his seclusion, and indeed, by reason of it, the chief link between the world of letters and the world of men. the earliest known example of work by a european monk dates from the year ; but shortly after this there was a great increase in book making, and monasteries were founded especially for the purpose of perpetuating literature. the first establishment of this sort was the monastery of vivaria, in southern italy, founded by cassiodorus, a greek who lived between the years and , and who had been the scribe (or "private secretary") of theodoric the goth. about the same time, st. columba in ireland founded a house with the intention of multiplying books, so that in the sixth century, in both the extreme north and in the south, the religious orders had commenced the great work of preserving for future ages the literature of the past and of their own times. before examining the books themselves, it will be interesting to observe the conditions under which the work was accomplished. sometimes the scriptorium was a large hall or studio, with various desks about; sometimes the north walk of the cloister was divided into little cells, called "carrels," in each of which was room for the writer, his desk, and a little shelf for his inks and colours. these carrels may be seen in unusual perfection in gloucester. in very cold weather a small brazier of charcoal was also introduced. cassiodorus writes thus of the privilege of being a copyist of holy books. "he may fill his mind with the scriptures while copying the sayings of the lord; with his fingers he gives life to men and arms against the wiles of the devil; as the antiquarius copies the word of christ, so many wounds does he inflict upon satan. what he writes in his cell will be carried far and wide over distant provinces. man multiplies the word of heaven: if i may dare so to speak, the three fingers of his right hand are made to represent the utterances of the holy trinity. the fast travelling reed writes down the holy words, thus avenging the malice of the wicked one, who caused a reed to be used to smite the head of the saviour." when the scriptorium was consecrated, these words were used (and they would be most fitting words to-day, in the consecration of libraries or class rooms which are to be devoted to religious study): "vouchsafe, o, lord, to bless this workroom of thy servants, that all which they write therein may be comprehended by their intelligence, and realized by their work." scriptorium work was considered equal to labour in the fields. in the rule of st. fereol, in the sixth century, there is this clause: "he who doth not turn up the earth with his plough, ought to write the parchment with his fingers." the capitulary of charlemagne contains this phrase: "do not permit your scribes or pupils, either in reading or writing, to garble the text; when you are preparing copies of the gospels, the psalter, or the missal, see that the work is confided to men of mature age, who will write with due care." some of the scribes were prolific book transcribers. jacob of breslau, who died in , copied so many books that it is said that "six horses could with difficulty bear the burden of them!" the work of each scriptorium was devoted first to the completion of the library of the individual monastery, and after that, to other houses, or to such patrons as were rich enough to order books to be transcribed for their own use. the library of a monastery was as much a feature as the scriptorium. the monks were not like the rising literary man, who, when asked if he had read "pendennis" replied, "no--i never read books--i write them." every scribe was also a reader. there was a regular system of lending books from the central store. a librarian was in charge, and every monk was supposed to have some book which he was engaged in reading "straight through" as the rule of st. benedict enjoins, just as much as the one which he was writing. as silence was obligatory in the scriptorium and library, as well as in the cloisters, they were forced to apply for the volumes which they desired by signs. for a general work, the sign was to extend the hand and make a movement as if turning over the leaves of a book. if a missal was wanted, the sign of the cross was added to the same form; for a gospel, the sign of the cross was made upon the forehead, while those who wished tracts to read, should lay one hand on the mouth and the other on the stomach; a capitulary was indicated by the gesture of raising the clasped hands to heaven, while a psalter could be obtained by raising the hands above the head in the form of a crown. as the good brothers were not possessed of much religious charity, they indicated a secular book by scratching their ears, as dogs are supposed to do, to imply the suggestion that the infidel who wrote such a book was no better than a dog! this extract is made from a book in one of the early monastic libraries. "oh, lord, send the blessing of thy holy spirit upon these books, that, cleansing them from all earthly things, they may mercifully enlighten our hearts, and give us true understanding, and grant that by their teaching they may brightly preserve and make a full abundance of good works according to thy will." the books were kept in cupboards, with doors; in the customs of the augustine priory of barnwell, these directions are given: "the press in which the books are kept ought to be lined with wood, that the damp of the walls may not moisten or stain the books. the press should be divided vertically as well as horizontally, by sundry partitions, on which the books may be ranged so as to be separated from one another, for fear they be packed so close as to injure one another, or to delay those who want them." we read of the "chained books" of the middle ages, and i think there is a popular belief that this referred to the fact that the bible was kept in the priest's hands, and chained so that the people should not be able to read it for themselves and become familiar with every part of it. this, however, is a mistake. it was the books in the libraries which were chained, so that dishonest people should not make way with them! in one chapter library, there occurs a denunciation of such thieves, and instructions how to fasten the volumes. it reads as follows: "since to the great reproach of the nation, and a greater one to our holy religion, the thievish disposition of some who enter libraries to learn no good there, hath made it necessary to secure the sacred volumes themselves with chains (which are better deserved by those ill persons, who have too much learning to be hanged, and too little to be honest), care shall be taken that the chains should neither be too long nor too clumsy, more than the use of them requires: and that the loops whereby they are fastened to the books may be rivetted on such a part of the cover, and so smoothly, as not to gall or graze the books, while they are moved to or from their respective places. and forasmuch as the more convenient way to place books in libraries is to turn their backs out showing the title and other decent ornaments in gilt work which ought not to be hidden, this new method of fixing the chain to the back of the book is recommended until one more suitable shall be contrived." numerous monasteries in england devoted much time to scriptorium work. in gloucester may still be seen the carrels of the scribes in the cloister wall, and there was also much activity in the book making art in norwich, glastonbury, and winchester, and in other cities. the two monasteries of st. peter and st. swithin in winchester were, the chronicler says, "so close packed together,... that between the foundation of their respective buildings there was barely room for a man to pass along. the choral service of one monastery conflicted with that of the other, so that both were spoiled, and the ringing of their bells together produced a horrid effect." one of the most important monasteries of early times, on the continent, was that conducted by alcuin, under the protection of charlemagne. when the appointed time for writing came round, the monks filed into the scriptorium, taking their places at their desks. one of their number then stood in the midst, and read aloud, slowly, for dictation, the work upon which they were engaged as copyists; in this way, a score of copies could be made at one time. alcuin himself would pass about among them, making suggestions and correcting errors, a beautiful example of true consecration, the great scholar spending his time thus in supervising the transcription of the word of god, from a desire to have it spread far and wide. alcuin sent a letter to charlemagne, accompanying a present of a copy of the bible, at the time of the emperor's coronation, and from this letter, which is still preserved, it may be seen how reverent a spirit his was, and how he esteemed the things of the spiritual life as greater than the riches of the world. "after deliberating a long while," he writes, "what the devotion of my mind might find worthy of a present equal to the splendour of your imperial dignity, and the increase of your wealth,--at length by the inspiration of the holy spirit, i found what it would be competent for me to offer, and fitting for your prudence to accept. for to me inquiring and considering, nothing appeared more worthy of your peaceful honour than the gifts of the sacred scriptures... which, knit together in the sanctity of one glorious body, and diligently amended, i have sent to your royal authority, by this your faithful son and servant, so that with full hands we may assist at the delightful service of your dignity." one of alcuin's mottoes was: "writing books is better than planting vines: for he who plants a vine serves his belly, while he who writes books serves his soul." many different arts were represented in the making of a mediæval book. of those employed, first came the scribe, whose duty it was to form the black even glossy letters with his pen; then came the painter, who must not only be a correct draughtsman, and an adept with pencil and brush, but must also understand how to prepare mordaunts and to lay the gold leaf, and to burnish it afterwards with an agate, or, as an old writer directs, "a dogge's tooth set in a stick." after him, the binder gathered the lustrous pages and put them together under silver mounted covers, with heavy clasps. at first, the illuminations were confined only to the capital letters, and red was the selected colour to give this additional life to the evenly written page. the red pigment was known as "minium." the artist who applied this was called a "miniator," and from this, was derived the term "miniature," which later referred to the pictures executed in the developed stages of the art. the use of the word "miniature," as applied to paintings on a small scale, was evolved from this expression. [illustration: a scribe at work: th century manuscript] the difficulties were numerous. first, there was climate and temperature to consider. it was necessary to be very careful about the temperature to which gold leaf was exposed, and in order to dry the sizing properly, it was important that the weather should not be too damp nor too warm. peter de st. audemar, writing in the late thirteenth century, says: "take notice that you ought not to work with gold or colours in a damp place, on account of the hot weather, which, as it is often injurious in burnishing gold, both to the colours on which the gold is laid and also to the gilding, if the work is done on parchment, so also it is injurious when the weather is too dry and arid." john acherius, in , observes, too, that "care must be taken as regards the situation, because windy weather is a hindrance, unless the gilder is in an enclosed place, and if the air is too dry, the colour cannot hold the gold under the burnisher." illumination is an art which has always been difficult; we who attempt it to-day are not simply facing a lost art which has become impossible because of the changed conditions; even when followed along the best line in the best way the same trials were encountered. early treatises vary regarding the best medium for laying leaf on parchment. there are very few vehicles which will form a connecting and permanent link between these two substances. there is a general impression that white of egg was used to hold the gold: but any one who has experimented knows that it is impossible to fasten metal to vellum by white of egg alone. both oil and wax were often employed, and in nearly all recipes the use of glue made of boiled-down vellum is enjoined. in some of the monasteries there are records that the scribes had the use of the kitchen for drying parchment and melting wax. the introductions to the early treatises show the spirit in which the work was undertaken. peter de st. audemar commences: "by the assistance of god, of whom are all things that are good, i will explain to you how to make colours for painters and illuminators of books, and the vehicles for them, and other things appertaining thereto, as faithfully as i can in the following chapters." peter was a north frenchman of the thirteenth century. of the recipes given by the early treatises, i will quote a few, for in reality they are all the literature we have upon the subject. eraclius, who wrote in the twelfth century, gives accurate directions: "take ochre and distemper it with water, and let it dry. in the meanwhile make glue with vellum, and whip some white of egg. then mix the glue and the white of egg, and grind the ochre, which by this time is well dried, upon a marble slab; and lay it on the parchment with a paint brush;... then apply the gold, and let it remain so, without pressing it with the stone. when it is dry, burnish it well with a tooth. this," continues eraclius naïvely, "is what i have learned by experiment, and have frequently proved, and you may safely believe me that i shall have told you the truth." this assurance of good faith suggests that possibly it was a habit of illuminators to be chary of information, guarding their own discoveries carefully, and only giving out partial directions to others of their craft. in the bolognese manuscript, one is directed to make a simple size from incense, white gum, and sugar candy, distempering it with wine; and in another place, to use the white of egg, whipped with the milk of the fig tree and powdered gum arabic. armenian bole is a favourite ingredient. gum and rose water are also prescribed, and again, gesso, white of egg, and honey. all of these recipes sound convincing, but if one tries them to-day, one has the doubtful pleasure of seeing the carefully laid gold leaf slide off as soon as the whole mixture is quite dry. especially improbable is the recipe given in the brussels manuscript: "you lay on gold with well gummed water alone, and this is very good for gilding on parchment. you may also use fresh white of egg or fig juice alone in the same manner." theophilus does not devote much time or space to the art of illuminating, for, as he is a builder of everything from church organs to chalices, glass windows, and even to frescoed walls, we must not expect too much information on minor details. he does not seem to direct the use of gold leaf at all, but of finely ground gold, which shall be applied with its size in the form of a paste, to be burnished later. he says (after directing that the gold dust shall be placed in a shell): "take pure minium and add to it a third part of cinnibar, grinding it upon a stone with water. which, being carefully ground, beat up the clear white of an egg, in summer with water, in winter without water," and this is to be used as a slightly raised bed for the gold. "then," he continues, "place a little pot of glue on the fire, and when it is liquefied, pour it into the shell of gold and wash it with it." this is to be painted on to the gesso ground just mentioned, and when quite dry, burnished with an agate. this recipe is more like the modern florentine method of gilding in illumination. concerning the gold itself, there seem to have been various means employed for manufacturing substitutes for the genuine article. a curious recipe is given in the manuscript of jehan de begue, "take bulls' brains, put them in a marble vase, and leave them for three weeks, when you will find gold making worms. preserve them carefully." more quaint and superstitious is theophilus' recipe for making spanish gold; but, as this is not quotable in polite pages, the reader must refer to the original treatise if he cares to trace its manufacture. brushes made of hair are recommended by the brussels manuscript, with a plea for "pencils of fishes' hairs for softening." if this does not refer to _sealskin_, it is food for conjecture! and for the binding of these beautiful volumes, how was the leather obtained? this is one way in which business and sport could be combined in the monastery, warton says, "about the year , charlemagne granted an unlimited right of hunting to the abbot and monks of sithiu, for making... of the skins of the deer they killed... covers for their books." there is no doubt that it had occurred to artists to experiment upon human skin, and perhaps the fact that this was an unsatisfactory texture is the chief reason why no books were made of it. a french commentator observes: "the skin of a man is nothing compared with the skin of a sheep.... sheep is good for writing on both sides, but the skin of a dead man is just about as profitable as his bones,--better bury him, skin and bones together." there was some difficulty in obtaining manuscripts to copy. the breviary was usually enclosed in a cage; rich parishioners were bribed by many masses and prayers, to bequeath manuscripts to churches. in old paris, the parchment makers were a guild of much importance. often they combined their trade with tavern keeping, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. the rector of the university was glad when this occurred, for the inn keeper and parchment maker was under his control, both being obliged to reside in the pays latin. bishops were known to exhort the parchment makers, from the pulpit, to be honest and conscientious in preparing skins. a bookseller, too, was solemnly made to swear "faithfully to receive, take care of, and expose for sale the works which should be entrusted to him." he might not buy them for himself until they had been for sale a full month "at the disposition of the masters and scholars." but in return for these restrictions, the bookseller was admitted to the rights and privileges of the university. as clients of the university, these trades, which were associated with book making, joined in the "solemn processions" of those times; booksellers, binders, parchment makers, and illuminators, all marched together on these occasions. they were obliged to pay toll to the rector for these privileges; the recipe for ink was a carefully guarded secret. it now becomes our part to study the books themselves, and see what results were obtained by applying all the arts involved in their making. the transition from the roman illuminations to the byzantine may be traced to the time when constantine moved his seat of government from rome to constantinople. constantinople then became the centre of learning, and books were written there in great numbers. for some centuries constantinople was the chief city in the art of illuminating. the style that here grew up exhibited the same features that characterized byzantine art in mosaic and decoration. the oriental influence displayed itself in a lavish use of gold and colour; the remnant of classical art was slight, but may sometimes be detected in the subjects chosen, and the ideas embodied. the greek influence was the strongest. but the greek art of the seventh and eighth centuries was not at all like the classic art of earlier greece; a conventional type had entered with christianity, and is chiefly recognized by a stubborn conformity to precedent. it is difficult to date a byzantine picture or manuscript, for the same severe hard form that prevailed in the days of constantine is carried on to-day by the monks of mt. athos, and a byzantine work of the ninth century is not easily distinguished from one of the fifteenth. in manuscripts, the caligraphy is often the only feature by which the work can be dated. in the earlier byzantine manuscripts there is a larger proportion of classical influence than in later ones, when the art had taken on its inflexible uniformity of design. one of the most interesting books in which this classical influence may be seen is in the imperial library at vienna, being a work on botany, by dioscorides, written about a. d. the miniatures in this manuscript have many of the characteristics of roman work. the pigments used in byzantine manuscripts are glossy, a great deal of ultramarine being used. the high lights are usually of gold, applied in sharp glittering lines, and lighting up the picture with very decorative effect. in large wall mosaics the same characteristics may be noted, and it is often suggested that these gold lines may have originated in an attempt to imitate cloisonné enamel, in which the fine gold line separates the different coloured spaces one from another. this theory is quite plausible, as cloisonné was made by the byzantine goldsmiths. m. lecoy de la marche tells us that the first recorded name of an illuminator is that of a woman--lala de cizique, a greek, who painted on ivory and on parchment in rome during the first christian century. but such a long period elapses between her time and that which we are about to study, that she can here occupy only the position of being referred to as an interesting isolated case. the byzantine is a very easy style to recognize, because of the inflexible stiffness of the figures, depending for any beauty largely upon the use of burnished gold, and the symmetrical folds of the draperies, which often show a sort of archaic grace. byzantine art is not so much representation as suggestion and symbolism. there is a book which may still be consulted, called "a byzantine guide to painting," which contains accurate recipes to be followed in painting pictures of each saint, the colours prescribed for the dress of the virgin, and the grouping to be adopted in representing each of the standard scriptural scenes; and it has hardly from the first occurred to any byzantine artist to depart from these regulations. the heads and faces lack individuality, and are outlined and emphasized with hard, unsympathetic black lines; the colouring is sallow and the expression stolid. any attempt at delineating emotion is grotesque, and grimacing. the beauty, for in spite of all these drawbacks there is great beauty, in byzantine manuscripts, is, as has been indicated, a charm of colour and gleaming gold rather than of design. in the boston art museum there is a fine example of a large single miniature of a byzantine "flight into egypt," in which the gold background is of the highest perfection of surface, and is raised so as to appear like a plate of beaten gold. there is no attempt to portray a scene as it might have occurred; the rule given in the manual is followed, and the result is generally about the same. the background is usually either gold or blue, with very little effort at landscape. trees are represented in flat values of green with little white ruffled edges and articulations. the sea is figured by a blue surface with a symmetrical white pattern of a wavy nature. a building is usually introduced about half as large as the people surrounding it. there is no attempt, either, at perspective. the anatomy of the human form was not understood at all. nearly all the figures in the art of this period are draped. wherever it is necessary to represent the nude, a lank, disproportioned person with an indefinite number of ribs is the result, proving that the monastic art school did not include a life class. most of the best byzantine examples date from the fifth to the seventh centuries. after that a decadence set in, and by the eleventh century the art had deteriorated to a mere mechanical process. the irish and anglo-saxon work are chiefly characterized in their early stages by the use of interlaced bands as a decorative motive. the celtic goldsmiths were famous for their delicate work in filigree, made of threads of gold used in connection with enamelled grounds. in decorating their manuscripts, the artists were perhaps unconsciously influenced by this, and the result is a marvellous use of conventional form and vivid colours, while the human figure is hardly attempted at all, or, when introduced, is so conventionally treated, as to be only a sign instead of a representation. probably the earliest representation of a pen in the holder, although of a very primitive pattern, occurs in a miniature in the gospels of mac durnam, where st. john is seen writing with a pen in one hand and a knife, for sharpening it, in the other. this picture is two centuries earlier than any other known representation of the use of the pen, the volume having been executed in the early part of the eighth century. two of the most famous irish books are the book of kells, and the durham book. the book of kells is now in trinity college, dublin. it is also known as the gospel of st. columba. st. columba came, as the chronicle of ethelwerd states, in the year : "five years afterwards christ's servant columba came from scotia (ireland) to britain, to preach the word of god to the picts." [illustration: detail from the durham book] the intricacy of the interlacing decoration is so minute that it is impossible to describe it. each line may be followed to its conclusion, with the aid of a strong magnifying glass, but cannot be clearly traced with the naked eye. westwood reports that, with a microscope, he counted in one square inch of the page, one hundred and fifty-eight interlacements of bands, each being of white, bordered on either side with a black line. in this book there is no use of gold, and the treatment of the human form is most inadequate. there is no idea of drawing except for decorative purposes; it is an art of the pen rather than of the brush--it hardly comes into the same category as most of the books designated as illuminated manuscripts. the so-called durham book, or the gospels of st. cuthbert, was executed at the abbey of lindisfarne, in , and is now in the british museum. there is a legend that in the ninth century pirates plundered the abbey, and the few monks who survived decided to seek a situation less unsafe than that on the coast, so they gathered up their treasures, the body of the saint, their patron, cuthbert, and the book, which had been buried with him, and set out for new lands. they set sail for ireland, but a storm arose, and their boat was swamped. the body and the book were lost. after reaching land, however, the fugitives discovered the box containing the book, lying high and dry upon the shore, having been cast up by the waves in a truly wonderful state of preservation. any one who knows the effect of dampness upon parchment, and how it cockles the material even on a damp day, will the more fully appreciate this miracle. giraldus cambriensis went to ireland as secretary to prince john, in , and thus describes the gospels of kildare, a book which was similar to the book of kells, and his description may apply equally to either volume. "of all the wonders of kildare i have found nothing more wonderful than this marvellous book, written in the time of the virgin st. bridget, and, as they say, at the dictation of an angel. here you behold the magic face divinely drawn, and there the mystical forms of the evangelists, there an eagle, here a calf, so closely wrought together, that if you look carelessly at them, they would seem rather like a uniform blot than like an exquisite interweavement of figures; exhibiting no perfection of skill or art, where all is really skill and perfection of art. but if you look closely at them with all the acuteness of sight that you can command, and examine the inmost secrets of this wondrous art, you will discover such delicate, such wonderful and finely wrought lines, twisted and interwoven with such intricate knots and adorned with such fresh and brilliant colours, that you will readily acknowledge the whole to have been the work of angelic rather than human skill." at first gold was not used at all in irish work, but the manuscripts of a slightly later date, and especially of the anglo-saxon school, show a superbly decorative use both of gold and silver. the "coronation oath book of the anglo-saxon kings" is especially rich in this exquisite metallic harmony. by degrees, also, the anglo-saxons became more perfected in the portrayal of the human figure, so that by the twelfth century the work of the southern schools and those of england were more alike than at any previous time. [illustration: ivy pattern, from a th century french manuscript] in the northern manuscripts of the eleventh and twelfth centuries it is amusing to note that the bad characters are always represented as having large hooked noses, which fact testifies to the dislike of the northern races for the italians and southern peoples. the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries may be considered to stand for the "golden age" of miniature art in all the countries of europe. in england and france especially the illuminated books of the thirteenth century were marvels of delicate work, among which the tenison psalter and the psalter of queen mary, both in the british museum, are excellent examples. queen mary's psalter was not really painted for queen mary; it was executed two centuries earlier. but it was being sent abroad in , and was seized by the customs. they refused to allow it to pass. afterwards it was presented to queen mary. at this time grew up a most beautiful and decorative style, known as "ivy pattern," consisting of little graceful flowering sprays, with tiny ivy leaves in gold and colours. the gothic feeling prevails in this motive, and the foliate forms are full of spined cusps. the effect of a book decorated in the ivy pattern, is radiant and jewelled as the pages turn, and the burnishing of the gold was brought to its full perfection at this time. the value of the creamy surface of the vellum was recognized as part of the colour scheme. with the high polish of the gold it was necessary to use always the strong crude colours, as the duller tints would appear faded by contrast. in the later stages of the art, when a greater realism was attempted, and better drawing had made it necessary to use quieter tones, gold paint was generally adopted instead of leaf, as being less conspicuous and more in harmony with the general scheme; and one of the chief glories of book decoration died in this change. [illustration: mediÆval illumination] the divergences of style in the work of various countries are well indicated by walter de gray birch, who says: "the english are famous for clearness and breadth; the french for delicate fineness and harmoniously assorted colours, the flemish for minutely stippled details, and the italian for the gorgeous yet calm dignity apparent in their best manuscripts." individuality of facial expression, although these faces are generally ugly, is a characteristic of flemish work, while the faces in french miniatures are uniform and pretty. one marked feature in the english thirteenth and fourteenth century books, is the introduction of many small grotesques in the borders, and these little creatures, partly animal and partly human, show a keen sense of humour, which had to display itself, even though inappropriately, but always with a true spirit of wit. one might suppose on first looking at these grotesques, that the droll expression is unintentional: that the monks could draw no better, and that their sketches are funny only because of their inability to portray more exactly the thing represented. but a closer examination will convince one that the wit was deliberate, and that the very subtlety and reserve of their expression of humour is an indication of its depth. to-day an artist with the sense of caricature expresses himself in the illustrated papers and other public channels provided for the overflow of high spirits; but the cloistered author of the middle ages had only the sculptured details and the books belonging to the church as vehicles for his satire. the carvings on the miserere seats in choirs of many cathedrals were executed by the monks, and abound in witty representations of such subjects as reynard the fox, cats catching rats, etc.; inspired generally by the knowledge of some of the inconsistencies in the lives of ecclesiastical personages. the quiet monks often became cynical. the spirit of the times determines the standard of wit. at various periods in the world's history, men have been amused by strange and differing forms of drollery; what seemed excruciatingly funny to our grandparents does not strike us as being at all entertaining. each generation has its own idea of humour, and its own fun-makers, varying as much as fashion in dress. in mediæval times, the sense of humour in art was more developed than at any period except our own day. even-while the monk was consecrating his time to the work of beautifying the sanctuary, his sense of humour was with him, and must crop out. the grotesque has always played an important part in art; in the subterranean roman vaults of the early centuries, one form of this spirit is exhibited. but the element of wit is almost absent; it is displayed in oppressively obvious forms, so that it loses its subtlety: it represents women terminating in floral scrolls, or sea-horses with leaves growing instead of fins. the same spirit is seen in the grotesques of the renaissance, where the sense of humour is not emphasized, the ideal in this class of decoration being simply to fill the space acceptably, with voluptuous graceful lines, mythological monstrosities, the inexpressive mingling of human and vegetable characteristics, grinning dragons, supposed to inspire horror, and such conceits, while the attempt to amuse the spectator is usually absent. in mediæval art, however, the beauty of line, the sense of horror, and the voluptuous spirit, are all more or less subservient to the light-hearted buoyancy of a keen sense of fun. to illustrate this point, i wish to call the attention of the reader to the wit of the monastic scribes during the gothic period. who could look at the little animals which are found tucked away almost out of sight in the flowery margins of many illuminated manuscripts, without seeing that the artist himself must have been amused at their pranks, and intended others to be so? one can picture a gray-hooded brother, chuckling alone at his own wit, carefully tracing a jolly little grotesque, and then stealing softly to the alcove of some congenial spirit, and in a whisper inviting his friend to come and see the satire which he has carefully introduced: "a perfect portrait of the bishop, only with claws instead of legs! so very droll! and dear brother, while you are here, just look at the expression of this little rabbit's ears, while he listens to the bombastic utterance of this monkey who wears a stole!" [illustration: caricature of a bishop] such a fund of playful humour is seldom found in a single book as that embodied in the tenison psalter, of which only a few pages remain of the work of the original artist. the book was once the property of archbishop tenison. these few pages show to the world the most perfect example of the delicacy and skill of the miniaturist. on one page, a little archer, after having pulled his bow-string, stands at the foot of the border, gazing upwards after the arrow, which has been caught in the bill of a stork at the top of the page. the attitude of a little fiddler who is exhibiting his trick monkeys can hardly be surpassed by caricaturists of any time. a quaint bit of cloister scandal is indicated in an initial from the harleian manuscript, in which a monk who has been entrusted with the cellar keys is seen availing himself of the situation, eagerly quaffing a cup of wine while he stoops before a large cask. in a german manuscript i have seen, cuddled away among the foliage, in the margin, a couple of little monkeys, feeding a baby of their own species with pap from a spoon. the baby monkey is closely wrapped in the swathing bands with which one is familiar as the early trussing of european children. satire and wrath are curiously blended in a german manuscript of the twelfth century, in which the scribe introduces a portrait of himself hurling a missile at a venturesome mouse who is eating the monk's cheese--a fine camembert!--under his very nose. in the book which he is represented as transcribing, the artist has traced the words--"pessime mus, sepius me provocas ad iram, ut te deus perdat." ("wicked mouse, too often you provoke me to anger--may god destroy thee!") in their illustrations the scribes often showed how literal was their interpretation of scriptural text. for instance, in a passage in the book known as the utrecht psalter, there is an illustration of the verse, "the words of the lord are pure words; as silver tried in the furnace, purified seven times." a glowing forge is seen, and two craftsmen are working with bellows, pincers, and hammer, to prove the temper of some metal, which is so molten that a stream of it is pouring out of the furnace. another example of this literal interpretation, is in the psalter of edwin, where two men are engaged in sharpening a sword upon a grindstone, in illustration of the text about the wicked, "who whet their tongue like a sword." there is evidence of great religious zeal in the exhortations of the leaders to those who worked under them. abbot john of trittenham thus admonished the workers in the scriptorium in : "i have diminished your labours out of the monastery lest by working badly you should only add to your sins, and have enjoined on you the manual labour of writing and binding books. there is in my opinion no labour more becoming a monk than the writing of ecclesiastical books.... you will recall that the library of this monastery... had been dissipated, sold, or made way with by disorderly monks before us, so that when i came here i found but fourteen volumes." it was often with a sense of relief that a monk finished his work upon a volume, as the final word, written by the scribe himself, and known as the explicit, frequently shows. in an old manuscript in the monastery of st. aignan the writer has thus expressed his emotions: "look out for your fingers! do not put them on my writing! you do not know what it is to write! it cramps your back, it obscures your eyes, it breaks your sides and stomach!" it is interesting to note the various forms which these final words of the scribes took; sometimes the explicit is a pathetic appeal for remembrance in the prayers of the reader, and sometimes it contains a note of warning. in a manuscript of st. augustine now at oxford, there is written: "this book belongs to st. mary's of robert's bridge; whoever shall steal it or in any way alienate it from this house, or mutilate it, let him be anathema marantha!" a later owner, evidently to justify himself, has added, "i, john, bishop of exeter, know not where this aforesaid house is, nor did i steal this book, but acquired it in a lawful way!" the explicit in the benedictional of ethelwold is touching: the writer asks "all who gaze on this book to ever pray that after the end of the flesh i may inherit health in heaven; this is the prayer of the scribe, the humble godemann." a mysterious explicit occurs at the end of an irish manuscript of , "pray for moelbrighte who wrote this book. great was the crime when cormac mac carthy was slain by tardelvach o'brian." who shall say what revelation may have been embodied in these words? was it in the nature of a confession or an accusation of some hitherto unknown occurrence? coming as it does at the close of a sacred book, it was doubtless written for some important reason. among curious examples of the explicit may be quoted the following: "it is finished. let it be finished, and let the writer go out for a drink." a french monk adds: "let a pretty girl be given to the writer for his pains." ludovico di cherio, a famous illuminator of the fifteenth century, has this note at the end of a book upon which he had long been engaged: "completed on the vigil of the nativity of our lord jesus christ, on an empty stomach." (whether this refers to an imposed penance or fast, or whether ludovico considered that the offering of a meek and empty stomach would be especially acceptable, the reader may determine.) there is an amusing rhymed explicit in an early fifteenth century copy of froissart: "i, raoul tanquy, who never was drunk (or hardly more than judge or monk,) on fourth of july finished this book, then to drink at the tabouret myself took, with pylon and boon companions more who tripe with onions and garlic adore." but if some of the monks complained or made sport of their work, there were others to whom it was a divine inspiration, and whose affection for their craft was almost fanatic, an anecdote being related of one of them, who, when about to die, refused to be parted from the book upon which he had bestowed much of his life's energy, and who clutched it in his last agony so that even death should not take it from him. the good othlonus of ratisbon congratulates himself upon his own ability in a spirit of humility even while he rejoices in his great skill; he says: "i think proper to add an account of the great knowledge and capacity for writing which was given me by the lord in my childhood. when as yet a little child, i was sent to school and quickly learned my letters, and i began long before the time of learning, and without any order from my master, to learn the art of writing. undertaking this in a furtive and unusual manner, and without any teacher, i got a habit of holding my pen wrongly, nor were any of my teachers afterwards able to correct me on that point." this very human touch comes down to us through the ages to prove the continuity of educational experience! the accounts of his monastic labours put us to the blush when we think of such activity. "while in the monastery of tegernsee in bavaria i wrote many books.... being sent to franconia while i was yet a boy, i worked so hard writing that before i had returned i had nearly lost my eyesight. after i became a monk at st. emmerem, i was appointed the school-master. the duties of the office so fully occupied my time that i was able to do the transcribing i was interested in only by nights and in holidays.... i was, however, able, in addition to writing the books that i had myself composed, and the copies which i gave away for the edification of those who asked for them, to prepare nineteen missals, three books of the gospels and epistles, besides which i wrote four service books for matins. i wrote in addition several other books for the brethren at fulda, for the monks at hirschfeld, and at amerbach, for the abbot of lorsch, for certain friends at passau, and for other friends in bohemia, for the monastery at tegernsee, for the monastery at preyal, for that at obermunster, and for my sister's son. moreover, i sent and gave at different times sermons, proverbs, and edifying writings. afterward old age's infirmities of various kinds hindered me." surely othlonus was justified in retiring when his time came, and enjoying some respite from his labours! religious feeling in works of art is an almost indefinable thing, but one which is felt in all true emanations of the conscientious spirit of devotion. fra angelico had a special gift for expressing in his artistic creations is own spiritual life; the very qualities for which he stood, his virtues and his errors,--purity, unquestioning faith in the miraculous, narrowness of creed, and gentle and adoring humility,--all these elements are seen to completeness in his decorative pictures. perhaps this is because he really lived up to his principles. one of his favourite sayings was "he who occupies himself with the things of christ, must ever dwell with christ." it is related that, in the monastery of maes eyck, while the illuminators were at work in the evening, copying holy writ, the devil, in a fit of rage, extinguished their candles; they, however, were promptly lighted again by a breath of the holy spirit, and the good work went on! salvation was supposed to be gained through conscientious writing. a story is told of a worldly and frivolous brother, who was guilty of many sins and follies, but who, nevertheless, was an industrious scribe. when he came to die, the devil claimed his soul. the angels, however, brought before the throne a great book of religious instructions which he had illuminated, and for every letter therein, he received pardon for one sin. behold! when the account was completed, there proved to be one letter over! the narrator adds naïvely, "and it was a very big book." [illustration: illumination by gherart david of bruges, ; st. barbara] perhaps more than any books executed in the better period, after the decline had begun, were the books of hours, containing the numerous daily devotions which form part of the ritual of the roman church. every well appointed lady was supposed to own a copy, and there is a little verse by eustache deschamps, a poet of the time of charles v., in which a woman is supposed to be romancing about the various treasures she would like to possess. she says: "hours of our lady should be mine, fitting for a noble dame, of lofty lineage and name; wrought most cunningly and quaint, in gold and richest azure paint. rare covering of cloth of gold full daintily it shall enfold, or, open to the view exposed, two golden clasps to keep it closed." john skelton the poet did honour to the illuminated tomes of his day, in spite of the fact that the æesthetic deterioration had begun. "with that of the boke lozende were the clasps the margin was illumined all with golden railes, and bice empictured, with grasshoppers and waspes with butterflies and fresh peacock's tailes: englosed with... pictures well touched and quickly, it wold have made a man hole that had be right sickly!" but here we have an indication of that realism which rung the death knell of the art. the grasshoppers on a golden ground, and the introduction of carefully painted insect and floral life, led to all sorts of extravagances of taste. but before this decadence, there was a very interesting period of transition, which may be studied to special advantage in italy, and is seen chiefly in the illuminations of the great choral books which were used in the choirs of churches. one book served for all the singers in those days, and it was placed upon an open lectern in the middle of the choir, so that all the singers could see it: it will be readily understood that the lettering had to be generous, and the page very large for this purpose. the decoration of these books took on the characteristics of breadth in keeping with their dimensions, and of large masses of ornament rather than delicate meander. the style of the italian choral books is an art in itself. the books of hours and missals developed during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries into positive art galleries, whole pages being occupied by paintings, the vellum being entirely hidden by the decoration. the art of illumination declined as the art of miniature painting progressed. the fact that the artist was decorating a page in a book was lost sight of in his ambition to paint a series of small pictures. the glint of burnished gold on the soft surface of the vellum was no longer considered elegant, and these more elaborate pictures often left not even a margin, so that the pictures might as well have been executed on paper and canvas and framed separately, for they do not suggest ornaments in a book after this change had taken place. lettering is hardly introduced at all on the same page with the illustration, or, when it is, is placed in a little tablet which is simply part of the general scheme. [illustration: choral book, siena] among the books in this later period i will refer specifically to two only, the hours of ann of brittany, and the grimani breviary. the hours of ann of brittany, illuminated by a famous french artist of the time of louis xii., is reproduced in facsimile by curmer, and is therefore available for consultation in most large libraries. it will repay any one who is interested in miniature art to examine this book, for the work is so excellent that it is almost like turning the leaves of the original. the grimani breviary, which was illuminated by flemish artists of renown, was the property of cardinal grimani, and is now one of the treasures of the library of st. marc in venice. it is impossible in a short space to comment to any adequate extent upon the work of such eminent artists as jean foucquet, don giulio clovio, sano di pietro, and liberale da verona; they were technically at the head of their art, and yet, so far as taste in book decoration is to be considered, their work would be more satisfactory as framed miniatures than as marginal or paginal ornament. stippling was brought to its ultimate perfection by don giulio clovio, but it is supposed to have been first practised by antonio de holanda. one of jehan foucquet's assistants was jehan bourdichon. there is an interesting memorandum extant, relating to a piece of illumination which bourdichon had accomplished. "to the said b. for having had written a book in parchment named the papalist, the same illuminated in gold and azure and made in the same nine rich histories, and for getting it bound and covered, thirty crowns in gold." at the time of the renaissance there was a rage for "tiny books," miniature copies of famous works. m. würtz possessed a copy of the sonnets of petrarch, written in italics, in brown ink, of which the length was one inch, and the breadth five-eighths of an inch, showing fifty lines on a page. the text is only visible through a glass. it is in italian taste, with several miniatures, and is bound in gold filigree. the value of illuminated books is enormous. an elector of bavaria once offered a town for a single book; but the monks had sufficient worldly wisdom to know that he could easily take the town again, and so declined the exchange! with the introduction of printing, the art of illumination was doomed. the personal message from the scribe to the reader was merged in the more comprehensive message of the press to the public. it was no longer necessary to spend a year on a work that could be accomplished in a day; so the artists found themselves reduced to painting initial letters in printed books, sometimes on vellum, but more often on paper. this art still flourishes in many localities; but it is no more illumination, though it is often so designated, than photography is portrait painting. both are useful in their departments and for their several purposes, but it is incorrect to confound them. [illustration: detail from an italian choral book] once, while examining an old choral book, i was particularly struck with the matchless personal element which exists in a book which is made, as this was, by the hand, from the first stroke to the last. the first page showed a bold lettering, the sweep of the pen being firm and free. animal vigour was demonstrated in the steady hand and the clear eye. the illuminations were daintily painted, and the sure touch of the little white line used to accentuate the colours, was noticeable. after several pages, the letters became less true and firm. the lines had a tendency to slant to the right; a weakness could be detected in the formerly strong man. finally the writing grew positively shaky. the skill was lost. suddenly, on another page, came a change. a new hand had taken up the work--that of a novice. he had not the skill of the previous worker in his best days, but the indecision of his lines was that of inexperience, not of failing ability. gradually he improved. his colours were clearer and ground more smoothly; his gold showed a more glassy surface. the book ended as it had begun, a virile work of art; but in the course of its making, one man had grown old, lost his skill, and died, and another had started in his immaturity, gained his education, and devoted his best years to this book. the printing press stands for all that is progressive and desirable; modern life and thought hang upon this discovery. but in this glorious new birth there was sacrificed a certain indescribable charm which can never be felt now except by a book lover as he turns the leaves of an ancient illuminated book. to him it is given to understand that pathetic appeal across the centuries. the end. bibliography arts and crafts movement. o. l. triggs. two lectures. william morris. decorative arts. william morris. treatises of benvenuto cellini. library of british manufactories. gold and silver. wheatley. ye olden time. e. s. holt. arts and crafts essays. ed. by morris. industrial arts. maskell. old english silver. cripps. spanish arts. j. e. riañio. history of the fine arts. w. b. scott. art work in gold and silver. p. h. delamotte. gold and silver. j. h. pollen. une ville du temps jadis. m. e. del monte. industrial arts. p. burty. arts of the middle ages. labarte. miscellanea graphica. fairholt. artist's way of working. r. sturgis. jewellery. cyril davenport. enamels. mrs. nelson dawson. precious stones. jones. ghiberti and donatello. leader scott. iron work. j. s. gardner. guilds of florence. e. staley. armour in england. j. s. gardner. foreign armour in england. j. s. gardner. cameos. cyril davenport. peter vischer. cecil headlam. st. eloi and st. bernward. baring gould; lives of the saint. european enamels. h. cunynghame. intarsia and marquetry. h. jackson. pavement masters of siena. r. h. cust. sculpture in ivory. digby wyatt. ancient and mediæval ivories. wm. maskell. ivory carvers of the middle ages. a. m. cust. arts of the middle ages and renaissance. p. lacroix. ivories. a. maskell. old english embroidery. f. and h. marshall. the bayeux tapestry. f. r. fowke. history of tapestry. w. g. thomson. la broderie. l. de farcy. textile fabrics. dr. rock. needlework as art. lady alford. history of needlework. countess of wilton. gilds; their origins, etc. c. walford. tapestry. a. champeaux. tapestry. j. hayes. ornamental metal work. digby wyatt. la mosaïque. gerspach. the master mosaic workers. g. sand. revival of sculpture. a. l. frothingham. history of italian sculpture. c. h. perkins. art applied to industry. w. burges. four centuries of art. noel humphreys. aratra pentelici. ruskin. seven lamps of architecture. ruskin. val d'arno. ruskin. stones of venice. ruskin. lectures on sculpture. flaxman. brick and marble. g. e. street. sculpture in wood. williams. greek and gothic. st. j. tyrwhitt. westminster abbey and craftsmen. w. r. lethaby. le roi rené. l. de la marche. english mediæval figure sculpture. prior and gardner. churches of paris. sophia beale. matthew paris' chronicle. crowns and coronations. jones. bell's handbooks of rouen, chartres, amiens, wells, salisbury and lincoln. history of sculpture. d'agincourt. the grotesque in church art. t. t. wildridge. choir stalls and their carving. emma phipson. memorials of westminster abbey. dean stanley. memorials of canterbury. dean stanley. les corporations des arts et metiers. hubert valeroux. finger ring lore. jones. goldsmith's and silversmith's work. nelson dawson. the dark ages. maitland. rambles of an archæologist. f. w. fairholt. history of furniture. a. jacquemart. embroidery. w. g. p. townsend. le livre des metiers. etienne boileau. illuminated manuscripts. j. h. middleton. illuminated manuscripts. edward quaile. english illuminated manuscripts. maunde thompson. les manuscrits et l'art de les orner. alphonse labitte. les manuscrits et la miniature. l. de la marche. primer of illumination. delamotte. primer of illumination. digby wyatt. ancient painting and sculpture in england. j. carter. vasari's lives of the painters. (selected.) benvenuto cellini--autobiography. illuminated manuscripts. o. westwood. celtic illuminative art. s. f. h. robinson. illuminated manuscripts. bradley. index aachen, abbeville, abbo, absalom, acherius, j., adam, adam, abbot, adaminus, adelard, aelfled, aelst, agatho, agnelli, fra, agnese, st., , agnolo, b., ahab, aignan, st., aix-la-chapelle, , albans, st., , , , alberti, l., aleuin, , , aldobrandini, alfred, king, , , , , alford, lady, , alicante, almeria, aloise, alwin, bp., alwyn, h. f., amasia, bp. of, america, amiens, , , , , , , , , anastatius, , "anatomy of abuses," ancona, "ancren riwle," angers, , anglo-saxons, , , , , , , , , anne of bohemia, , anne of brittany, , , anne of cleves, anquetil, antelami, anthemius, anthony, st., antwerp, apollinaire, st., apollonius, apulia, arabia, , , arles, , , arnant, a., arnolfo di cambio, armour, - arphe, h. d' and j. d', , arras, , , , , arrigo (see peselli) arthur, prince, artois, asser, asterius, st., atlas, athelmay, august the pious, augustine, st., , aurelian, auquilinus, austin, w., auxene, aventin, st., avernier, a., avignon, m. de, "babee's book," bakes, j., balbastro, baldini, b., baldovinetto, ballin, c., bamberg, baptist, john, barbarossa, barcheston, bargello, barnwell, bartholomew anglicus, , , , , basilewski, basle, basse-taille, bataille, bavaria, , , , bayeux tapestry, - bazinge, a. de, beauchamp, r., becket, t. à, , , , bede, , begue, j. de, bells, benedict, st., , benedictional of ethelwold, benet, j., bergamo, bernard, m., bernard, st., , , , bernward, bp., - , , , , berquem, l., bess of hardwick, bethancourt, j. de, beverly, , bezaleel, , bezold, h. van, bianchini, billiard balls, birch, w. de g., biscornette, black prince, "blandiver, jack," bloet, bp., blois, boabdil, boileau, e., boleyn, a., bologna, , bolognese, m. s., boningegna, g., boston art museum, bosworth, botticelli, boudichon, j., boulin, a., boutellier, j. le, bradshaw, brandenburgh, bridget, st., , briolottus, brithnoth, british museum, , bronze, - brooches, - browning, r., brunelleschi, brussels, brussels, m. s., burgundy, byzantine style, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , "byzantine guide," cadwollo, caffi, m., cambio, a. del, cambridge, , camerino, j., cameos, - cano, a., canterbury, , , , canute (see knut) canozio, caradosso, caramania, carazan, carlencas, carovage, carpentras, bp. of, carrara, carter, j., , , casati, cassiodorus, castel, g. van, castiglione, count, cecilia, st., celestine iii., pope, cellini, benvenuto, xii, - , , , - , , , , , , celtic style, - , , centula, chained books, chalices, champlevé, , charlemagne, , , , , , , , , , , , , , charles i., charles v., , , , , , , charles the bold, chartres, , , , , , , , , , chaucer, , , chelles, j. de, cherio, l. de, chester, , chichester, chilperic, chinchintalas, christin of margate, cid, the, claudian, clement le brodeur, clement, pope, , , clemente, st., clermont, clocks, clothaire ii., clovio, g., clovis ii., cluny, cockayne, w., coinsi, prior, colaccio, m., cola di rienzi, coldingham, cologne, , , columba, st., , , columbkille, constantine, , , , constantinople, , , , , , , , , , , constanza, sta., coquille, g. de, cordova, coro, d. del, cosmati mosaic, coula, courtray, coventry, cozette, cracow, crete, crest, h., crivelli, c., croisètes, j. de, cromwell, o., crown jewels, croyland, , , , crumdale, r., cunegonde, cunegunda, queen, , cups, curfew, curmer, cuserius, cuthbert, st., , , , cynewulf, cyzicus, l. de, , dagobert, , damascening, damiano, fra, davenport, davenport, c., davi, j., day, lewis, decker, h., delhi, delphyn, n., delobel, denis, st., , , , , , , deschamps, e., diamonds, - diàne of de poictiers, didier, abbé, didron, , dijon, , , dipoenus, dioscorides, domenico of the cameos, donatello, xiii, donne, dr., dourdan, drawswerd, dresden, dublin, , ducarel, dunstan, st., , , dürer, a., , , , durham, , , , , , , , "durham book," durosne, duval, j., ebony, ecclesiasticus, edinburgh, edgitha, edith, queen, edrisi, edward, goldsmith, , edward i., edward ii., , edward iii., , , edward iv., , edward the confessor, , , , , , , egebric, eginhard, egyptians, eleanor, queen, , , , , elfen, elizabeth, queen, , , eloi, st., , - , ely, , , , embroideries, - emesa, emma, queen, , enamels, - england, , , , , , eraclius, essex, william of, etheldreda, st., explicit, exodus, ezekiel, fairill, falkland, viscount, farcy, l., , ferdinand i., ferdinand ii., fereol, st., ferucci, f., filigree, finger-rings, - finiguerra, m., , flagons, flanders, florence, xii, , , , , , , , , , , , , , florence, jean of, florent, st., fontaine, e. la, foucquet, j., fowke, f. r., fra angelico, france, , , , , , , - , , , , francia, , francis i., , , , , , fremlingham, r. de, froissart, , , fuller, , gaddi, g. and a., - , gaegart, gale, p., gall, st., , , , galla placida, "gammer gurton's needle," gandesheim, garlande, j. de, garnier, gaunt, j. of, , gautier, r., gendulphus, st., genesis, genevieve, st., , genoa, , gerbert, germany, , , , , , , , , , , , , george ii., george iv., gerona, ghent, ghiberti, xii, , , , ghirlandajo, , giacomo, maestro, gifford, g., gilles, st., giralda, giraldus, cambriensis, girard d'orleans, giotto, , "giovanni of the camelians," giudetto, maestro, glastonbury, , , , gloucester, , gloucester, john of, gobelins tapestry, , , godemann, gold leaf, gontran, gothic style, , gouda, granada, gregory, st., , gresham, sir t., grès, h. de, grimani breviary, grosso, n., grotesques, - , , , grove, d. van, guerrazzar, treasure of, guillaume, abbot, gutierez, haag, j., hall mark, hankford, sir w., hampton court, hannequin, harleian ms., harrison, harold, , hasquin, j. de, hatfield, hayes, s. l., headlam, c., hebrides, hebrews, héliot, hennequin de liege, henry i., , henry ii., , , henry iii, , , , , , , , , , , , henry v., henry vi., henry vii., , , , , , , henry viii., , , , , henry the pious, herlin, f., herman, herodias, hezilo, hildesheim, xii, - , , , , , , , , , holanda, a. de, holderness, honorius, pope, hudd, a., huberd, r., hugh, st., hughes, abbot, husee, - hust, a., il lasca, illumination, - imber, l., inlay, - innocent iv., iona, ireland, - iron, - isaiah, isidore, isle of man, islip, abbot, , italy, , , , ivan iii, ivory carving, - "ivy pattern," jackson, h., jacob of breslau, jacobus, fra, james, james i., , jeanne, queen, jeanne of navarre, john, king, , , john xii., john iv., johnson, r., joinville, sirede, jones, sir e. b., jouy, b. de, justinian, , , katherine, queen, katherine of aragon, keepe, h., kells, book of, , kent, fair maid of, keys, kildare, gospels of, kirton, ed., "kleine heldenbuch," knight, knut, king, , kohinoor, kraft, a., , , , , , krems, laach, labenwolf, labarte, laborde, labraellier, j., lacordaire, lagrange, lambspring, b., lamoury, s., lateran, the, , , laura, lawrence, st., lead, lebrija, leighton, t. de, leland, leo iii., leo x., leon, leopardi, "les maitres mosaïtes," lethaby, w. r., , lewis, lewis, h., liberale da verona, "liber eliensis," lille, limoges, - , , , lincoln, , , lincoln imp, lindisfarne, , limousin, e. and l., lisle, lord, , little gidding, locks, lombards, the, , , , london, , , , , , , , lothaire, louis vi., louis vii., louis xii., , louis xiv., louis, prince, louis, st., , , , , louvre, the, , lübke, xi lucca, , luca della robbia, ludlow, luini, b., luna, de, macdurnam, "mad meg," madrid, - maes eyck, magaster, maiano, b. de, maitland, maitani, l., malaga, malmsbury, w. of, , , malvezzi, m., manne, p., mantegna, mantreux, j. de, manuello, mapilton, master, "mappae claviculae," marcel, st., marcellus, marche, l. de la, maretta, g., mariana, queen, mark's, st., , , marten, martin, st., , martyr, bp., mary, queen of scots, maskell, a. and w., , , massari, a., matilda, queen, matsys, q., , matteo da siena, maximian, medici, the, , , , , memlinc, mexicans, michael, st., , michelangelo, , , , , milan, , mildmay, h., minella, p. de, miniato, san, miserere stalls, - "mons meg," monte cassino, montereau, j. de, montfort, s. de, montarsy, p. de, monza, , , monzon, moore, charles, xi, moorish style, moreau, j., morel, b., mortlake, morris, wm., v, x, moryson, f., mt. athos, möser, l., mosaic, - nantes, nassaro, m. dal, naumberg, navagiero, nevers, count of, nicolas, j., niello, , - nomenticum, norfolk, norman style, norton, c. e., , norwich, , , nôtre dame, paris, , , , noyon, , nüremberg, , , , , , , oath book of the saxon kings, odericus, odo, goldsmith, , odo, abbot, olivetans, - orcagna, , , , orebsc, s. m., orghet, j., oriental, , orleans, orso magister, orviedo, orvieto, , , , , osmont, othlonus, otho, , otto iii., emperor, oudenardes, ouen, st., oxford, , , , , pacheco, padua, pala d'oro, , , palermo, "pancake man" paris, , , - , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , paris, matthew, , , parma, patras, l., patrick, st., , , , , paul the deacon, paulus, pausanias, pavia, pembroke, earl, penne, perseus, persia, perugia, , peselli, peter albericus, peter amabilis, peter the great, peter de st. andeman, peter orfever, peter of rome, peter of spain, petrarch, , philip iv., philip the bold, philip the good, philippa, queen, philostratus, , philoxenus, picardie, pickering, w., pietra dura, piggigny, j. de, pinturicchio, pirckheimer, w., pisa, , , pisani, the, , , , , , pistoja, pitti palace, , , , pius ii., pliny, , , poitiers, , pollajuolo, xiii, , polo, marco, , , , , , pordenone, portland vase, poucet, j. de and b., poulligny, g. de, poussin, n., precious stones, - prior and gardner, probus, "properties of things," psalter of edwin, ptolemies, the, pudenziana, st., pugin, , quentin, st., "queen mary's psalter," rabanus, rabotin, l., raffaelo da brescia, ralph, brother, ramsay, w., raphael, , , rausart, j. de, ravenna, , , , , , , redgrave, r., xi, rée, j. p., reformation, the, , , reggio, renaissance, , , , , , , , , , , , , rené of anjou, , , , , renoy, j., reynolds, sir j., rheims, , , , , , richard ii., , richard iii., ripon, robert, king, , rock, dr., , , , , rome, , , , , , , , , , , , romanesque style, , , , , romulus and remus, rosebeque, , rossi, rothenburg, rouen, , , roze, abbé, ruskin, j., v, , , , , , , , salinas, salisbury, salisbury, earl, salt-cellars, salutati, b., sand, g., sandwich, sansovino, xii sano di pietro, saumur, , sauval, savonarola, schülein, h., scillis, scholastico, a., schutz, c., scott, w., sculpture, selsea, senlis, h. de, seville, , , , , sewald, shakespeare, shoreditch, j. of, shrewsbury, siena, , - , silk, siriès, l., sithiu, skelton, j., smyrna, soignoles, j. de, solignac, sophia, sta., south kensington museum, , , , , , , spain, , , , , , - , , , , , , spoons, "squire of low degree," staley, e., statius, stauracius, stengel, h., stephanus, stephen iv., stevens, t., strasburg, stoss-veit, - stubbes, stubbs, charles, stump work, sturgis, r., vii, , suger, abbot, - , , suinthila, , sumercote, j. de, "swineherd of stowe," sylvester ii., sylvester, bp., symmachus, symonds, j. a., syon cope, syrlin, j., tali, a., - tanagra, tancho, tapestry, - tapicier, g. le, tappistere, j. le, tara brooch, , tartary, tassach, tasso, d. and g., , taugmar, tegernsee, temple church, tenison psalter, , texier, abbé, xiii textiles, thebes, thergunna, theodolinda, queen, , theodora, theodoric, , , theophilus the monk, , , , , , , , , , , , , theophilus, emperor, , thillo, thomson, m. g., , tintoretto, titian, toledo, , , , , , tonquin, j., topf, j., torcello, , torel, w., , , torpenhow, torregiano, , torriti, j., touraine, tours, , , , "treatises" of cellini, trittenham, j. of, trophimes, st., troupin, j., troyes, tucher, a., tudela, b. of, , tudor, tuscany, tutilon, or tutilo, , ubaldo, st., ugolino of siena, ulm, ulpha, st., urbino, utrecht psalter, , valence, a. de, , valencia, valerio vincentino, van eyck, vasari, g., , , , , , , , , , vatican, velasquez, , venice, , , , , , , , , verocchio, , verona, , , villant, p. de, vinci, l. da, viollet-le-duc, , virgil, vischer, peter, - , vischer, peter, jr., vitel, vitruvius, vivaria, vopiscus, f., wallois, h., walpole, h., walsingham, a. de, walter of colchester, walter of durham, ware, r. de, warwick, waquier, wechter, f. de, welburne, j., wells, , wendover, r. de, westminster, , , , , , , , , , , , - , , , , westwood, o., weyden, van der, willaume, william the conqueror, , williams of sens, wilton, countess of, , winchester, , , , windsor, , , wire-drawing, withaf, king, withers, g., wolsey, card., wood-carving, - wood, woolstrope, worsted, wyckham, w., ypres, york, , , zamborro, m., zuccati, the, - michelle shephard, eric eldred, charles franks and the online distributed proofreading team the two paths by john ruskin, m.a. contents. the two paths. lecture i. the deteriorative power of conventional art over nations lecture ii. the unity of art lecture iii. modern manufacture and design lecture iv. the influence of imagination in architecture lecture v. the work of iron, in nature, art, and policy appendices list of illustrations. the two paths. the ideal of an angel the serpent beguiling eve contrast symmetry ornament classical architecture centrepiece of balcony general effect of masses profile teeth of the border border at the side of balcony outline of retracted leaves preface. the following addresses, though spoken at different times, are intentionally connected in subject; their aim being to set one or two main principles of art in simple light before the general student, and to indicate their practical bearing on modern design. the law which it has been my effort chiefly to illustrate is the dependence of all noble design, in any kind, on the sculpture or painting of organic form. this is the vital law; lying at the root of all that i have ever tried to teach respecting architecture or any other art. it is also the law most generally disallowed. i believe this must be so in every subject. we are all of us willing enough to accept dead truths or blunt ones; which can be fitted harmlessly into spare niches, or shrouded and coffined at once out of the way, we holding complacently the cemetery keys, and supposing we have learned something. but a sapling truth, with earth at its root and blossom on its branches; or a trenchant truth, that can cut its way through bars and sods; most men, it seems to me, dislike the sight or entertainment of, if by any means such guest or vision may be avoided. and, indeed, this is no wonder; for one such truth, thoroughly accepted, connects itself strangely with others, and there is no saying what it may lead us to. and thus the gist of what i have tried to teach about architecture has been throughout denied by my architect readers, even when they thought what i said suggestive in other particulars. "anything but that. study italian gothic?--perhaps it would be as well: build with pointed arches?--there is no objection: use solid stone and well-burnt brick?-- by all means: but--learn to carve or paint organic form ourselves! how can such a thing be asked? we are above all that. the carvers and painters are our servants--quite subordinate people. they ought to be glad if we leave room for them." well: on that it all turns. for those who will not learn to carve or paint, and think themselves greater men because they cannot, it is wholly wasted time to read any words of mine; in the truest and sternest sense they can read no words of mine; for the most familiar i can use--"form," "proportion," "beauty," "curvature," "colour"--are used in a sense which by no effort i can communicate to such readers; and in no building that i praise, is the thing that i praise it for, visible to them. and it is the more necessary for me to state this fully; because so- called gothic or romanesque buildings are now rising every day around us, which might be supposed by the public more or less to embody the principles of those styles, but which embody not one of them, nor any shadow or fragment of them; but merely serve to caricature the noble buildings of past ages, and to bring their form into dishonour by leaving out their soul. the following addresses are therefore arranged, as i have just stated, to put this great law, and one or two collateral ones, in less mistakeable light, securing even in this irregular form at least clearness of assertion. for the rest, the question at issue is not one to be decided by argument, but by experiment, which if the reader is disinclined to make, all demonstration must be useless to him. the lectures are for the most part printed as they were read, mending only obscure sentences here and there. the parts which were trusted to extempore speaking are supplied, as well as i can remember (only with an addition here and there of things i forgot to say), in the words, or at least the kind of words, used at the time; and they contain, at all events, the substance of what i said more accurately than hurried journal reports. i must beg my readers not in general to trust to such, for even in fast speaking i try to use words carefully; and any alteration of expression will sometimes involve a great alteration in meaning. a little while ago i had to speak of an architectural design, and called it "elegant," meaning, founded on good and well "elected" models; the printed report gave "excellent" design (that is to say, design _excellingly_ good), which i did not mean, and should, even in the most hurried speaking, never have said. the illustrations of the lecture on iron were sketches made too roughly to be engraved, and yet of too elaborate subjects to allow of my drawing them completely. those now substituted will, however, answer the purpose nearly as well, and are more directly connected with the subjects of the preceding lectures; so that i hope throughout the volume the student will perceive an insistance upon one main truth, nor lose in any minor direction of inquiry the sense of the responsibility which the acceptance of that truth fastens upon him; responsibility for choice, decisive and conclusive, between two modes of study, which involve ultimately the development, or deadening, of every power he possesses. i have tried to hold that choice clearly out to him, and to unveil for him to its farthest the issue of his turning to the right hand or the left. guides he may find many, and aids many; but all these will be in vain unless he has first recognised the hour and the point of life when the way divides itself, one way leading to the olive mountains--one to the vale of the salt sea. there are few cross roads, that i know of, from one to the other. let him pause at the parting of the two paths. the two paths _being_ lectures on art, and its application to decoration and manufacture delivered in - . lecture i. the deteriorative power of conventional art over nations. _an inaugural lecture, delivered at the kensington museum, january, ._ [footnote: a few introductory words, in which, at the opening of this lecture, i thanked the chairman (mr. cockerell), for his support on the occasion, and asked his pardon for any hasty expressions in my writings, which might have seemed discourteous towards him, or other architects whose general opinions were opposed to mine, may be found by those who care for preambles, not much misreported, in the _building chronicle;_ with such comments as the genius of that journal was likely to suggest to it.] as i passed, last summer, for the first time, through the north of scotland, it seemed to me that there was a peculiar painfulness in its scenery, caused by the non-manifestation of the powers of human art. i had never travelled in, nor even heard or conceived of such a country before; nor, though i had passed much of my life amidst mountain scenery in the south, was i before aware how much of its charm depended on the little gracefulnesses and tendernesses of human work, which are mingled with the beauty of the alps, or spared by their desolation. it is true that the art which carves and colours the front of a swiss cottage is not of any very exalted kind; yet it testifies to the completeness and the delicacy of the faculties of the mountaineer; it is true that the remnants of tower and battlement, which afford footing to the wild vine on the alpine promontory, form but a small part of the great serration of its rocks; and yet it is just that fragment of their broken outline which gives them their pathetic power, and historical majesty. and this element among the wilds of our own country i found wholly wanting. the highland cottage is literally a heap of gray stones, choked up, rather than roofed over, with black peat and withered heather; the only approach to an effort at decoration consists in the placing of the clods of protective peat obliquely on its roof, so as to give a diagonal arrangement of lines, looking somewhat as if the surface had been scored over by a gigantic claymore. and, at least among the northern hills of scotland, elements of more ancient architectural interest are equally absent. the solitary peel- house is hardly discernible by the windings of the stream; the roofless aisle of the priory is lost among the enclosures of the village; and the capital city of the highlands, inverness, placed where it might ennoble one of the sweetest landscapes, and by the shore of one of the loveliest estuaries in the world;--placed between the crests of the grampians and the flowing of the moray firth, as if it were a jewel clasping the folds of the mountains to the blue zone of the sea,--is only distinguishable from a distance by one architectural feature, and exalts all the surrounding landscape by no other associations than those which can be connected with its modern castellated gaol. while these conditions of scottish scenery affected me very painfully, it being the first time in my life that i had been in any country possessing no valuable monuments or examples of art, they also forced me into the consideration of one or two difficult questions respecting the effect of art on the human mind; and they forced these questions upon me eminently for this reason, that while i was wandering disconsolately among the moors of the grampians, where there was no art to be found, news of peculiar interest was every day arriving from a country where there was a great deal of art, and art of a delicate kind, to be found. among the models set before you in this institution, and in the others established throughout the kingdom for the teaching of design, there are, i suppose, none in their kind more admirable than the decorated works of india. they are, indeed, in all materials capable of colour, wool, marble, or metal, almost inimitable in their delicate application of divided hue, and fine arrangement of fantastic line. nor is this power of theirs exerted by the people rarely, or without enjoyment; the love of subtle design seems universal in the race, and is developed in every implement that they shape, and every building that they raise; it attaches itself with the same intensity, and with the same success, to the service of superstition, of pleasure or of cruelty; and enriches alike, with one profusion on enchanted iridescence, the dome of the pagoda, the fringe of the girdle and the edge of the sword. so then you have, in these two great populations, indian and highland-- in the races of the jungle and of the moor--two national capacities distinctly and accurately opposed. on the one side you have a race rejoicing in art, and eminently and universally endowed with the gift of it; on the other you have a people careless of art, and apparently incapable of it, their utmost effort hitherto reaching no farther than to the variation of the positions of the bars of colour in square chequers. and we are thus urged naturally to enquire what is the effect on the moral character, in each nation, of this vast difference in their pursuits and apparent capacities? and whether those rude chequers of the tartan, or the exquisitely fancied involutions of the cashmere, fold habitually over the noblest hearts? we have had our answer. since the race of man began its course of sin on this earth, nothing has ever been done by it so significative of all bestial, and lower than bestial degradation, as the acts the indian race in the year that has just passed by. cruelty as fierce may indeed have been wreaked, and brutality as abominable been practised before, but never under like circumstances; rage of prolonged war, and resentment of prolonged oppression, have made men as cruel before now; and gradual decline into barbarism, where no examples of decency or civilization existed around them, has sunk, before now, isolated populations to the lowest level of possible humanity. but cruelty stretched to its fiercest against the gentle and unoffending, and corruption festered to its loathsomest in the midst of the witnessing presence of a disciplined civilization,-- these we could not have known to be within the practicable compass of human guilt, but for the acts of the indian mutineer. and, as thus, on the one hand, you have an extreme energy of baseness displayed by these lovers of art; on the other,--as if to put the question into the narrowest compass--you have had an extreme energy of virtue displayed by the despisers of art. among all the soldiers to whom you owe your victories in the crimea, and your avenging in the indies, to none are you bound by closer bonds of gratitude than to the men who have been born and bred among those desolate highland moors. and thus you have the differences in capacity and circumstance between the two nations, and the differences in result on the moral habits of two nations, put into the most significant--the most palpable--the most brief opposition. out of the peat cottage come faith, courage, self- sacrifice, purity, and piety, and whatever else is fruitful in the work of heaven; out of the ivory palace come treachery, cruelty, cowardice, idolatry, bestiality,--whatever else is fruitful in the work of hell. but the difficulty does not close here. from one instance, of however great apparent force, it would be wholly unfair to gather any general conclusion--wholly illogical to assert that because we had once found love of art connected with moral baseness, the love of art must be the general root of moral baseness; and equally unfair to assert that, because we had once found neglect of art coincident with nobleness of disposition, neglect of art must be always the source or sign of that nobleness. but if we pass from the indian peninsula into other countries of the globe; and from our own recent experience, to the records of history, we shall still find one great fact fronting us, in stern universality--namely, the apparent connection of great success in art with subsequent national degradation. you find, in the first place, that the nations which possessed a refined art were always subdued by those who possessed none: you find the lydian subdued by the mede; the athenian by the spartan; the greek by the roman; the roman by the goth; the burgundian by the switzer: but you find, beyond this--that even where no attack by any external power has accelerated the catastrophe of the state, the period in which any given people reach their highest power in art is precisely that in which they appear to sign the warrant of their own ruin; and that, from the moment in which a perfect statue appears in florence, a perfect picture in venice, or a perfect fresco in rome, from that hour forward, probity, industry, and courage seem to be exiled from their walls, and they perish in a sculpturesque paralysis, or a many-coloured corruption. but even this is not all. as art seems thus, in its delicate form, to be one of the chief promoters of indolence and sensuality,--so, i need hardly remind you, it hitherto has appeared only in energetic manifestation when it was in the service of superstition. the four greatest manifestations of human intellect which founded the four principal kingdoms of art, egyptian, babylonian, greek, and italian, were developed by the strong excitement of active superstition in the worship of osiris, belus, minerva, and the queen of heaven. therefore, to speak briefly, it may appear very difficult to show that art has ever yet existed in a consistent and thoroughly energetic school, unless it was engaged in the propagation of falsehood, or the encouragement of vice. and finally, while art has thus shown itself always active in the service of luxury and idolatry, it has also been strongly directed to the exaltation of cruelty. a nation which lives a pastoral and innocent life never decorates the shepherd's staff or the plough-handle, but races who live by depredation and slaughter nearly always bestow exquisite ornaments on the quiver, the helmet, and the spear. does it not seem to you, then, on all these three counts, more than questionable whether we are assembled here in kensington museum to any good purpose? might we not justly be looked upon with suspicion and fear, rather than with sympathy, by the innocent and unartistical public? are we even sure of ourselves? do we know what we are about? are we met here as honest people? or are we not rather so many catilines assembled to devise the hasty degradation of our country, or, like a conclave of midnight witches, to summon and send forth, on new and unexpected missions, the demons of luxury, cruelty, and superstition? i trust, upon the whole, that it is not so: i am sure that mr. redgrave and mr. cole do not at all include results of this kind in their conception of the ultimate objects of the institution which owes so much to their strenuous and well-directed exertions. and i have put this painful question before you, only that we may face it thoroughly, and, as i hope, out-face it. if you will give it a little sincere attention this evening, i trust we may find sufficiently good reasons for our work, and proceed to it hereafter, as all good workmen should do, with clear heads, and calm consciences. to return, then, to the first point of difficulty, the relations between art and mental disposition in india and scotland. it is quite true that the art of india is delicate and refined. but it has one curious character distinguishing it from all other art of equal merit in design--_it never represents a natural fact_. it either forms its compositions out of meaningless fragments of colour and flowings of line; or if it represents any living creature, it represents that creature under some distorted and monstrous form. to all the facts and forms of nature it wilfully and resolutely opposes itself; it will not draw a man, but an eight-armed monster; it will not draw a flower, but only a spiral or a zigzag. it thus indicates that the people who practise it are cut off from all possible sources of healthy knowledge or natural delight; that they have wilfully sealed up and put aside the entire volume of the world, and have got nothing to read, nothing to dwell upon, but that imagination of the thoughts of their hearts, of which we are told that "it is only evil continually." over the whole spectacle of creation they have thrown a veil in which there is no rent. for them no star peeps through the blanket of the dark--for them neither their heaven shines nor their mountains rise--for them the flowers do not blossom-- for them the creatures of field and forest do not live. they lie bound in the dungeon of their own corruption, encompassed only by doleful phantoms, or by spectral vacancy. need i remind you what an exact reverse of this condition of mind, as respects the observance of nature, is presented by the people whom we have just been led to contemplate in contrast with the indian race? you will find upon reflection, that all the highest points of the scottish character are connected with impressions derived straight from the natural scenery of their country. no nation has ever before shown, in the general tone of its language--in the general current of its literature--so constant a habit of hallowing its passions and confirming its principles by direct association with the charm, or power, of nature. the writings of scott and burns--and yet more, of the far greater poets than burns who gave scotland her traditional ballads,--furnish you in every stanza--almost in every line--with examples of this association of natural scenery with the passions; [footnote: the great poets of scotland, like the great poets of all other countries, never write dissolutely, either in matter or method; but with stern and measured meaning in every syllable. here's a bit of first-rate work for example: "tweed said to till, 'what gars ye rin sae still?' till said to tweed, 'though ye rin wi' speed, and i rin slaw, whar ye droon ae man, i droon twa.'"] but an instance of its farther connection with moral principle struck me forcibly just at the time when i was most lamenting the absence of art among the people. in one of the loneliest districts of scotland, where the peat cottages are darkest, just at the western foot of that great mass of the grampians which encircles the sources of the spey and the dee, the main road which traverses the chain winds round the foot of a broken rock called crag, or craig ellachie. there is nothing remarkable in either its height or form; it is darkened with a few scattered pines, and touched along its summit with a flush of heather; but it constitutes a kind of headland, or leading promontory, in the group of hills to which it belongs--a sort of initial letter of the mountains; and thus stands in the mind of the inhabitants of the district, the clan grant, for a type of their country, and of the influence of that country upon themselves. their sense of this is beautifully indicated in the war-cry of the clan, "stand fast, craig ellachie." you may think long over those few words without exhausting the deep wells of feeling and thought contained in them--the love of the native land, the assurance of their faithfulness to it; the subdued and gentle assertion of indomitable courage--i _may_ need to be told to stand, but, if i do, craig ellachie does. you could not but have felt, had you passed beneath it at the time when so many of england's dearest children were being defended by the strength of heart of men born at its foot, how often among the delicate indian palaces, whose marble was pallid with horror, and whose vermilion was darkened with blood, the remembrance of its rough grey rocks and purple heaths must have risen before the sight of the highland soldier; how often the hailing of the shot and the shriek of battle would pass away from his hearing, and leave only the whisper of the old pine branches--"stand fast, craig ellachie!" you have, in these two nations, seen in direct opposition the effects on moral sentiment of art without nature, and of nature without art. and you see enough to justify you in suspecting--while, if you choose to investigate the subject more deeply and with other examples, you will find enough to justify you in _concluding_--that art, followed as such, and for its own sake, irrespective of the interpretation of nature by it, is destructive of whatever is best and noblest in humanity; but that nature, however simply observed, or imperfectly known, is, in the degree of the affection felt for it, protective and helpful to all that is noblest in humanity. you might then conclude farther, that art, so far as it was devoted to the record or the interpretation of nature, would be helpful and ennobling also. and you would conclude this with perfect truth. let me repeat the assertion distinctly and solemnly, as the first that i am permitted to make in this building, devoted in a way so new and so admirable to the service of the art-students of england--wherever art is practised for its own sake, and the delight of the workman is in what he _does_ and _produces_, instead of what he _interprets_ or _exhibits_, --there art has an influence of the most fatal kind on brain and heart, and it issues, if long so pursued, in the _destruction both of intellectual power_ and _moral principal_; whereas art, devoted humbly and self- forgetfully to the clear statement and record of the facts of the universe, is always helpful and beneficent to mankind, full of comfort, strength, and salvation. now, when you were once well assured of this, you might logically infer another thing, namely, that when art was occupied in the function in which she was serviceable, she would herself be strengthened by the service, and when she was doing what providence without doubt intended her to do, she would gain in vitality and dignity just as she advanced in usefulness. on the other hand, you might gather, that when her agency was distorted to the deception or degradation of mankind, she would herself be equally misled and degraded--that she would be checked in advance, or precipitated in decline. and this is the truth also; and holding this clue you will easily and justly interpret the phenomena of history. so long as art is steady in the contemplation and exhibition of natural facts, so long she herself lives and grows; and in her own life and growth partly implies, partly secures, that of the nation in the midst of which she is practised. but a time has always hitherto come, in which, having thus reached a singular perfection, she begins to contemplate that perfection, and to imitate it, and deduce rules and forms from it; and thus to forget her duty and ministry as the interpreter and discoverer of truth. and in the very instant when this diversion of her purpose and forgetfulness of her function take place--forgetfulness generally coincident with her apparent perfection--in that instant, i say, begins her actual catastrophe; and by her own fall--so far as she has influence--she accelerates the ruin of the nation by which she is practised. the study, however, of the effect of art on the mind of nations is one rather for the historian than for us; at all events it is one for the discussion of which we have no more time this evening. but i will ask your patience with me while i try to illustrate, in some further particulars, the dependence of the healthy state and power of art itself upon the exercise of its appointed function in the interpretation of fact. you observe that i always say _interpretation_, never _imitation_. my reason for so doing is, first, that good art rarely imitates; it usually only describes or explains. but my second and chief reason is that good art always consists of two things: first, the observation of fact; secondly, the manifesting of human design and authority in the way that fact is told. great and good art must unite the two; it cannot exist for a moment but in their unity; it consists of the two as essentially as water consists of oxygen and hydrogen, or marble of lime and carbonic acid. let us inquire a little into the nature of each of the elements. the first element, we say, is the love of nature, leading to the effort to observe and report her truly. and this is the first and leading element. review for yourselves the history of art, and you will find this to be a manifest certainty, that _no great school ever yet existed which had not for primal aim the representation of some natural fact as truly as possible_. there have only yet appeared in the world three schools of perfect art--schools, that is to say, that did their work as well as it seems possible to do it. these are the athenian, [footnote: see below, the farther notice of the real spirit of greek work, in the address at bradford.] florentine, and venetian. the athenian proposed to itself the perfect representation of the form of the human body. it strove to do that as well as it could; it did that as well as it can be done; and all its greatness was founded upon and involved in that single and honest effort. the florentine school proposed to itself the perfect expression of human emotion--the showing of the effects of passion in the human face and gesture. i call this the florentine school, because, whether you take raphael for the culminating master of expressional art in italy, or leonardo, or michael angelo, you will find that the whole energy of the national effort which produced those masters had its root in florence; not at urbino or milan. i say, then, this florentine or leading italian school proposed to itself human expression for its aim in natural truth; it strove to do that as well as it could--did it as well as it can be done--and all its greatness is rooted in that single and honest effort. thirdly, the venetian school propose the representation of the effect of colour and shade on all things; chiefly on the human form. it tried to do that as well as it could--did it as well as it can be done--and all its greatness is founded on that single and honest effort. pray, do not leave this room without a perfectly clear holding of these three ideas. you may try them, and toss them about afterwards, as much as you like, to see if they'll bear shaking; but do let me put them well and plainly into your possession. attach them to three works of art which you all have either seen or continually heard of. there's the (so-called) "theseus" of the elgin marbles. that represents the whole end and aim of the athenian school--the natural form of the human body. all their conventional architecture--their graceful shaping and painting of pottery--whatsoever other art they practised--was dependent for its greatness on this sheet-anchor of central aim: true shape of living man. then take, for your type of the italian school, raphael's "disputa del sacramento;" that will be an accepted type by everybody, and will involve no possibly questionable points: the germans will admit it; the english academicians will admit it; and the english purists and pre-raphaelites will admit it. well, there you have the truth of human expression proposed as an aim. that is the way people look when they feel this or that--when they have this or that other mental character: are they devotional, thoughtful, affectionate, indignant, or inspired? are they prophets, saints, priests, or kings? then--whatsoever is truly thoughtful, affectionate, prophetic, priestly, kingly--_that_ the florentine school tried to discern, and show; _that_ they have discerned and shown; and all their greatness is first fastened in their aim at this central truth--the open expression of the living human soul. lastly, take veronese's "marriage in cana" in the louvre. there you have the most perfect representation possible of colour, and light, and shade, as they affect the external aspect of the human form, and its immediate accessories, architecture, furniture, and dress. this external aspect of noblest nature was the first aim of the venetians, and all their greatness depended on their resolution to achieve, and their patience in achieving it. here, then, are the three greatest schools of the former world exemplified for you in three well-known works. the phidian "theseus" represents the greek school pursuing truth of form; the "disputa" of raphael, the florentine school pursuing truth of mental expression; the "marriage in cana," the venetian school pursuing truth of colour and light. but do not suppose that the law which i am stating to you--the great law of art-life--can only be seen in these, the most powerful of all art schools. it is just as manifest in each and every school that ever has had life in it at all. wheresoever the search after truth begins, there life begins; wheresoever that search ceases, there life ceases. as long as a school of art holds any chain of natural facts, trying to discover more of them and express them better daily, it may play hither and thither as it likes on this side of the chain or that; it may design grotesques and conventionalisms, build the simplest buildings, serve the most practical utilities, yet all it does will be gloriously designed and gloriously done; but let it once quit hold of the chain of natural fact, cease to pursue that as the clue to its work; let it propose to itself any other end than preaching this living word, and think first of showing its own skill or its own fancy, and from that hour its fall is precipitate--its destruction sure; nothing that it does or designs will ever have life or loveliness in it more; its hour has come, and there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave whither it goeth. let us take for example that school of art over which many of you would perhaps think this law had but little power--the school of gothic architecture. many of us may have been in the habit of thinking of that school rather as of one of forms than of facts--a school of pinnacles, and buttresses, and conventional mouldings, and disguise of nature by monstrous imaginings--not a school of truth at all. i think i shall be able, even in the little time we have to-night, to show that this is not so; and that our great law holds just as good at amiens and salisbury, as it does at athens and florence. i will go back then first to the very beginnings of gothic art, and before you, the students of kensington, as an impanelled jury, i will bring two examples of the barbarism out of which gothic art emerges, approximately contemporary in date and parallel in executive skill; but, the one, a barbarism that did not get on, and could not get on; the other, a barbarism that could get on, and did get on; and you, the impanelled jury, shall judge what is the essential difference between the two barbarisms, and decide for yourselves what is the seed of life in the one, and the sign of death in the other. the first,--that which has in it the sign of death,--furnishes us at the same time with an illustration far too interesting to be passed by, of certain principles much depended on by our common modern designers. taking up one of our architectural publications the other day, and opening it at random, i chanced upon this piece of information, put in rather curious english; but you shall have it as it stands-- "aristotle asserts, that the greatest species of the beautiful are order, symmetry, and the definite." i should tell you, however, that this statement is not given as authoritative; it is one example of various architectural teachings, given in a report in the _building chronicle_ for may, , of a lecture on proportion; in which the only thing the lecturer appears to have proved was that,-- the system of dividing the diameter of the shaft of a column into parts for copying the ancient architectural remains of greece and rome, adopted by architects from vitruvius (circa b.c. ) to the present period, as a method for producing ancient architecture, _is entirely useless_, for the several parts of grecian architecture cannot be reduced or subdivided by this system; neither does it apply to the architecture of rome. still, as far as i can make it out, the lecture appears to have been one of those of which you will just at present hear so many, the protests of architects who have no knowledge of sculpture--or of any other mode of expressing natural beauty--_against_ natural beauty; and their endeavour to substitute mathematical proportions for the knowledge of life they do not possess, and the representation of life of which they are incapable.[illustration] now, this substitution of obedience to mathematical law for sympathy with observed life, is the first characteristic of the hopeless work of all ages; as such, you will find it eminently manifested in the specimen i have to give you of the hopeless gothic barbarism; the barbarism from which nothing could emerge--for which no future was possible but extinction. the aristotelian principles of the beautiful are, you remember, order, symmetry, and the definite. here you have the three, in perfection, applied to the ideal of an angel, in a psalter of the eighth century, existing in the library of st. john's college, cambridge.[footnote: i copy this woodcut from westwood's "palaeographia sacra."] now, you see the characteristics of this utterly dead school are, first the wilful closing of its eyes to natural facts;--for, however ignorant a person may be, he need only look at a human being to see that it has a mouth as well as eyes; and secondly, the endeavour to adorn or idealize natural fact according to its own notions: it puts red spots in the middle of the hands, and sharpens the thumbs, thinking to improve them. here you have the most pure type possible of the principles of idealism in all ages: whenever people don't look at nature, they always think they can improve her. you will also admire, doubtless, the exquisite result of the application of our great modern architectural principle of beauty--symmetry, or equal balance of part by part; you see even the eyes are made symmetrical--entirely round, instead of irregular, oval; and the iris is set properly in the middle, instead of--as nature has absurdly put it--rather under the upper lid. you will also observe the "principle of the pyramid" in the general arrangement of the figure, and the value of "series" in the placing of dots. from this dead barbarism we pass to living barbarism--to work done by hands quite as rude, if not ruder, and by minds as uninformed; and yet work which in every line of it is prophetic of power, and has in it the sure dawn of day. you have often heard it said that giotto was the founder of art in italy. he was not: neither he, nor giunta pisano, nor niccolo pisano. they all laid strong hands to the work, and brought it first into aspect above ground; but the foundation had been laid for them by the builders of the lombardic churches in the valleys of the adda and the arno. it is in the sculpture of the round arched churches of north italy, bearing disputable dates, ranging from the eighth to the twelfth century, that you will find the lowest struck roots of the art of titian and raphael. [footnote: i have said elsewhere, "the root of _all_ art is struck in the thirteenth century." this is quite true: but of course some of the smallest fibres run lower, as in this instance.] i go, therefore, to the church which is certainly the earliest of these, st. ambrogio, of milan, said still to retain some portions of the actual structure from which st. ambrose excluded theodosius, and at all events furnishing the most archaic examples of lombardic sculpture in north italy. i do not venture to guess their date; they are barbarous enough for any date. we find the pulpit of this church covered with interlacing patterns, closely resembling those of the manuscript at cambridge, but among them is figure sculpture of a very different kind. it is wrought with mere incisions in the stone, of which the effect may be tolerably given by single lines in a drawing. remember, therefore, for a moment--as characteristic of culminating italian art--michael angelo's fresco of the "temptation of eve," in the sistine chapel, and you will be more interested in seeing the birth of italian art, illustrated by the same subject, from st. ambrogio, of milan, the "serpent beguiling eve." [footnote: this cut is ruder than it should be: the incisions in the marble have a lighter effect than these rough black lines; but it is not worth while to do it better.] yet, in that sketch, rude and ludicrous as it is, you have the elements of life in their first form. the people who could do that were sure to get on. for, observe, the workman's whole aim is straight at the facts, as well as he can get them; and not merely at the facts, but at the very heart of the facts. a common workman might have looked at nature for his serpent, but he would have thought only of its scales. but this fellow does not want scales, nor coils; he can do without them; he wants the serpent's heart--malice and insinuation;--and he has actually got them to some extent. so also a common workman, even in this barbarous stage of art, might have carved eve's arms and body a good deal better; but this man does not care about arms and body, if he can only get at eve's mind--show that she is pleased at being flattered, and yet in a state of uncomfortable hesitation. and some look of listening, of complacency, and of embarrassment he has verily got:-- note the eyes slightly askance, the lips compressed, and the right hand nervously grasping the left arm: nothing can be declared impossible to the people who could begin thus--the world is open to them, and all that is in it; while, on the contrary, nothing is possible to the man who did the symmetrical angel--the world is keyless to him; he has built a cell for himself in which he must abide, barred up for ever-- there is no more hope for him than for a sponge or a madrepore. i shall not trace from this embryo the progress of gothic art in italy, because it is much complicated and involved with traditions of other schools, and because most of the students will be less familiar with its results than with their own northern buildings. so, these two designs indicating death and life in the beginnings of mediaeval art, we will take an example of the _progress_ of that art from our northern work. now, many of you, doubtless, have been interested by the mass, grandeur, and gloom of norman architecture, as much as by gothic traceries; and when you hear me say that the root of all good work lies in natural facts, you doubtless think instantly of your round arches, with their rude cushion capitals, and of the billet or zigzag work by which they are surrounded, and you cannot see what the knowledge of nature has to do with either the simple plan or the rude mouldings. but all those simple conditions of norman art are merely the expiring of it towards the extreme north. do not study norman architecture in northumberland, but in normandy, and then you will find that it is just a peculiarly manly, and practically useful, form of the whole great french school of rounded architecture. and where has that french school its origin? wholly in the rich conditions of sculpture, which, rising first out of imitations of the roman bas-reliefs, covered all the façades of the french early churches with one continuous arabesque of floral or animal life. if you want to study round-arched buildings, do not go to durham, but go to poictiers, and there you will see how all the simple decorations which give you so much pleasure even in their isolated application were invented by persons practised in carving men, monsters, wild animals, birds, and flowers, in overwhelming redundance; and then trace this architecture forward in central france, and you will find it loses nothing of its richness--it only gains in truth, and therefore in grace, until just at the moment of transition into the pointed style, you have the consummate type of the sculpture of the school given you in the west front of the cathedral of chartres. from that front i have chosen two fragments to illustrate it. [footnote: this part of the lecture was illustrated by two drawings, made admirably by mr. j. t. laing, with the help of photographs from statues at chartres. the drawings may be seen at present at the kensington museum: but any large photograph of the west front of chartres will enable the reader to follow what is stated in the lecture, as far as is needful.] these statues have been long, and justly, considered as representative of the highest skill of the twelfth or earliest part of the thirteenth century in france; and they indeed possess a dignity and delicate charm, which are for the most part wanting in later works. it is owing partly to real nobleness of feature, but chiefly to the grace, mingled with severity, of the falling lines of excessively _thin_ drapery; as well as to a most studied finish in composition, every part of the ornamentation tenderly harmonizing with the rest. so far as their power over certain tones of religious mind is owing to a palpable degree of non-naturalism in them, i do not praise it--the exaggerated thinness of body and stiffness of attitude are faults; but they are noble faults, and give the statues a strange look of forming part of the very building itself, and sustaining it--not like the greek caryatid, without effort--nor like the renaissance caryatid, by painful or impossible effort--but as if all that was silent and stern, and withdrawn apart, and stiffened in chill of heart against the terror of earth, had passed into a shape of eternal marble; and thus the ghost had given, to bear up the pillars of the church on earth, all the patient and expectant nature that it needed no more in heaven. this is the transcendental view of the meaning of those sculptures. i do not dwell upon it. what i do lean upon is their purely naturalistic and vital power. they are all portraits--unknown, most of them, i believe, --but palpably and unmistakeably portraits, if not taken from the actual person for whom the statue stands, at all events studied from some living person whose features might fairly represent those of the king or saint intended. several of them i suppose to be authentic: there is one of a queen, who has evidently, while she lived, been notable for her bright black eyes. the sculptor has cut the iris deep into the stone, and her dark eyes are still suggested with her smile. there is another thing i wish you to notice specially in these statues --the way in which the floral moulding is associated with the vertical lines of the figure. you have thus the utmost complexity and richness of curvature set side by side with the pure and delicate parallel lines, and both the characters gain in interest and beauty; but there is deeper significance in the thing than that of mere effect in composition; significance not intended on the part of the sculptor, but all the more valuable because unintentional. i mean the close association of the beauty of lower nature in animals and flowers, with the beauty of higher nature in human form. you never get this in greek work. greek statues are always isolated; blank fields of stone, or depths of shadow, relieving the form of the statue, as the world of lower nature which they despised retired in darkness from their hearts. here, the clothed figure seems the type of the christian spirit--in many respects feebler and more contracted--but purer; clothed in its white robes and crown, and with the riches of all creation at its side. the next step in the change will be set before you in a moment, merely by comparing this statue from the west front of chartres with that of the madonna, from the south transept door of amiens. [footnote: there are many photographs of this door and of its central statue. its sculpture in the tympanum is farther described in the fourth lecture.] this madonna, with the sculpture round her, represents the culminating power of gothic art in the thirteenth century. sculpture has been gaining continually in the interval; gaining, simply because becoming every day more truthful, more tender, and more suggestive. by the way, the old douglas motto, "tender and true," may wisely be taken up again by all of us, for our own, in art no less than in other things. depend upon it, the first universal characteristic of all great art is tenderness, as the second is truth. i find this more and more every day: an infinitude of tenderness is the chief gift and inheritance of all the truly great men. it is sure to involve a relative intensity of disdain towards base things, and an appearance of sternness and arrogance in the eyes of all hard, stupid, and vulgar people--quite terrific to such, if they are capable of terror, and hateful to them, if they are capable of nothing higher than hatred. dante's is the great type of this class of mind. i say the first inheritance is tenderness-- the second truth, because the tenderness is in the make of the creature, the truth in his acquired habits and knowledge; besides, the love comes first in dignity as well as in time, and that is always pure and complete: the truth, at best, imperfect. to come back to our statue. you will observe that the arrangement of this sculpture is exactly the same as at chartres--severe falling drapery, set off by rich floral ornament at the side; but the statue is now completely animated: it is no longer fixed as an upright pillar, but bends aside out of its niche, and the floral ornament, instead of being a conventional wreath, is of exquisitely arranged hawthorn. the work, however, as a whole, though perfectly characteristic of the advance of the age in style and purpose, is in some subtler qualities inferior to that of chartres. the individual sculptor, though trained in a more advanced school, has been himself a man of inferior order of mind compared to the one who worked at chartres. but i have not time to point out to you the subtler characters by which i know this. this statue, then, marks the culminating point of gothic art, because, up to this time, the eyes of its designers had been steadily fixed on natural truth--they had been advancing from flower to flower, from form to form, from face to face,--gaining perpetually in knowledge and veracity--therefore, perpetually in power and in grace. but at this point a fatal change came over their aim. from the statue they now began to turn the attention chiefly to the niche of the statue, and from the floral ornament to the mouldings that enclosed the floral ornament. the first result of this was, however, though not the grandest, yet the most finished of northern genius. you have, in the earlier gothic, less wonderful construction, less careful masonry, far less expression of harmony of parts in the balance of the building. earlier work always has more or less of the character of a good solid wall with irregular holes in it, well carved wherever there is room. but the last phase of good gothic has no room to spare; it rises as high as it can on narrowest foundation, stands in perfect strength with the least possible substance in its bars; connects niche with niche, and line with line, in an exquisite harmony, from which no stone can be removed, and to which you can add not a pinnacle; and yet introduces in rich, though now more calculated profusion, the living element of its sculpture: sculpture in the quatrefoils--sculpture in the brackets-- sculpture in the gargoyles--sculpture in the niches--sculpture in the ridges and hollows of its mouldings,--not a shadow without meaning, and not a light without life. [footnote: the two _transepts_ of rouen cathedral illustrate this style. there are plenty of photographs of them. i take this opportunity of repeating what i have several times before stated, for the sake of travellers, that st. ouen, impressive as it is, is entirely inferior to the transepts of rouen cathedral.] but with this very perfection of his work came the unhappy pride of the builder in what he had done. as long as he had been merely raising clumsy walls and carving them like a child, in waywardness of fancy, his delight was in the things he thought of as he carved; but when he had once reached this pitch of constructive science, he began to think only how cleverly he could put the stones together. the question was not now with him, what can i represent? but, how high can i build--how wonderfully can i hang this arch in air, or weave this tracery across the clouds? and the catastrophe was instant and irrevocable. architecture became in france a mere web of waving lines,--in england a mere grating of perpendicular ones. redundance was substituted for invention, and geometry for passion; tho gothic art became a mere expression of wanton expenditure, and vulgar mathematics; and was swept away, as it then deserved to be swept away, by the severer pride, and purer learning, of the schools founded on classical traditions. you cannot now fail to see, how, throughout the history of this wonderful art--from its earliest dawn in lombardy to its last catastrophe in france and england--sculpture, founded on love of nature, was the talisman of its existence; wherever sculpture was practised, architecture arose--wherever that was neglected, architecture expired; and, believe me, all you students who love this mediaeval art, there is no hope of your ever doing any good with it, but on this everlasting principle. your patriotic associations with it are of no use; your romantic associations with it--either of chivalry or religion--are of no use; they are worse than useless, they are false. gothic is not an art for knights and nobles; it is an art for the people: it is not an art for churches or sanctuaries; it is an art for houses and homes: it is not an art for england only, but an art for the world: above all, it is not an art of form or tradition only, but an art of vital practice and perpetual renewal. and whosoever pleads for it as an ancient or a formal thing, and tries to teach it you as an ecclesiastical tradition or a geometrical science, knows nothing of its essence, less than nothing of its power. leave, therefore, boldly, though not irreverently, mysticism and symbolism on the one side; cast away with utter scorn geometry and legalism on the other; seize hold of god's hand and look full in the face of his creation, and there is nothing he will not enable you to achieve. thus, then, you will find--and the more profound and accurate your knowledge of the history of art the more assuredly you will find--that the living power in all the real schools, be they great or small, is love of nature. but do not mistake me by supposing that i mean this law to be all that is necessary to form a school. there needs to be much superadded to it, though there never must be anything superseding it. the main thing which needs to be superadded is the gift of design. it is always dangerous, and liable to diminish the clearness of impression, to go over much ground in the course of one lecture. but i dare not present you with a maimed view of this important subject: i dare not put off to another time, when the same persons would not be again assembled, the statement of the great collateral necessity which, as well as the necessity of truth, governs all noble art. that collateral necessity is _the visible operation of human intellect in the presentation of truth, _the evidence of what is properly called design or plan in the work, no less than of veracity. a looking-glass does not design--it receives and communicates indiscriminately all that passes before it; a painter designs when he chooses some things, refuses others, and arranges all. this selection and arrangement must have influence over everything that the art is concerned with, great or small--over lines, over colours, and over ideas. given a certain group of colours, by adding another colour at the side of them, you will either improve the group and render it more delightful, or injure it, and render it discordant and unintelligible. "design" is the choosing and placing the colour so as to help and enhance all the other colours it is set beside. so of thoughts: in a good composition, every idea is presented in just that order, and with just that force, which will perfectly connect it with all the other thoughts in the work, and will illustrate the others as well as receive illustration from them; so that the entire chain of thoughts offered to the beholder's mind shall be received by him with as much delight and with as little effort as is possible. and thus you see design, properly so called, is human invention, consulting human capacity. out of the infinite heap of things around us in the world, it chooses a certain number which it can thoroughly grasp, and presents this group to the spectator in the form best calculated to enable him to grasp it also, and to grasp it with delight. and accordingly, the capacities of both gatherer and receiver being limited, the object is to make _everything that you offer helpful_ and precious. if you give one grain of weight too much, so as to increase fatigue without profit, or bulk without value--that added grain is hurtful; if you put one spot or one syllable out of its proper place, that spot or syllable will be destructive--how far destructive it is almost impossible to tell: a misplaced touch may sometimes annihilate the labour of hours. nor are any of us prepared to understand the work of any great master, till we feel this, and feel it as distinctly as we do the value of arrangement in the notes of music. take any noble musical air, and you find, on examining it, that not one even of the faintest or shortest notes can be removed without destruction to the whole passage in which it occurs; and that every note in the passage is twenty times more beautiful so introduced, than it would have been if played singly on the instrument. precisely this degree of arrangement and relation must exist between every touch [footnote: literally. i know how exaggerated this statement sounds; but i mean it,--every syllable of it.--see appendix iv.] and line in a great picture. you may consider the whole as a prolonged musical composition: its parts, as separate airs connected in the story; its little bits and fragments of colour and line, as separate passages or bars in melodies; and down to the minutest note of the whole--down to the minutest _touch_,--if there is one that can be spared--that one is doing mischief. remember therefore always, you have two characters in which all greatness of art consists:--first, the earnest and intense seizing of natural facts; then the ordering those facts by strength of human intellect, so as to make them, for all who look upon them, to the utmost serviceable, memorable, and beautiful. and thus great art is nothing else than the type of strong and noble life; for, as the ignoble person, in his dealings with all that occurs in the world about him, first sees nothing clearly,--looks nothing fairly in the face, and then allows himself to be swept away by the trampling torrent, and unescapable force, of the things that he would not foresee, and could not understand: so the noble person, looking the facts of the world full in the face, and fathoming them with deep faculty, then deals with them in unalarmed intelligence and unhurried strength, and becomes, with his human intellect and will, no unconscious nor insignificant agent, in consummating their good, and restraining their evil. thus in human life you have the two fields of rightful toil for ever distinguished, yet for ever associated; truth first--plan or design, founded thereon; so in art, you have the same two fields for ever distinguished, for ever associated; truth first--plan, or design, founded thereon. now hitherto there is not the least difficulty in the subject; none of you can look for a moment at any great sculptor or painter without seeing the full bearing of these principles. but a difficulty arises when you come to examine the art of a lower order, concerned with furniture and manufacture, for in that art the element of design enters without, apparently, the element of truth. you have often to obtain beauty and display invention without direct representation of nature. yet, respecting all these things also, the principle is perfectly simple. if the designer of furniture, of cups and vases, of dress patterns, and the like, exercises himself continually in the imitation of natural form in some leading division of his work; then, holding by this stem of life, he may pass down into all kinds of merely geometrical or formal design with perfect safety, and with noble results.[footnote: this principle, here cursorily stated, is one of the chief subjects of inquiry in the following lectures.] thus giotto, being primarily a figure painter and sculptor, is, secondarily, the richest of all designers in mere mosaic of coloured bars and triangles; thus benvenuto cellini, being in all the higher branches of metal work a perfect imitator of nature, is in all its lower branches the best designer of curve for lips of cups and handles of vases; thus holbein, exercised primarily in the noble art of truthful portraiture, becomes, secondarily, the most exquisite designer of embroideries of robe, and blazonries on wall; and thus michael angelo, exercised primarily in the drawing of body and limb, distributes in the mightiest masses the order of his pillars, and in the loftiest shadow the hollows of his dome. but once quit hold of this living stem, and set yourself to the designing of ornamentation, either in the ignorant play of your own heartless fancy, as the indian does, or according to received application of heartless laws, as the modern european does, and there is but one word for you--death:--death of every healthy faculty, and of every noble intelligence, incapacity of understanding one great work that man has ever done, or of doing anything that it shall be helpful for him to behold. you have cut yourselves off voluntarily, presumptuously, insolently, from the whole teaching of your maker in his universe; you have cut yourselves off from it, not because you were forced to mechanical labour for your bread--not because your fate had appointed you to wear away your life in walled chambers, or dig your life out of dusty furrows; but, when your whole profession, your whole occupation-- all the necessities and chances of your existence, led you straight to the feet of the great teacher, and thrust you into the treasury of his works; where you have nothing to do but to live by gazing, and to grow by wondering;--wilfully you bind up your eyes from the splendour-- wilfully bind up your life-blood from its beating--wilfully turn your backs upon all the majesties of omnipotence--wilfully snatch your hands from all the aids of love, and what can remain for you, but helplessness and blindness,--except the worse fate than the being blind yourselves--that of becoming leaders of the blind? do not think that i am speaking under excited feeling, or in any exaggerated terms. i have written the words i use, that i may know what i say, and that you, if you choose, may see what i have said. for, indeed, i have set before you tonight, to the best of my power, the sum and substance of the system of art to the promulgation of which i have devoted my life hitherto, and intend to devote what of life may still be spared to me. i have had but one steady aim in all that i have ever tried to teach, namely--to declare that whatever was great in human art was the expression of man's delight in god's work. and at this time i have endeavoured to prove to you--if you investigate the subject you may more entirely prove to yourselves--that no school ever advanced far which had not the love of natural fact as a primal energy. but it is still more important for you to be assured that the conditions of life and death in the art of nations are also the conditions of life and death in your own; and that you have it, each in his power at this very instant, to determine in which direction his steps are turning. it seems almost a terrible thing to tell you, that all here have all the power of knowing at once what hope there is for them as artists; you would, perhaps, like better that there was some unremovable doubt about the chances of the future--some possibility that you might be advancing, in unconscious ways, towards unexpected successes--some excuse or reason for going about, as students do so often, to this master or the other, asking him if they have genius, and whether they are doing right, and gathering, from his careless or formal replies, vague flashes of encouragement, or fitfulnesses of despair. there is no need for this--no excuse for it. all of you have the trial of yourselves in your own power; each may undergo at this instant, before his own judgment seat, the ordeal by fire. ask yourselves what is the leading motive which actuates you while you are at work. i do not ask you what your leading motive is for working--that is a different thing; you may have families to support--parents to help--brides to win; you may have all these, or other such sacred and pre-eminent motives, to press the morning's labour and prompt the twilight thought. but when you are fairly _at_ the work, what is the motive then which tells upon every touch of it? if it is the love of that which your work represents--if, being a landscape painter, it is love of hills and trees that moves you--if, being a figure painter, it is love of human beauty and human soul that moves you--if, being a flower or animal painter, it is love, and wonder, and delight in petal and in limb that move you, then the spirit is upon you, and the earth is yours, and the fulness thereof. but if, on the other hand, it is petty self-complacency in your own skill, trust in precepts and laws, hope for academical or popular approbation, or avarice of wealth,--it is quite possible that by steady industry, or even by fortunate chance, you may win the applause, the position, the fortune, that you desire;-- but one touch of true art you will never lay on canvas or on stone as long as you live. make, then, your choice, boldly and consciously, for one way or other it _must_ be made. on the dark and dangerous side are set, the pride which delights in self-contemplation--the indolence which rests in unquestioned forms--the ignorance that despises what is fairest among god's creatures, and the dulness that denies what is marvellous in his working: there is a life of monotony for your own souls, and of misguiding for those of others. and, on the other side, is open to your choice the life of the crowned spirit, moving as a light in creation-- discovering always--illuminating always, gaining every hour in strength, yet bowed down every hour into deeper humility; sure of being right in its aim, sure of being irresistible in its progress; happy in what it has securely done--happier in what, day by day, it may as securely hope; happiest at the close of life, when the right hand begins to forget its cunning, to remember, that there never was a touch of the chisel or the pencil it wielded, but has added to the knowledge and quickened the happiness of mankind. lecture ii. the unity of art. _part of an address delivered at manchester, th march, ._ [footnote: i was prevented, by press of other engagements, from preparing this address with the care i wished; and forced to trust to such expression as i could give at the moment to the points of principal importance; reading, however, the close of the preceding lecture, which i thought contained some truths that would bear repetition. the whole was reported, better than it deserved, by mr. pitman, of the _manchester courier_, and published nearly verbatim. i have here extracted, from the published report, the facts which i wish especially to enforce; and have a little cleared their expression; its loose and colloquial character i cannot now help, unless by re-writing the whole, which it seems not worth while to do.] it is sometimes my pleasant duty to visit other cities, in the hope of being able to encourage their art students; but here it is my pleasanter privilege to come for encouragement myself. i do not know when i have received so much as from the report read this evening by mr. hammersley, bearing upon a subject which has caused me great anxiety. for i have always felt in my own pursuit of art, and in my endeavors to urge the pursuit of art on others, that while there are many advantages now that never existed before, there are certain grievous difficulties existing, just in the very cause that is giving the stimulus to art--in the immense spread of the manufactures of every country which is now attending vigorously to art. we find that manufacture and art are now going on always together; that where there is no manufacture there is no art. i know how much there is of pretended art where there is no manufacture: there is much in italy, for instance; no country makes so bold pretence to the production of new art as italy at this moment; yet no country produces so little. if you glance over the map of europe, you will find that where the manufactures are strongest, there art also is strongest. and yet i always felt that there was an immense difficulty to be encountered by the students who were in these centres of modern movement. they had to avoid the notion that art and manufacture were in any respect one. art may be healthily associated with manufacture, and probably in future will always be so; but the student must be strenuously warned against supposing that they can ever be one and the same thing, that art can ever be followed on the principles of manufacture. each must be followed separately; the one must influence the other, but each must be kept distinctly separate from the other. it would be well if all students would keep clearly in their mind the real distinction between those words which we use so often, "manufacture," "art," and "fine art." "manufacture" is, according to the etymology and right use of the word, "the making of anything by hands,"--directly or indirectly, with or without the help of instruments or machines. anything proceeding from the hand of man is manufacture; but it must have proceeded from his hand only, acting mechanically, and uninfluenced at the moment by direct intelligence. then, secondly, art is the operation of the hand and the intelligence of man together; there is an art of making machinery; there is an art of building ships; an art of making carriages; and so on. all these, properly called arts, but not fine arts, are pursuits in which the hand of man and his head go together, working at the same instant. then fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the _heart_ of man go together. recollect this triple group; it will help you to solve many difficult problems. and remember that though the hand must be at the bottom of everything, it must also go to the top of everything; for fine art must be produced by the hand of man in a much greater and clearer sense than manufacture is. fine art must always be produced by the subtlest of all machines, which is the human hand. no machine yet contrived, or hereafter contrivable, will ever equal the fine machinery of the human fingers. thoroughly perfect art is that which proceeds from the heart, which involves all the noble emotions;--associates with these the head, yet as inferior to the heart; and the hand, yet as inferior to the heart and head; and thus brings out the whole man. hence it follows that since manufacture is simply the operation of the hand of man in producing that which is useful to him, it essentially separates itself from the emotions; when emotions interfere with machinery they spoil it: machinery must go evenly, without emotion. but the fine arts cannot go evenly; they always must have emotion ruling their mechanism, and until the pupil begins to feel, and until all he does associates itself with the current of his feeling, he is not an artist. but pupils in all the schools in this country are now exposed to all kinds of temptations which blunt their feelings. i constantly feel discouraged in addressing them because i know not how to tell them boldly what they ought to do, when i feel how practically difficult it is for them to do it. there are all sorts of demands made upon them in every direction, and money is to be made in every conceivable way but the right way. if you paint as you ought, and study as you ought, depend upon it the public will take no notice of you for a long while. if you study wrongly, and try to draw the attention of the public upon you,--supposing you to be clever students--you will get swift reward; but the reward does not come fast when it is sought wisely; it is always held aloof for a little while; the right roads of early life are very quiet ones, hedged in from nearly all help or praise. but the wrong roads are noisy,--vociferous everywhere with all kinds of demand upon you for art which is not properly art at all; and in the various meetings of modern interests, money is to be made in every way; but art is to be followed only in _one_ way. that is what i want mainly to say to you, or if not to you yourselves (for, from what i have heard from your excellent master to-night, i know you are going on all rightly), you must let me say it through you to others. our schools of art are confused by the various teaching and various interests that are now abroad among us. everybody is talking about art, and writing about it, and more or less interested in it; everybody wants art, and there is not art for everybody, and few who talk know what they are talking about; thus students are led in all variable ways, while there is only one way in which they can make steady progress, for true art is always and will be always one. whatever changes may be made in the customs of society, whatever new machines we may invent, whatever new manufactures we may supply, fine art must remain what it was two thousand years ago, in the days of phidias; two thousand years hence, it will be, in all its principles, and in all its great effects upon the mind of man, just the same. observe this that i say, please, carefully, for i mean it to the very utmost. _there is but one right way of doing any given thing required of an artist_; there may be a hundred wrong, deficient, or mannered ways, but there is only one complete and right way. whenever two artists are trying to do the same thing with the same materials, and do it in different ways, one of them is wrong; he may be charmingly wrong, or impressively wrong--various circumstances in his temper may make his wrong pleasanter than any person's right; it may for him, under his given limitations of knowledge or temper, be better perhaps that he should err in his own way than try for anybody else's--but for all that his way is wrong, and it is essential for all masters of schools to know what the right way is, and what right art is, and to see how simple and how single all right art has been, since the beginning of it. but farther, not only is there but one way of _doing_ things rightly, but there is only one way of _seeing_ them, and that is, seeing the whole of them, without any choice, or more intense perception of one point than another, owing to our special idiosyncrasies. thus, when titian or tintoret look at a human being, they see at a glance the whole of its nature, outside and in; all that it has of form, of colour, of passion, or of thought; saintliness, and loveliness; fleshly body, and spiritual power; grace, or strength, or softness, or whatsoever other quality, those men will see to the full, and so paint, that, when narrower people come to look at what they have done, every one may, if he chooses, find his own special pleasure in the work. the sensualist will find sensuality in titian; the thinker will find thought; the saint, sanctity; the colourist, colour; the anatomist, form; and yet the picture will never be a popular one in the full sense, for none of these narrower people will find their special taste so alone consulted, as that the qualities which would ensure their gratification shall be sifted or separated from others; they are checked by the presence of the other qualities which ensure the gratification of other men. thus, titian is not soft enough for the sensualist, correggio suits him better; titian is not defined enough for the formalist,--leonardo suits him better; titian is not pure enough for the religionist,--raphael suits him better; titian is not polite enough for the man of the world,--vandyke suits him better; titian is not forcible enough for the lovers of the picturesque,-- rembrandt suits him better. so correggio is popular with a certain set, and vandyke with a certain set, and rembrandt with a certain set. all are great men, but of inferior stamp, and therefore vandyke is popular, and rembrandt is popular, [footnote: and murillo, of all true painters the narrowest, feeblest, and most superficial, for those reasons the most popular.] but nobody cares much at heart about titian; only there is a strange under-current of everlasting murmur about his name, which means the deep consent of all great men that he is greater than they-- the consent of those who, having sat long enough at his feet, have found in that restrained harmony of his strength there are indeed depths of each balanced power more wonderful than all those separate manifestations in inferior painters: that there is a softness more exquisite than correggio's, a purity loftier than leonardo's, a force mightier than rembrandt's, a sanctity more solemn even than raffaelle's. do not suppose that in saying this of titian, i am returning to the old eclectic theories of bologna; for all those eclectic theories, observe, were based, not upon an endeavour to unite the various characters of nature (which it is possible to do), but the various narrownesses of taste, which it is impossible to do. rubens is not more vigorous than titian, but less vigorous; but because he is so narrow-minded as to enjoy vigour only, he refuses to give the other qualities of nature, which would interfere with that vigour and with our perception of it. again, rembrandt is not a greater master of chiaroscuro than titian;-- he is a less master, but because he is so narrow-minded as to enjoy chiaroscuro only, he withdraws from you the splendour of hue which would interfere with this, and gives you only the shadow in which you can at once feel it. now all these specialties have their own charm in their own way: and there are times when the particular humour of each man is refreshing to us from its very distinctness; but the effort to add any other qualities to this refreshing one instantly takes away the distinctiveness, and therefore the exact character to be enjoyed in its appeal to a particular humour in us. our enjoyment arose from a weakness meeting a weakness, from a partiality in the painter fitting to a partiality in us, and giving us sugar when we wanted sugar, and myrrh when we wanted myrrh; but sugar and myrrh are not meat: and when we want meat and bread, we must go to better men. the eclectic schools endeavoured to unite these opposite partialities and weaknesses. they trained themselves under masters of exaggeration, and tried to unite opposite exaggerations. that was impossible. they did not see that the only possible eclecticism had been already accomplished;--the eclecticism of temperance, which, by the restraint of force, gains higher force; and by the self-denial of delight, gains higher delight. this you will find is ultimately the case with every true and right master; at first, while we are tyros in art, or before we have earnestly studied the man in question, we shall see little in him; or perhaps see, as we think, deficiencies; we shall fancy he is inferior to this man in that, and to the other man in the other; but as we go on studying him we shall find that he has got both that and the other; and both in a far higher sense than the man who seemed to possess those qualities in excess. thus in turner's lifetime, when people first looked at him, those who liked rainy, weather, said he was not equal to copley fielding; but those who looked at turner long enough found that he could be much more wet than copley fielding, when he chose. the people who liked force, said that "turner was not strong enough for them; he was effeminate; they liked de wint,--nice strong tone;--or cox--great, greeny, dark masses of colour--solemn feeling of the freshness and depth of nature;--they liked cox--turner was too hot for them." had they looked long enough they would have found that he had far more force than de wint, far more freshness than cox when he chose,--only united with other elements; and that he didn't choose to be cool, if nature had appointed the weather to be hot. the people who liked prout said "turner had not firmness of hand--he did not know enough about architecture--he was not picturesque enough." had they looked at his architecture long, they would have found that it contained subtle picturesquenesses, infinitely more picturesque than anything of prout's. people who liked callcott said that "turner was not correct or pure enough--had no classical taste." had they looked at turner long enough they would have found him as severe, when he chose, as the greater poussin;--callcott, a mere vulgar imitator of other men's high breeding. and so throughout with all thoroughly great men, their strength is not seen at first, precisely because they unite, in due place and measure, every great quality. now the question is, whether, as students, we are to study only these mightiest men, who unite all greatness, or whether we are to study the works of inferior men, who present us with the greatness which we particularly like? that question often comes before me when i see a strong idiosyncrasy in a student, and he asks me what he should study. shall i send him to a true master, who does not present the quality in a prominent way in which that student delights, or send him to a man with whom he has direct sympathy? it is a hard question. for very curious results have sometimes been brought out, especially in late years, not only by students following their own bent, but by their being withdrawn from teaching altogether. i have just named a very great man in his own field--prout. we all know his drawings, and love them: they have a peculiar character which no other architectural drawings ever possessed, and which no others can possess, because all prout's subjects are being knocked down or restored. (prout did not like restored buildings any more than i do.) there will never be any more prout drawings. nor could he have been what he was, or expressed with that mysteriously effective touch that peculiar delight in broken and old buildings, unless he had been withdrawn from all high art influence. you know that prout was born of poor parents--that he was educated down in cornwall;--and that, for many years, all the art- teaching he had was his own, or the fishermen's. under the keels of the fishing-boats, on the sands of our southern coasts, prout learned all that he needed to learn about art. entirely by himself, he felt his way to this particular style, and became the painter of pictures which i think we should all regret to lose. it becomes a very difficult question what that man would have been, had he been brought under some entirely wholesome artistic influence, he had immense gifts of composition. i do not know any man who had more power of invention than prout, or who had a sublimer instinct in his treatment of things; but being entirely withdrawn from all artistical help, he blunders his way to that short-coming representation, which, by the very reason of its short-coming, has a certain charm we should all be sorry to lose. and therefore i feel embarrassed when a student comes to me, in whom i see a strong instinct of that kind: and cannot tell whether i ought to say to him, "give up all your studies of old boats, and keep away from the sea-shore, and come up to the royal academy in london, and look at nothing but titian." it is a difficult thing to make up one's mind to say that. however, i believe, on the whole, we may wisely leave such matters in the hands of providence; that if we have the power of teaching the right to anybody, we should teach them the right; if we have the power of showing them the best thing, we should show them the best thing; there will always, i fear, be enough want of teaching, and enough bad teaching, to bring out very curious erratical results if we want them. so, if we are to teach at all, let us teach the right thing, and ever the right thing. there are many attractive qualities inconsistent with rightness;--do not let us teach them,--let us be content to waive them. there are attractive qualities in burns, and attractive qualities in dickens, which neither of those writers would have possessed if the one had been educated, and the other had been studying higher nature than that of cockney london; but those attractive qualities are not such as we should seek in a school of literature. if we want to teach young men a good manner of writing, we should teach it from shakspeare,--not from burns; from walter scott,-- and not from dickens. and i believe that our schools of painting are at present inefficient in their action, because they have not fixed on this high principle what are the painters to whom to point; nor boldly resolved to point to the best, if determinable. it is becoming a matter of stern necessity that they should give a simple direction to the attention of the student, and that they should say, "this is the mark you are to aim at; and you are not to go about to the print-shops, and peep in, to see how this engraver does that, and the other engraver does the other, and how a nice bit of character has been caught by a new man, and why this odd picture has caught the popular attention. you are to have nothing to do with all that; you are not to mind about popular attention just now; but here is a thing which is eternally right and good: you are to look at that, and see if you cannot do something eternally right and good too." but suppose you accept this principle: and resolve to look to some great man, titian, or turner, or whomsoever it may be, as the model of perfection in art;--then the question is, since this great man pursued his art in venice, or in the fields of england, under totally different conditions from those possible to us now--how are you to make your study of him effective here in manchester? how bring it down into patterns, and all that you are called upon as operatives to produce? how make it the means of your livelihood, and associate inferior branches of art with this great art? that may become a serious doubt to you. you may think there is some other way of producing clever, and pretty, and saleable patterns than going to look at titian, or any other great man. and that brings me to the question, perhaps the most vexed question of all amongst us just now, between conventional and perfect art. you know that among architects and artists there are, and have been almost always, since art became a subject of much discussion, two parties, one maintaining that nature should be always altered and modified, and that the artist is greater than nature; they do not maintain, indeed, in words, but they maintain in idea, that the artist is greater than the divine maker of these things, and can improve them; while the other party say that he cannot improve nature, and that nature on the whole should improve him. that is the real meaning of the two parties, the essence of them; the practical result of their several theories being that the idealists are always producing more or less formal conditions of art, and the realists striving to produce in all their art either some image of nature, or record of nature; these, observe, being quite different things, the image being a resemblance, and the record, something which will give information about nature, but not necessarily imitate it. [footnote: the portion of the lecture here omitted was a recapitulation of that part of the previous one which opposed conventional art to natural art.] * * * * * you may separate these two groups of artists more distinctly in your mind as those who seek for the pleasure of art, in the relations of its colours and lines, without caring to convey any truth with it; and those who seek for the truth first, and then go down from the truth to the pleasure of colour and line. marking those two bodies distinctly as separate, and thinking over them, you may come to some rather notable conclusions respecting the mental dispositions which are involved in each mode of study. you will find that large masses of the art of the world fall definitely under one or the other of these heads. observe, pleasure first and truth afterwards, (or not at all,) as with the arabians and indians; or, truth first and pleasure afterwards, as with angelico and all other great european painters. you will find that the art whose end is pleasure only is pre-eminently the gift of cruel and savage nations, cruel in temper, savage in habits and conception; but that the art which is especially dedicated to natural fact always indicates a peculiar gentleness and tenderness of mind, and that all great and successful work of that kind will assuredly be the production of thoughtful, sensitive, earnest, kind men, large in their views of life, and full of various intellectual power. and farther, when you examine the men in whom the gifts of art are variously mingled, or universally mingled, you will discern that the ornamental, or pleasurable power, though it may be possessed by good men, is not in itself an indication of their goodness, but is rather, unless balanced by other faculties, indicative of violence of temper, inclining to cruelty and to irreligion. on the other hand, so sure as you find any man endowed with a keen and separate faculty of representing natural fact, so surely you will find that man gentle and upright, full of nobleness and breadth of thought. i will give you two instances, the first peculiarly english, and another peculiarly interesting because it occurs among a nation not generally very kind or gentle. i am inclined to think that, considering all the disadvantages of circumstances and education under which his genius was developed, there was perhaps hardly ever born a man with a more intense and innate gift of insight into nature than our own sir joshua reynolds. considered as a painter of individuality in the human form and mind, i think him, even as it is, the prince of portrait painters. titian paints nobler pictures, and vandyke had nobler subjects, but neither of them entered so subtly as sir joshua did into the minor varieties of human heart and temper; arid when you consider that, with a frightful conventionality of social habitude all around him, he yet conceived the simplest types of all feminine and childish loveliness;--that in a northern climate, and with gray, and white, and black, as the principal colours around him, he yet became a colourist who can be crushed by none, even of the venetians;--and that with dutch painting and dresden china for the prevailing types of art in the saloons of his day, he threw himself at once at the feet of the great masters of italy, and arose from their feet to share their throne--i know not that in the whole history of art you can produce another instance of so strong, so unaided, so unerring an instinct for all that was true, pure, and noble. now, do you recollect the evidence respecting the character of this man,--the two points of bright peculiar evidence given by the sayings of the two greatest literary men of his day, johnson and goldsmith? johnson, who, as you know, was always reynolds' attached friend, had but one complaint to make against him, that he hated nobody:-- "reynolds," he said, "you hate no one living; i like a good hater!" still more significant is the little touch in goldsmith's "retaliation." you recollect how in that poem he describes the various persons who met at one of their dinners at st. james's coffee-house, each person being described under the name of some appropriate dish. you will often hear the concluding lines about reynolds quoted-- "he shifted his trumpet," &c;-- less often, or at least less attentively, the preceding ones, far more important-- "still born to improve us in every part-- his pencil our faces, his _manners our heart;_" and never, the most characteristic touch of all, near the beginning:-- "our dean shall be venison, just fresh from the plains; our burke shall be tongue, with a garnish of brains. to make out the dinner, full certain i am, that rich is anchovy, and reynolds is _lamb_." the other painter whom i would give you as an instance of this gentleness is a man of another nation, on the whole i suppose one of the most cruel civilized nations in the world--the spaniards. they produced but one great painter, only one; but he among the very greatest of painters, velasquez. you would not suppose, from looking at velasquez' portraits generally, that he was an especially kind or good man; you perceive a peculiar sternness about them; for they were as true as steel, and the persons whom he had to paint being not generally kind or good people, they were stern in expression, and velasquez gave the sternness; but he had precisely the same intense perception of truth, the same marvellous instinct for the rendering of all natural soul and all natural form that our reynolds had. let me, then, read you his character as it is given by mr. stirling, of kier:-- "certain charges, of what nature we are not informed, brought against him after his death, made it necessary for his executor, fuensalida, to refute them at a private audience granted to him by the king for that purpose. after listening to the defence of his friend, philip immediately made answer: 'i can believe all you say of the excellent disposition of diego velasquez.' having lived for half his life in courts, he was yet capable both of gratitude and generosity, and in the misfortunes, he could remember the early kindness of olivares. the friend of the exile of loeches, it is just to believe that he was also the friend of the all-powerful favourite at buenretiro. no mean jealousy ever influenced his conduct to his brother artists; he could afford not only to acknowledge the merits, but to forgive the malice, of his rivals. his character was of that _rare and happy kind, in which high intellectual power is combined with indomitable strength of will, and a winning sweetness of temper_, and which seldom fails to raise the possessor above his fellow-men, making his life a 'laurelled victory, and smooth success be strewed before his feet.'" i am sometimes accused of trying to make art too moral; yet, observe, i do not say in the least that in order to be a good painter you must be a good man; but i do say that in order to be a good natural painter there must be strong elements of good in the mind, however warped by other parts of the character. there are hundreds of other gifts of painting which are not at all involved with moral conditions, but this one, the perception of nature, is never given but under certain moral conditions. therefore, now you have it in your choice; here are your two paths for you: it is required of you to produce conventional ornament, and you may approach the task as the hindoo does, and as the arab did,--without nature at all, with the chance of approximating your disposition somewhat to that of the hindoos and arabs; or as sir joshua and velasquez did, with, not the chance, but the certainty, of approximating your disposition, according to the sincerity of your effort--to the disposition of those great and good men. and do you suppose you will lose anything by approaching your conventional art from this higher side? not so. i called, with deliberate measurement of my expression, long ago, the decoration of the alhambra "detestable," not merely because indicative of base conditions of moral being, but because merely as decorative work, however captivating in some respects, it is wholly wanting in the real, deep, and intense qualities of ornamental art. noble conventional decoration belongs only to three periods. first, there is the conventional decoration of the greeks, used in subordination to their sculpture. there are then the noble conventional decoration of the early gothic schools, and the noble conventional arabesque of the great italian schools. all these were reached from above, all reached by stooping from a knowledge of the human form. depend upon it you will find, as you look more and more into the matter, that good subordinate ornament has ever been rooted in a higher knowledge; and if you are again to produce anything that is noble, you must have the higher knowledge first, and descend to all lower service; condescend as much as you like,--condescension never does any man any harm,--but get your noble standing first. so, then, without any scruple, whatever branch of art you may be inclined as a student here to follow,--whatever you are to make your bread by, i say, so far as you have time and power, make yourself first a noble and accomplished artist; understand at least what noble and accomplished art is, and then you will be able to apply your knowledge to all service whatsoever. i am now going to ask your permission to name the masters whom i think it would be well if we could agree, in our schools of art in england, to consider our leaders. the first and chief i will not myself presume to name; he shall be distinguished for you by the authority of those two great painters of whom we have just been speaking--reynolds and velasquez. you may remember that in your manchester art treasures exhibition the most impressive things were the works of those two men-- nothing told upon the eye so much; no other pictures retained it with such a persistent power. now, i have the testimony, first of reynolds to velasquez, and then of velasquez to the man whom i want you to take as the master of all your english schools. the testimony of reynolds to velasquez is very striking. i take it from some fragments which have just been published by mr. william cotton--precious fragments--of reynolds' diaries, which i chanced upon luckily as i was coming down here: for i was going to take velasquez' testimony alone, and then fell upon this testimony of reynolds to velasquez, written most fortunately in reynolds' own hand-you may see the manuscript. "what _we_ are all," said reynolds, "attempting to do with great labor, velasquez does at once." just think what is implied when a man of the enormous power and facility that reynolds had, says he was "trying to do with great labor" what velasquez "did at once." having thus reynolds' testimony to velasquez, i will take velasquez' testimony to somebody else. you know that velasquez was sent by philip of spain to italy, to buy pictures for him. he went all over italy, saw the living artists there, and all their best pictures when freshly painted, so that he had every opportunity of judging; and never was a man so capable of judging. he went to rome and ordered various works of living artists; and while there, he was one day asked by salvator rosa what he thought of raphael. his reply, and the ensuing conversation, are thus reported by boschini, in curious italian verse, which, thus translated by dr. donaldson, is quoted in mr. stirling's life of velasquez:-- "the master" [velasquez] "stiffly bowed his figure tall and said, 'for rafael, to speak the truth-- i always was plain-spoken from my youth-- i cannot say i like his works at all.' "'well,' said the other" [salvator], 'if you can run down so great a man, i really cannot see what you can find to like in italy; to him we all agree to give the crown.' "diego answered thus: 'i saw in venice the true test of the good and beautiful; first in my judgment, ever stands that school, and titian first of all italian men is.'" "_tizian ze quel die porta la bandiera_" learn that line by heart and act, at all events for some time to come, upon velasquez' opinion in that matter. titian is much the safest master for you. raphael's power, such as it characters in his mind; it is "raphaelesque," properly so called; but titian's power is simply the power of doing right. whatever came before titian, he did wholly as it _ought_ to be done. do not suppose that now in recommending titian to you so strongly, and speaking of nobody else to-night, i am retreating in anywise from what some of you may perhaps recollect in my works, the enthusiasm with which i have always spoken of another venetian painter. there are three venetians who are never separated in my mind--titian, veronese, and tintoret. they all have their own unequalled gifts, and tintoret especially has imagination and depth of soul which i think renders him indisputably the greatest man; but, equally indisputably, titian is the greatest painter; and therefore the greatest painter who ever lived. you may be led wrong by tintoret [footnote: see appendix i.--"right and wrong."] in many respects, wrong by raphael in more; all that you learn from titian will be right. then, with titian, take leonardo, rembrandt, and albert dürer. i name those three masters for this reason: leonardo has powers of subtle drawing which are peculiarly applicable in many ways to the drawing of fine ornament, and are very useful for all students. rembrandt and dürer are the only men whose actual work of hand you can have to look at; you can have rembrandt's etchings, or dürer's engravings actually hung in your schools; and it is a main point for the student to see the real thing, and avoid judging of masters at second-hand. as, however, in obeying this principle, you cannot often have opportunities of studying venetian painting, it is desirable that you should have a useful standard of colour, and i think it is possible for you to obtain this. i cannot, indeed, without entering upon ground which might involve the hurting the feelings of living artists, state exactly what i believe to be the relative position of various painters in england at present with respect to power of colour. but i may say this, that in the peculiar gifts of colour which will be useful to you as students, there are only one or two of the pre-raphaelites, and william hunt, of the old water colour society, who would be safe guides for you: and as quite a safe guide, there is nobody but william hunt, because the pre-raphaelites are all more or less affected by enthusiasm and by various morbid conditions of intellect and temper; but old william hunt--i am sorry to say "old," but i say it in a loving way, for every year that has added to his life has added also to his skill--william hunt is as right as the venetians, as far as he goes, and what is more, nearly as inimitable as they. and i think if we manage to put in the principal schools of england a little bit of hunt's work, and make that somewhat of a standard of colour, that we can apply his principles of colouring to subjects of all kinds. until you have had a work of his long near you; nay, unless you have been labouring at it, and trying to copy it, you do not know the thoroughly grand qualities that are concentrated in it. simplicity, and intensity, both of the highest character;-- simplicity of aim, and intensity of power and success, are involved in that man's unpretending labour. finally, you cannot believe that i would omit my own favourite, turner. i fear from the very number of his works left to the nation, that there is a disposition now rising to look upon his vast bequest with some contempt. i beg of you, if in nothing else, to believe me in this, that you cannot further the art of england in any way more distinctly than by giving attention to every fragment that has been left by that man. the time will come when his full power and right place will be acknowledged; that time will not be for many a day yet: nevertheless, be assured--as far as you are inclined to give the least faith to anything i may say to you, be assured--that you can act for the good of art in england in no better way than by using whatever influence any of you have in any direction to urge the reverent study and yet more reverent preservation of the works of turner. i do not say "the exhibition" of his works, for we are not altogether ripe for it: they are still too far above us; uniting, as i was telling you, too many qualities for us yet to feel fully their range and their influence;-- but let us only try to keep them safe from harm, and show thoroughly and conveniently what we show of them at all, and day by day their greatness will dawn upon us more and more, and be the root of a school of art in england, which i do not doubt may be as bright, as just, and as refined as even that of venice herself. the dominion of the sea seems to have been associated, in past time, with dominion in the arts also: athens had them together; venice had them together; but by so much as our authority over the ocean is wider than theirs over the Ã�gean or adriatic, let us strive to make our art more widely beneficent than theirs, though it cannot be more exalted; so working out the fulfilment, in their wakening as well as their warning sense, of those great words of the aged tintoret: "sempre si fa il mare maggiore." lecture iii. modern manufacture and design. _a lecture delivered at bradford, march, _. it is with a deep sense of necessity for your indulgence that i venture to address you to-night, or that i venture at any time to address the pupils of schools of design intended for the advancement of taste in special branches of manufacture. no person is able to give useful and definite help towards such special applications of art, unless he is entirely familiar with the conditions of labour and natures of material involved in the work; and indefinite help is little better than no help at all. nay, the few remarks which i propose to lay before you this evening will, i fear, be rather suggestive of difficulties than helpful in conquering them: nevertheless, it may not be altogether unserviceable to define clearly for you (and this, at least, i am able to do) one or two of the more stern general obstacles which stand at present in the way of our success in design; and to warn you against exertion of effort in any vain or wasteful way, till these main obstacles are removed. the first of these is our not understanding the scope and dignity of decorative design. with all our talk about it, the very meaning of the words "decorative art" remains confused and undecided. i want, if possible, to settle this question for you to-night, and to show you that the principles on which you must work are likely to be false, in proportion as they are narrow; true, only as they are founded on a perception of the connection of all branches of art with each other. observe, then, first--the only essential distinction between decorative and other art is the being fitted for a fixed place; and in that place, related, either in subordination or command, to the effect of other pieces of art. and all the greatest art which the world has produced is thus fitted for a place, and subordinated to a purpose. there is no existing highest-order art but is decorative. the best sculpture yet produced has been the decoration of a temple front--the best painting, the decoration of a room. raphael's best doing is merely the wall- colouring of a suite of apartments in the vatican, and his cartoons were made for tapestries. correggio's best doing is the decoration of two small church cupolas at parma; michael angelo's of a ceiling in the pope's private chapel; tintoret's, of a ceiling and side wall belonging to a charitable society at venice; while titian and veronese threw out their noblest thoughts, not even on the inside, but on the outside of the common brick and plaster walls of venice. get rid, then, at once of any idea of decorative art being a degraded or a separate kind of art. its nature or essence is simply its being fitted for a definite place; and, in that place, forming part of a great and harmonious whole, in companionship with other art; and so far from this being a degradation to it--so far from decorative art being inferior to other art because it is fixed to a spot--on the whole it may be considered as rather a piece of degradation that it should be portable. portable art--independent of all place--is for the most part ignoble art. your little dutch landscape, which you put over your sideboard to-day, and between the windows tomorrow, is a far more contemptible piece of work than the extents of field and forest with which benozzo has made green and beautiful the once melancholy arcade of the campo santo at pisa; and the wild boar of silver which you use for a seal, or lock into a velvet case, is little likely to be so noble a beast as the bronze boar who foams forth the fountain from under his tusks in the market-place of florence. it is, indeed, possible that the portable picture or image may be first-rate of its kind, but it is not first-rate because it is portable; nor are titian's frescoes less than first-rate because they are fixed; nay, very frequently the highest compliment you can pay to a cabinet picture is to say--"it is as grand as a fresco." keeping, then, this fact fixed in our minds,--that all art _may_ be decorative, and that the greatest art yet produced has been decorative,--we may proceed to distinguish the orders and dignities of decorative art, thus:-- i. the first order of it is that which is meant for places where it cannot be disturbed or injured, and where it can be perfectly seen; and then the main parts of it should be, and have always been made, by the great masters, as perfect, and as full of nature as possible. you will every day hear it absurdly said that room decoration should be by flat patterns--by dead colours--by conventional monotonies, and i know not what. now, just be assured of this--nobody ever yet used conventional art to decorate with, when he could do anything better, and knew that what he did would be safe. nay, a great painter will always give you the natural art, safe or not. correggio gets a commission to paint a room on the ground floor of a palace at parma: any of our people--bred on our fine modern principles--would have covered it with a diaper, or with stripes or flourishes, or mosaic patterns. not so correggio: he paints a thick trellis of vine-leaves, with oval openings, and lovely children leaping through them into the room; and lovely children, depend upon it, are rather more desirable decorations than diaper, if you can do them--but they are not quite so easily done. in like manner tintoret has to paint the whole end of the council hall at venice. an orthodox decorator would have set himself to make the wall look like a wall--tintoret thinks it would be rather better, if he can manage it, to make it look a little like paradise;-- stretches his canvas right over the wall, and his clouds right over his canvas; brings the light through his clouds--all blue and clear--zodiac beyond zodiac; rolls away the vaporous flood from under the feet of saints, leaving them at last in infinitudes of light--unorthodox in the last degree, but, on the whole, pleasant. and so in all other cases whatever, the greatest decorative art is wholly unconventional--downright, pure, good painting and sculpture, but always fitted for its place; and subordinated to the purpose it has to serve in that place. ii. but if art is to be placed where it is liable to injury--to wear and tear; or to alteration of its form; as, for instance, on domestic utensils, and armour, and weapons, and dress; in which either the ornament will be worn out by the usage of the thing, or will be cast into altered shape by the play of its folds; then it is wrong to put beautiful and perfect art to such uses, and you want forms of inferior art, such as will be by their simplicity less liable to injury; or, by reason of their complexity and continuousness, may show to advantage, however distorted by the folds they are cast into. and thus arise the various forms of inferior decorative art, respecting which the general law is, that the lower the place and office of the thing, the less of natural or perfect form you should have in it; a zigzag or a chequer is thus a better, because a more consistent ornament for a cup or platter than a landscape or portrait is: hence the general definition of the true forms of conventional ornament is, that they consist in the bestowal of as much beauty on the object as shall be consistent with its material, its place, and its office. let us consider these three modes of consistency a little. (a.) conventionalism by cause of inefficiency of material. if, for instance, we are required to represent a human figure with stone only, we cannot represent its colour; we reduce its colour to whiteness. that is not elevating the human body, but degrading it; only it would be a much greater degradation to give its colour falsely. diminish beauty as much as you will, but do not misrepresent it. so again, when we are sculpturing a face, we can't carve its eyelashes. the face is none the better for wanting its eyelashes--it is injured by the want; but would be much more injured by a clumsy representation of them. neither can we carve the hair. we must be content with the conventionalism of vile solid knots and lumps of marble, instead of the golden cloud that encompasses the fair human face with its waving mystery. the lumps of marble are not an elevated representation of hair--they are a degraded one; yet better than any attempt to imitate hair with the incapable material. in all cases in which such imitation is attempted, instant degradation to a still lower level is the result. for the effort to imitate shows that the workman has only a base and poor conception of the beauty of the reality--else he would know his task to be hopeless, and give it up at once; so that all endeavours to avoid conventionalism, when the material demands it, result from insensibility to truth, and are among the worst forms of vulgarity. hence, in the greatest greek statues, the hair is very slightly indicated--not because the sculptor disdained hair, but because he knew what it was too well to touch it insolently. i do not doubt but that the greek painters drew hair exactly as titian does. modern attempts to produce finished pictures on glass result from the same base vulgarism. no man who knows what painting means, can endure a painted glass window which emulates painter's work. but he rejoices in a glowing mosaic of broken colour: for that is what the glass has the special gift and right of producing. [footnote: see appendix ii., sir joshua reynolds's disappointment.] (b.) conventionalism by cause of inferiority of place. when work is to be seen at a great distance, or in dark places, or in some other imperfect way, it constantly becomes necessary to treat it coarsely or severely, in order to make it effective. the statues on cathedral fronts, in good times of design, are variously treated according to their distances: no fine execution is put into the features of the madonna who rules the group of figures above the south transept of rouen at feet above the ground; but in base modern work, as milan cathedral, the sculpture is finished without any reference to distance; and the merit of every statue is supposed to consist in the visitor's being obliged to ascend three hundred steps before he can see it. (c.) conventionalism by cause of inferiority of office. when one piece of ornament is to be subordinated to another (as the moulding is to the sculpture it encloses, or the fringe of a drapery to the statue it veils), this inferior ornament needs to be degraded in order to mark its lower office; and this is best done by refusing, more or less, the introduction of natural form. the less of nature it contains, the more degraded is the ornament, and the fitter for a humble place; but, however far a great workman may go in refusing the higher organisms of nature, he always takes care to retain the magnificence of natural lines; that is to say, of the infinite curves, such as i have analyzed in the fourth volume of "modern painters." his copyists, fancying that they can follow him without nature, miss precisely the essence of all the work; so that even the simplest piece of greek conventional ornament loses the whole of its value in any modern imitation of it, the finer curves being always missed. perhaps one of the dullest and least justifiable mistakes which have yet been made about my writing, is the supposition that i have attacked or despised greek work. i have attacked palladian work, and modern imitation of greek work. of greek work itself i have never spoken but with a reverence quite infinite: i name phidias always in exactly the same tone with which i speak of michael angelo, titian, and dante. my first statement of this faith, now thirteen years ago, was surely clear enough. "we shall see by this light three colossal images standing up side by side, looming in their great rest of spirituality above the whole world horizon. phidias, michael angelo, and dante,--from these we may go down step by step among the mighty men of every age, securely and certainly observant of diminished lustre in every appearance of restlessness and effort, until the last trace of inspiration vanishes in the tottering affectation or tortured insanities of modern times." ("modern painters," vol. ii., p. .) this was surely plain speaking enough, and from that day to this my effort has been not less continually to make the heart of greek work known than the heart of gothic: namely, the nobleness of conception of form derived from perpetual study of the figure; and my complaint of the modern architect has been not that he followed the greeks, but that he denied the first laws of life in theirs as in all other art. the fact is, that all good subordinate forms of ornamentation ever yet existent in the world have been invented, and others as beautiful can only be invented, by men primarily exercised in drawing or carving the human figure. i will not repeat here what i have already twice insisted upon, to the students of london and manchester, respecting the degradation of temper and intellect which follows the pursuit of art without reference to natural form, as among the asiatics: here, i will only trespass on your patience so far as to mark the inseparable connection between figure-drawing and good ornamental work, in the great european schools, and all that are connected with them. tell me, then, first of all, what ornamental work is usually put before our students as the type of decorative perfection? raphael's arabesques; are they not? well, raphael knew a little about the figure, i suppose, before he drew them. i do not say that i like those arabesques; but there are certain qualities in them which are inimitable by modern designers; and those qualities are just the fruit of the master's figure study. what is given the student as next to raphael's work? cinquecento ornament generally. well, cinquecento generally, with its birds, and cherubs, and wreathed foliage, and clustered fruit, was the amusement of men who habitually and easily carved the figure, or painted it. all the truly fine specimens of it have figures or animals as main parts of the design. "nay, but," some anciently or mediævally minded person will exclaim, "we don't want to study cinquecento. we want severer, purer conventionalism." what will you have? egyptian ornament? why, the whole mass of it is made up of multitudinous human figures in every kind of action--and magnificent action; their kings drawing their bows in their chariots, their sheaves of arrows rattling at their shoulders; the slain falling under them as before a pestilence; their captors driven before them in astonied troops; and do you expect to imitate egyptian ornament without knowing how to draw the human figure? nay, but you will take christian ornament--purest mediaeval christian--thirteenth century! yes: and do you suppose you will find the christian less human? the least natural and most purely conventional ornament of the gothic schools is that of their painted glass; and do you suppose painted glass, in the fine times, was ever wrought without figures? we have got into the way, among our other modern wretchednesses, of trying to make windows of leaf diapers, and of strips of twisted red and yellow bands, looking like the patterns of currant jelly on the top of christmas cakes; but every casement of old glass contained a saint's history. the windows of bourges, chartres, or rouen have ten, fifteen, or twenty medallions in each, and each medallion contains two figures at least, often six or seven, representing every event of interest in the history of the saint whose life is in question. nay, but, you say those figures are rude and quaint, and ought not to be imitated. why, so is the leafage rude and quaint, yet you imitate that. the coloured border pattern of geranium or ivy leaf is not one whit better drawn, or more like geraniums and ivy, than the figures are like figures; but you call the geranium leaf idealized--why don't you call the figures so? the fact is, neither are idealized, but both are conventionalized on the same principles, and in the same way; and if you want to learn how to treat the leafage, the only way is to learn first how to treat the figure. and you may soon test your powers in this respect. those old workmen were not afraid of the most familiar subjects. the windows of chartres were presented by the trades of the town, and at the bottom of each window is a representation of the proceedings of the tradesmen at the business which enabled them to pay for the window. there are smiths at the forge, curriers at their hides, tanners looking into their pits, mercers selling goods over the counter--all made into beautiful medallions. therefore, whenever you want to know whether you have got any real power of composition or adaptation in ornament, don't be content with sticking leaves together by the ends,--anybody can do that; but try to conventionalize a butcher's or a greengrocer's, with saturday night customers buying cabbage and beef. that will tell you if you can design or not. i can fancy your losing patience with me altogether just now. "we asked this fellow down to tell our workmen how to make shawls, and he is only trying to teach them how to caricature." but have a little patience with me, and examine, after i have done, a little for yourselves into the history of ornamental art, and you will discover why i do this. you will discover, i repeat, that all great ornamental art whatever is founded on the effort of the workman to draw the figure, and, in the best schools, to draw all that he saw about him in living nature. the best art of pottery is acknowledged to be that of greece, and all the power of design exhibited in it, down to the merest zigzag, arises primarily from the workman having been forced to outline nymphs and knights; from those helmed and draped figures he holds his power. of egyptian ornament i have just spoken. you have everything given there that the workman saw; people of his nation employed in hunting, fighting, fishing, visiting, making love, building, cooking--everything they did is drawn, magnificently or familiarly, as was needed. in byzantine ornament, saints, or animals which are types of various spiritual power, are the main subjects; and from the church down to the piece of enamelled metal, figure,--figure,--figure, always principal. in norman and gothic work you have, with all their quiet saints, also other much disquieted persons, hunting, feasting, fighting, and so on; or whole hordes of animals racing after each other. in the bayeux tapestry, queen matilda gave, as well as she could,--in many respects graphically enough,--the whole history of the conquest of england. thence, as you increase in power of art, you have more and more finished figures, up to the solemn sculptures of wells cathedral, or the cherubic enrichments of the venetian madonna dei miracoli. therefore, i will tell you fearlessly, for i know it is true, you must raise your workman up to life, or you will never get from him one line of well-imagined conventionalism. we have at present no good ornamental design. we can't have it yet, and we must be patient if we want to have it. do not hope to feel the effect of your schools at once, but raise the men as high as you can, and then let them stoop as low as you need; no great man ever minds stooping. encourage the students, in sketching accurately and continually from nature anything that comes in their way--still life, flowers, animals; but, above all, figures; and so far as you allow of any difference between an artist's training and theirs, let it be, not in what they draw, but in the degree of conventionalism you require in the sketch. for my own part, i should always endeavour to give thorough artistical training first; but i am not certain (the experiment being yet untried) what results may be obtained by a truly intelligent practice of conventional drawing, such as that of the egyptians, greeks, or thirteenth century french, which consists in the utmost possible rendering of natural form by the fewest possible lines. the animal and bird drawing of the egyptians is, in their fine age, quite magnificent under its conditions; magnificent in two ways--first, in keenest perception of the main forms and facts in the creature; and, secondly, in the grandeur of line by which their forms are abstracted and insisted on, making every asp, ibis, and vulture a sublime spectre of asp or ibis or vulture power. the way for students to get some of this gift again (_some_ only, for i believe the fulness of the gift itself to be connected with vital superstition, and with resulting intensity of reverence; people were likely to know something about hawks and ibises, when to kill one was to be irrevocably judged to death) is never to pass a day without drawing some animal from the life, allowing themselves the fewest possible lines and colours to do it with, but resolving that whatever is characteristic of the animal shall in some way or other be shown. [footnote: plate in vol. v. of wilkinson's "ancient egypt" will give the student an idea of how to set to work.] i repeat, it cannot yet be judged what results might be obtained by a nobly practised conventionalism of this kind; but, however that may be, the first fact,--the necessity of animal and figure drawing, is absolutely certain, and no person who shrinks from it will ever become a great designer. one great good arises even from the first step in figure drawing, that it gets the student quit at once of the notion of formal symmetry. if you learn only to draw a leaf well, you are taught in some of our schools to turn it the other way, opposite to itself; and the two leaves set opposite ways are called "a design:" and thus it is supposed possible to produce ornamentation, though you have no more brains than a looking-glass or a kaleidoscope has. but if you once learn to draw the human figure, you will find that knocking two men's heads together does not necessarily constitute a good design; nay, that it makes a very bad design, or no design at all; and you will see at once that to arrange a group of two or more figures, you must, though perhaps it may be desirable to balance, or oppose them, at the same time vary their attitudes, and make one, not the reverse of the other, but the companion of the other. i had a somewhat amusing discussion on this subject with a friend, only the other day; and one of his retorts upon me was so neatly put, and expresses so completely all that can either be said or shown on the opposite side, that it is well worth while giving it you exactly in the form it was sent to me. my friend had been maintaining that the essence of ornament consisted in three things:--contrast, series, and symmetry. i replied (by letter) that "none of them, nor all of them together, would produce ornament. here"--(making a ragged blot with the back of my pen on the paper)--"you have contrast; but it isn't ornament: here, , , , , , ,"--(writing the numerals)--"you have series; but it isn't ornament: and here,"--(sketching a rough but symmetrical "stick- figure" sketch of a human body at the side)--"you have symmetry; but it isn't ornament." my friend replied:-- "your materials were not ornament, because you did not apply them. i send them to you back, made up into a choice sporting neckerchief:" [illustration: sketch of a square of cloth decorated with a diagonal grid pattern of stick-figure human forms, with repeated and reflected ink-blot shapes at the corners and the digits through arranged into simple symmetrical shapes and repeated around the border.] symmetrical figure unit of diaper. contrast corner ornaments. series border ornaments. "each figure is converted into a harmony by being revolved on its two axes, the whole opposed in contrasting series." my answer was--or rather was to the effect (for i must expand it a little, here)--that his words, "because you did not apply them," contained the gist of the whole matter;--that the application of them, or any other things, was precisely the essence of design; the non- application, or wrong application, the negation of design: that his use of the poor materials was in this case admirable; and that if he could explain to me, in clear words, the principles on which he had so used them, he would be doing a very great service to all students of art. "tell me, therefore (i asked), these main points: " . how did you determine the number of figures you would put into the neckerchief? had there been more, it would have been mean and ineffective,--a pepper-and-salt sprinkling of figures. had there been fewer, it would have been monstrous. how did you fix the number? " . how did you determine the breadth of the border and relative size of the numerals? " . why are there two lines outside of the border, and one only inside? why are there no more lines? why not three and two, or three and five? why lines at all to separate the barbarous figures; and why, if lines at all, not double or treble instead of single? " . why did you put the double blots at the corners? why not at the angles of the chequers,--or in the middle of the border? "it is precisely your knowing why _not_ to do these things, and why to do just what you have done, which constituted your power of design; and like all the people i have ever known who had that power, you are entirely unconscious of the essential laws by which you work, and confuse other people by telling them that the design depends on symmetry and series, when, in fact, it depends entirely on your own sense and judgment." this was the substance of my last answer--to which (as i knew beforehand would be the case) i got no reply; but it still remains to be observed that with all the skill and taste (especially involving the architect's great trust, harmony of proportion), which my friend could bring to bear on the materials given him, the result is still only--a sporting neckerchief--that is to say, the materials addressed, first, to recklessness, in the shape of a mere blot; then to computativeness in a series of figures; and then to absurdity and ignorance, in the shape of an ill-drawn caricature--such materials, however treated, can only work up into what will please reckless, computative, and vulgar persons,--that is to say, into a sporting neckerchief. the difference between this piece of ornamentation and correggio's painting at parma lies simply and wholly in the additions (somewhat large ones), of truth and of tenderness: in the drawing being lovely as well as symmetrical-- and representative of realities as well as agreeably disposed. and truth, tenderness, and inventive application or disposition are indeed the roots of ornament--not contrast, nor symmetry. it ought yet farther to be observed, that _the nobler the materials, the less their symmetry is endurable_. in the present case, the sense of fitness and order, produced by the repetition of the figures, neutralizes, in some degree, their reckless vulgarity; and is wholly, therefore, beneficent to them. but draw the figures better, and their repetition will become painful. you may harmlessly balance a mere geometrical form, and oppose one quatrefoil or cusp by another exactly like it. but put two apollo belvideres back to back, and you will not think the symmetry improves them. _whenever the materials of ornament are noble, they must be various_; and repetition of parts is either the sign of utterly bad, hopeless, and base work; or of the intended degradation of the parts in which such repetition is allowed, in order to foil others more noble. such, then, are a few of the great principles, by the enforcement of which you may hope to promote the success of the modern student of design; but remember, none of these principles will be useful at all, unless you understand them to be, in one profound and stern sense, useless. [footnote: i shall endeavour for the future to put my self- contradictions in short sentences and direct terms, in order to save sagacious persons the trouble of looking for them.] that is to say, unless you feel that neither you nor i, nor any one, can, in the great ultimate sense, teach anybody how to make a good design. if designing _could_ be taught, all the world would learn: as all the world reads--or calculates. but designing is not to be spelled, nor summed. my men continually come to me, in my drawing class in london, thinking i am to teach them what is instantly to enable them to gain their bread. "please, sir, show us how to design." "make designers of us." and you, i doubt not, partly expect me to tell you to-night how to make designers of your bradford youths. alas! i could as soon tell you how to make or manufacture an ear of wheat, as to make a good artist of any kind. i can analyze the wheat very learnedly for you--tell you there is starch in it, and carbon, and silex. i can give you starch, and charcoal, and flint; but you are as far from your ear of wheat as you were before. all that can possibly be done for any one who wants ears of wheat is to show them where to find grains of wheat, and how to sow them, and then, with patience, in heaven's time, the ears will come--or will perhaps come--ground and weather permitting. so in this matter of making artists--first you must find your artist in the grain; then you must plant him; fence and weed the field about him; and with patience, ground and weather permitting, you may get an artist out of him--not otherwise. and what i have to speak to you about, tonight, is mainly the ground and the weather, it being the first and quite most material question in this matter, whether the ground and weather of bradford, or the ground and weather of england in general,--suit wheat. and observe in the outset, it is not so much what the present circumstances of england are, as what we wish to make them, that we have to consider. if you will tell me what you ultimately intend bradford to be, perhaps i can tell you what bradford can ultimately produce. but you must have your minds clearly made up, and be distinct in telling me what you do want. at present i don't know what you are aiming at, and possibly on consideration you may feel some doubt whether you know yourselves. as matters stand, all over england, as soon as one mill is at work, occupying two hundred hands, we try, by means of it, to set another mill at work, occupying four hundred. that is all simple and comprehensive enough--but what is it to come to? how many mills do we want? or do we indeed want no end of mills? let us entirely understand each other on this point before we go any farther. last week, i drove from rochdale to bolton abbey; quietly, in order to see the country, and certainly it was well worth while. i never went over a more interesting twenty miles than those between rochdale and burnley. naturally, the valley has been one of the most beautiful in the lancashire hills; one of the far away solitudes, full of old shepherd ways of life. at this time there are not,--i speak deliberately, and i believe quite literally,--there are not, i think, more than a thousand yards of road to be traversed anywhere, without passing a furnace or mill. now, is that the kind of thing you want to come to everywhere? because, if it be, and you tell me so distinctly, i think i can make several suggestions to-night, and could make more if you give me time, which would materially advance your object. the extent of our operations at present is more or less limited by the extent of coal and ironstone, but we have not yet learned to make proper use of our clay. over the greater part of england, south of the manufacturing districts, there are magnificent beds of various kinds of useful clay; and i believe that it would not be difficult to point out modes of employing it which might enable us to turn nearly the whole of the south of england into a brickfield, as we have already turned nearly the whole of the north into a coal-pit. i say "nearly" the whole, because, as you are doubtless aware, there are considerable districts in the south composed of chalk renowned up to the present time for their downs and mutton. but, i think, by examining carefully into the conceivable uses of chalk, we might discover a quite feasible probability of turning all the chalk districts into a limekiln, as we turn the clay districts into a brickfield. there would then remain nothing but the mountain districts to be dealt with; but, as we have not yet ascertained all the uses of clay and chalk, still less have we ascertained those of stone; and i think, by draining the useless inlets of the cumberland, welsh, and scotch lakes, and turning them, with their rivers, into navigable reservoirs and canals, there would be no difficulty in working the whole of our mountain districts as a gigantic quarry of slate and granite, from which all the rest of the world might be supplied with roofing and building stone. is this, then, what you want? you are going straight at it at present; and i have only to ask under what limitations i am to conceive or describe your final success? or shall there be no limitations? there are none to your powers; every day puts new machinery at your disposal, and increases, with your capital, the vastness of your undertakings. the changes in the state of this country are now so rapid, that it would be wholly absurd to endeavour to lay down laws of art education for it under its present aspect and circumstances; and therefore i must necessarily ask, how much of it do you seriously intend within the next fifty years to be coal-pit, brickfield, or quarry? for the sake of distinctness of conclusion, i will suppose your success absolute: that from shore to shore the whole of the island is to be set as thick with chimneys as the masts stand in the docks of liverpool: and there shall be no meadows in it; no trees; no gardens; only a little corn grown upon the housetops, reaped and threshed by steam: that you do not leave even room for roads, but travel either over the roofs of your mills, on viaducts; or under their floors, in tunnels: that, the smoke having rendered the light of the sun unserviceable, you work always by the light of your own gas: that no acre of english ground shall be without its shaft and its engine; and therefore, no spot of english ground left, on which it shall be possible to stand, without a definite and calculable chance of being blown off it, at any moment, into small pieces. under these circumstances, (if this is to be the future of england,) no designing or any other development of beautiful art will be possible. do not vex your minds, nor waste your money with any thought or effort in the matter. beautiful art can only be produced by people who have beautiful things about them, and leisure to look at them; and unless you provide some elements of beauty for your workmen to be surrounded by, you will find that no elements of beauty can be invented by them. i was struck forcibly by the bearing of this great fact upon our modern efforts at ornamentation in an afternoon walk, last week, in the suburbs of one of our large manufacturing towns. i was thinking of the difference in the effect upon the designer's mind, between the scene which i then came upon, and the scene which would have presented itself to the eyes of any designer of the middle ages, when he left his workshop. just outside the town i came upon an old english cottage, or mansion, i hardly know which to call it, set close under the hill, and beside the river, perhaps built somewhere in the charles's time, with mullioned windows and a low arched porch; round which, in the little triangular garden, one can imagine the family as they used to sit in old summer times, the ripple of the river heard faintly through the sweetbrier hedge, and the sheep on the far-off wolds shining in the evening sunlight. there, uninhabited for many and many a year, it had been left in unregarded havoc of ruin; the garden-gate still swung loose to its latch; the garden, blighted utterly into a field of ashes, not even a weed taking root there; the roof torn into shapeless rents; the shutters hanging about the windows in rags of rotten wood; before its gate, the stream which had gladdened it now soaking slowly by, black as ebony, and thick with curdling scum; the bank above it trodden into unctuous, sooty slime: far in front of it, between it and the old hills, the furnaces of the city foaming forth perpetual plague of sulphurous darkness; the volumes of their storm clouds coiling low over a waste of grassless fields, fenced from each other, not by hedges, but by slabs of square stone, like gravestones, riveted together with iron. that was your scene for the designer's contemplation in his afternoon walk at rochdale. now fancy what was the scene which presented itself, in his afternoon walk, to a designer of the gothic school of pisa--nino pisano, or any of his men. on each side of a bright river he saw rise a line of brighter palaces, arched and pillared, and inlaid with deep red porphyry, and with serpentine; along the quays before their gates were riding troops of knights, noble in face and form, dazzling in crest and shield; horse and man one labyrinth of quaint colour and gleaming light--the purple, and silver, and scarlet fringes flowing over the strong limbs and clashing mail, like sea-waves over rocks at sunset. opening on each side from the river were gardens, courts, and cloisters; long successions of white pillars among wreaths of vine; leaping of fountains through buds of pomegranate and orange: and still along the garden-paths, and under and through the crimson of the pomegranate shadows, moving slowly, groups of the fairest women that italy ever saw--fairest, because purest and thoughtfullest; trained in all high knowledge, as in all courteous art--in dance, in song, in sweet wit, in lofty learning, in loftier courage, in loftiest love--able alike to cheer, to enchant, or save, the souls of men. above all this scenery of perfect human life, rose dome and bell-tower, burning with white alabaster and gold; beyond dome and bell-tower the slopes of mighty hills, hoary with olive; far in the north, above a purple sea of peaks of solemn apennine, the clear, sharp-cloven carrara mountains sent up their steadfast flames of marble summit into amber sky; the great sea itself, scorching with expanse of light, stretching from their feet to the gorgonian isles; and over all these, ever present, near or far-- seen through the leaves of vine, or imaged with all its march of clouds in the arno's stream, or set with its depth of blue close against the golden hair and burning cheek of lady and knight,--that untroubled and sacred sky, which was to all men, in those days of innocent faith, indeed the unquestioned abode of spirits, as the earth was of men; and which opened straight through its gates of cloud and veils of dew into the awfulness of the eternal world;--a heaven in which every cloud that passed was literally the chariot of an angel, and every ray of its evening and morning streamed from the throne of god. what think you of that for a school of design? i do not bring this contrast before you as a ground of hopelessness in our task; neither do i look for any possible renovation of the republic of pisa, at bradford, in the nineteenth century; but i put it before you in order that you may be aware precisely of the kind of difficulty you have to meet, and may then consider with yourselves how far you can meet it. to men surrounded by the depressing and monotonous circumstances of english manufacturing life, depend upon it, design is simply impossible. this is the most distinct of all the experiences i have had in dealing with the modern workman. he is intelligent and ingenious in the highest degree--subtle in touch and keen in sight: but he is, generally speaking, wholly destitute of designing power. and if you want to give him the power, you must give him the materials, and put him in the circumstances for it. design is not the offspring of idle fancy: it is the studied result of accumulative observation and delightful habit. without observation and experience, no design-- without peace and pleasurableness in occupation, no design--and all the lecturings, and teachings, and prizes, and principles of art, in the world, are of no use, so long as you don't surround your men with happy influences and beautiful things. it is impossible for them to have right ideas about colour, unless they see the lovely colours of nature unspoiled; impossible for them to supply beautiful incident and action in their ornament, unless they see beautiful incident and action in the world about them. inform their minds, refine their habits, and you form and refine their designs; but keep them illiterate, uncomfortable, and in the midst of unbeautiful things, and whatever they do will still be spurious, vulgar, and valueless. i repeat, that i do not ask you nor wish you to build a new pisa for them. we don't want either the life or the decorations of the thirteenth century back again; and the circumstances with which you must surround your workmen are those simply of happy modern english life, because the designs you have now to ask for from your workmen are such as will make modern english life beautiful. all that gorgeousness of the middle ages, beautiful as it sounds in description, noble as in many respects it was in reality, had, nevertheless, for foundation and for end, nothing but the pride of life--the pride of the so-called superior classes; a pride which supported itself by violence and robbery, and led in the end to the destruction both of the arts themselves and the states in which they nourished. the great lesson of history is, that all the fine arts hitherto--having been supported by the selfish power of the noblesse, and never having extended their range to the comfort or the relief of the mass of the people--the arts, i say, thus practised, and thus matured, have only accelerated the ruin of the states they adorned; and at the moment when, in any kingdom, you point to the triumphs of its greatest artists, you point also to the determined hour of the kingdom's decline. the names of great painters are like passing bells: in the name of velasquez, you hear sounded the fall of spain; in the name of titian, that of venice; in the name of leonardo, that of milan; in the name of raphael, that of rome. and there is profound justice in this; for in proportion to the nobleness of the power is the guilt of its use for purposes vain or vile; and hitherto the greater the art, the more surely has it been used, and used solely, for the decoration of pride, [footnote: whether religious or profane pride,--chapel or banqueting room,--is no matter.] or the provoking of sensuality. another course lies open to us. we may abandon the hope--or if you like the words better--we may disdain the temptation, of the pomp and grace of italy in her youth. for us there can be no more the throne of marble--for us no more the vault of gold--but for us there is the loftier and lovelier privilege of bringing the power and charm of art within the reach of the humble and the poor; and as the magnificence of past ages failed by its narrowness and its pride, ours may prevail and continue, by its universality and its lowliness. and thus, between the picture of too laborious england, which we imagined as future, and the picture of too luxurious italy, which we remember in the past, there may exist--there will exist, if we do our duty--an intermediate condition, neither oppressed by labour nor wasted in vanity--the condition of a peaceful and thoughtful temperance in aims, and acts, and arts. we are about to enter upon a period of our world's history in which domestic life, aided by the arts of peace, will slowly, but at last entirely, supersede public life and the arts of war. for our own england, she will not, i believe, be blasted throughout with furnaces; nor will she be encumbered with palaces. i trust she will keep her green fields, her cottages, and her homes of middle life; but these ought to be, and i trust will be enriched with a useful, truthful, substantial form of art. we want now no more feasts of the gods, nor martyrdoms of the saints; we have no need of sensuality, no place for superstition, or for costly insolence. let us have learned and faithful historical painting--touching and thoughtful representations of human nature, in dramatic painting; poetical and familiar renderings of natural objects and of landscape; and rational, deeply-felt realizations of the events which are the subjects of our religious faith. and let these things we want, as far as possible, be scattered abroad and made accessible to all men. so also, in manufacture: we require work substantial rather than rich in make; and refined, rather than splendid in design. your stuffs need not be such as would catch the eye of a duchess; but they should be such as may at once serve the need, and refine the taste, of a cottager. the prevailing error in english dress, especially among the lower orders, is a tendency to flimsiness and gaudiness, arising mainly from the awkward imitation of their superiors. [footnote: if their superiors would give them simplicity and economy to imitate, it would, in the issue, be well for themselves, as well as for those whom they guide. the typhoid fever of passion for dress, and all other display, which has struck the upper classes of europe at this time, is one of the most dangerous political elements we have to deal with. its wickedness i have shown elsewhere (polit. economy of art, p. , _et seq._); but its wickedness is, in the minds of most persons, a matter of no importance. i wish i had time also to show them its danger. i cannot enter here into political investigation; but this is a certain fact, that the wasteful and vain expenses at present indulged in by the upper classes are hastening the advance of republicanism more than any other element of modern change. no agitators, no clubs, no epidemical errors, ever were, or will be, fatal to social order in any nation. nothing but the guilt of the upper classes, wanton, accumulated, reckless, and merciless, ever overthrows them of such guilt they have now much to answer for--let them look to it in time.] it should be one of the first objects of all manufacturers to produce stuffs not only beautiful and quaint in design, but also adapted for every-day service, and decorous in humble and secluded life. and you must remember always that your business, as manufacturers, is to form the market, as much as to supply it. if, in shortsighted and reckless eagerness for wealth, you catch at every humour of the populace as it shapes itself into momentary demand--if, in jealous rivalry with neighbouring states, or with other producers, you try to attract attention by singularities, novelties, and gaudinesses--to make every design an advertisement, and pilfer every idea of a successful neighbour's, that you may insidiously imitate it, or pompously eclipse --no good design will ever be possible to you, or perceived by you. you may, by accident, snatch the market; or, by energy, command it; you may obtain the confidence of the public, and cause the ruin of opponent houses; or you may, with equal justice of fortune, be ruined by them. but whatever happens to you, this, at least, is certain, that the whole of your life will have been spent in corrupting public taste and encouraging public extravagance. every preference you have won by gaudiness must have been based on the purchaser's vanity; every demand you have created by novelty has fostered in the consumer a habit of discontent; and when you retire into inactive life, you may, as a subject of consolation for your declining years, reflect that precisely according to the extent of your past operations, your life has been successful in retarding the arts,--tarnishing the virtues, and confusing the manners of your country. but, on the other hand, if you resolve from the first that, so far as you can ascertain or discern what is best, you will produce what is best, on an intelligent consideration of the probable tendencies and possible tastes of the people whom you supply, you may literally become more influential for all kinds of good than many lecturers on art, or many treatise-writers on morality. considering the materials dealt with, and the crude state of art knowledge at the time, i do not know that any more wide or effective influence in public taste was ever exercised than that of the staffordshire manufacture of pottery under william wedgwood, and it only rests with the manufacturer in every other business to determine whether he will, in like manner, make his wares educational instruments, or mere drugs of the market. you all should, be, in a certain sense, authors: you must, indeed, first catch the public eye, as an author must the public ear; but once gain your audience, or observance, and as it is in the writer's power thenceforward to publish what will educate as it amuses--so it is in yours to publish what will educate as it adorns. nor is this surely a subject of poor ambition. i hear it said continually that men are too ambitious: alas! to me, it seems they are never enough ambitious. how many are content to be merely the thriving merchants of a state, when they might be its guides, counsellors, and rulers--wielding powers of subtle but gigantic beneficence, in restraining its follies while they supplied its wants. let such duty, such ambition, be once accepted in their fulness, and the best glory of european art and of european manufacture may yet be to come. the paintings of raphael and of buonaroti gave force to the falsehoods of superstition, and majesty to the imaginations of sin; but the arts of england may have, for their task, to inform the soul with truth, and touch the heart with compassion. the steel of toledo and the silk of genoa did but give strength to oppression and lustre to pride: let it be for the furnace and for the loom of england, as they have already richly earned, still more abundantly to bestow, comfort on the indigent, civilization on the rude, and to dispense, through the peaceful homes of nations, the grace and the preciousness of simple adornment, and useful possession. lecture iv. influence of imagination in architecture _an address delivered to the members of the architectural association, in lyon's inn hall, ._ if we were to be asked abruptly, and required to answer briefly, what qualities chiefly distinguish great artists from feeble artists, we should answer, i suppose, first, their sensibility and tenderness; secondly, their imagination; and thirdly, their industry. some of us might, perhaps, doubt the justice of attaching so much importance to this last character, because we have all known clever men who were indolent, and dull men who were industrious. but though you may have known clever men who were indolent, you never knew a great man who was so; and, during such investigation as i have been able to give to the lives of the artists whose works are in all points noblest, no fact ever looms so large upon me--no law remains so steadfast in the universality of its application, as the fact and law that they are all great workers: nothing concerning them is matter of more astonishment than the quantity they have accomplished in the given length of their life; and when i hear a young man spoken of, as giving promise of high genius, the first question i ask about him is always-- does he work? but though this quality of industry is essential to an artist, it does not in anywise make an artist; many people are busy, whose doings are little worth. neither does sensibility make an artist; since, as i hope, many can feel both strongly and nobly, who yet care nothing about art. but the gifts which distinctively mark the artist--_without_ which he must be feeble in life, forgotten in death--_with_ which he may become one of the shakers of the earth, and one of the signal lights in heaven--are those of sympathy and imagination. i will not occupy your time, nor incur the risk of your dissent, by endeavouring to give any close definition of this last word. we all have a general and sufficient idea of imagination, and of its work with our hands and in our hearts: we understand it, i suppose, as the imaging or picturing of new things in our thoughts; and we always show an involuntary respect for this power, wherever we can recognize it, acknowledging it to be a greater power than manipulation, or calculation, or observation, or any other human faculty. if we see an old woman spinning at the fireside, and distributing her thread dexterously from the distaff, we respect her for her manipulation--if we ask her how much she expects to make in a year, and she answers quickly, we respect her for her calculation--if she is watching at the same time that none of her grandchildren fall into the fire, we respect her for her observation--yet for all this she may still be a commonplace old woman enough. but if she is all the time telling her grandchildren a fairy tale out of her head, we praise her for her imagination, and say, she must be a rather remarkable old woman. precisely in like manner, if an architect does his working-drawing well, we praise him for his manipulation--if he keeps closely within his contract, we praise him for his honest arithmetic--if he looks well to the laying of his beams, so that nobody shall drop through the floor, we praise him for his observation. but he must, somehow, tell us a fairy tale out of his head beside all this, else we cannot praise him for his imagination, nor speak of him as we did of the old woman, as being in any wise out of the common way, a rather remarkable architect. it seemed to me, therefore, as if it might interest you to-night, if we were to consider together what fairy tales are, in and by architecture, to be told--what there is for you to do in this severe art of yours "out of your heads," as well as by your hands. perhaps the first idea which a young architect is apt to be allured by, as a head-problem in these experimental days, is its being incumbent upon him to invent a "new style" worthy of modern civilization in general, and of england in particular; a style worthy of our engines and telegraphs; as expansive as steam, and as sparkling as electricity. but, if there are any of my hearers who have been impressed with this sense of inventive duty, may i ask them first, whether their plan is that every inventive architect among us shall invent a new style for himself, and have a county set aside for his conceptions, or a province for his practice? or, must every architect invent a little piece of the new style, and all put it together at last like a dissected map? and if so, when the new style is invented, what is to be done next? i will grant you this eldorado of imagination--but can you have more than one columbus? or, if you sail in company, and divide the prize of your discovery and the honour thereof, who is to come after you clustered columbuses? to what fortunate islands of style are your architectural descendants to sail, avaricious of new lands? when our desired style is invented, will not the best we can all do be simply--to build in it?-- and cannot you now do that in styles that are known? observe, i grant, for the sake of your argument, what perhaps many of you know that i would not grant otherwise--that a new style _can_ be invented. i grant you not only this, but that it shall be wholly different from any that was ever practised before. we will suppose that capitals are to be at the bottom of pillars instead of the top; and that buttresses shall be on the tops of pinnacles instead of at the bottom; that you roof your apertures with stones which shall neither be arched nor horizontal; and that you compose your decoration of lines which shall neither be crooked nor straight. the furnace and the forge shall be at your service: you shall draw out your plates of glass and beat out your bars of iron till you have encompassed us all,--if your style is of the practical kind,--with endless perspective of black skeleton and blinding square,--or if your style is to be of the ideal kind--you shall wreathe your streets with ductile leafage, and roof them with variegated crystal--you shall put, if you will, all london under one blazing dome of many colours that shall light the clouds round it with its flashing, as far as to the sea. and still, i ask you, what after this? do you suppose those imaginations of yours will ever lie down there asleep beneath the shade of your iron leafage, or within the coloured light of your enchanted dome? not so. those souls, and fancies, and ambitions of yours, are wholly infinite; and, whatever may be done by others, you will still want to do something for yourselves; if you cannot rest content with palladio, neither will you with paxton: all the metal and glass that ever were melted have not so much weight in them as will clog the wings of one human spirit's aspiration. if you will think over this quietly by yourselves, and can get the noise out of your ears of the perpetual, empty, idle, incomparably idiotic talk about the necessity of some novelty in architecture, you will soon see that the very essence of a style, properly so called, is that it should be practised _for ages_, and applied to all purposes; and that so long as any given style is in practice, all that is left for individual imagination to accomplish must be within the scope of that style, not in the invention of a new one. if there are any here, therefore, who hope to obtain celebrity by the invention of some strange way of building which must convince all europe into its adoption, to them, for the moment, i must not be understood to address myself, but only to those who would be content with that degree of celebrity which an artist may enjoy who works in the manner of his forefathers;--which the builder of salisbury cathedral might enjoy in england, though he did not invent gothic; and which titian might enjoy at venice, though he did not invent oil painting. addressing myself then to those humbler, but wiser, or rather, only wise students who are content to avail themselves of some system of building already understood, let us consider together what room for the exercise of the imagination may be left to us under such conditions. and, first, i suppose it will be said, or thought, that the architect's principal field for exercise of his invention must be in the disposition of lines, mouldings, and masses, in agreeable proportions. indeed, if you adopt some styles of architecture, you cannot exercise invention in any other way. and i admit that it requires genius and special gift to do this rightly. not by rule, nor by study, can the gift of graceful proportionate design be obtained; only by the intuition of genius can so much as a single tier of façade be beautifully arranged; and the man has just cause for pride, as far as our gifts can ever be a cause for pride, who finds himself able, in a design of his own, to rival even the simplest arrangement of parts in one by sanmicheli, inigo jones, or christopher wren. invention, then, and genius being granted, as necessary to accomplish this, let me ask you, what, after all, with this special gift and genius, you _have_ accomplished, when you have arranged the lines of a building beautifully? in the first place you will not, i think, tell me that the beauty there attained is of a touching or pathetic kind. a well-disposed group of notes in music will make you sometimes weep and sometimes laugh. you can express the depth of all affections by those dispositions of sound: you can give courage to the soldier, language to the lover, consolation to the mourner, more joy to the joyful, more humility to the devout. can you do as much by your group of lines? do you suppose the front of whitehall, a singularly beautiful one ever inspires the two horse guards, during the hour they sit opposite to it, with military ardour? do you think that the lovers in our london walk down to the front of whitehall for consolation when mistresses are unkind; or that any person wavering in duty, or feeble in faith, was ever confirmed in purpose or in creed by the pathetic appeal of those harmonious architraves? you will not say so. then, if they cannot touch, or inspire, or comfort any one, can your architectural proportions amuse any one? christmas is just over; you have doubtless been at many merry parties during the period. can you remember any in which architectural proportions contributed to the entertainment of the evening? proportions of notes in music were, i am sure, essential to your amusement; the setting of flowers in hair, and of ribands on dresses, were also subjects of frequent admiration with you, not inessential to your happiness. among the juvenile members of your society the proportion of currants in cake, and of sugar in comfits, became subjects of acute interest; and, when such proportions were harmonious, motives also of gratitude to cook and to confectioner. but did you ever see either young or old amused by the architrave of the door? or otherwise interested in the proportions of the room than as they admitted more or fewer friendly faces? nay, if all the amusement that there is in the best proportioned architecture of london could be concentrated into one evening, and you were to issue tickets for nothing to this great proportional entertainment;--how do you think it would stand between you and the drury pantomine? you are, then, remember, granted to be people of genius--great and admirable; and you devote your lives to your art, but you admit that you cannot comfort anybody, you cannot encourage anybody, you cannot improve anybody, and you cannot amuse anybody. i proceed then farther to ask, can you inform anybody? many sciences cannot be considered as highly touching or emotional; nay, perhaps not specially amusing; scientific men may sometimes, in these respects, stand on the same ground with you. as far as we can judge by the results of the late war, science helps our soldiers about as much as the front of whitehall; and at the christmas parties, the children wanted no geologists to tell them about the behaviour of bears and dragons in queen elizabeth's time. still, your man of science teaches you something; he may be dull at a party, or helpless in a battle, he is not always that; but he can give you, at all events, knowledge of noble facts, and open to you the secrets of the earth and air. will your architectural proportions do as much? your genius is granted, and your life is given, and what do you teach us?--nothing, i believe, from one end of that life to the other, but that two and two make four, and that one is to two as three is to six. you cannot, then, it is admitted, comfort any one, serve or amuse any one, nor teach any one. finally, i ask, can you be of _use_ to any one? "yes," you reply; "certainly we are of some use--we architects--in a climate like this, where it always rains." you are of use certainly; but, pardon me, only as builders--not as proportionalists. we are not talking of building as a protection, but only of that special work which your genius is to do; not of building substantial and comfortable houses like mr. cubitt, but of putting beautiful façades on them like inigo jones. and, again, i ask--are you of use to any one? will your proportions of the façade heal the sick, or clothe the naked? supposing you devoted your lives to be merchants, you might reflect at the close of them, how many, fainting for want, you had brought corn to sustain; how many, infected with disease, you had brought balms to heal; how widely, among multitudes of far-away nations, you had scattered the first seeds of national power, and guided the first rays of sacred light. had you been, in fine, _anything_ else in the world _but_ architectural designers, you might have been of some use or good to people. content to be petty tradesmen, you would have saved the time of mankind;--rough-handed daily labourers, you would have added to their stock of food or of clothing. but, being men of genius, and devoting your lives to the exquisite exposition of this genius, on what achievements do you think the memories of your old age are to fasten? whose gratitude will surround you with its glow, or on what accomplished good, of that greatest kind for which men show _no_ gratitude, will your life rest the contentment of its close? truly, i fear that the ghosts of proportionate lines will be thin phantoms at your bedsides--very speechless to you; and that on all the emanations of your high genius you will look back with less delight than you might have done on a cup of cold water given to him who was thirsty, or to a single moment when you had "prevented with your bread him that fled." do not answer, nor think to answer, that with your great works and great payments of workmen in them, you would do this; i know you would, and will, as builders; but, i repeat, it is not your _building_ that i am talking about, but your _brains_; it is your invention and imagination of whose profit i am speaking. the good done through the building, observe, is done by your employers, not by you--you share in the benefit of it. the good that _you_ personally must do is by your designing; and i compare you with musicians who do good by their pathetic composing, not as they do good by employing fiddlers in the orchestra; for it is the public who in reality do that, not the musicians. so clearly keeping to this one question, what good we architects are to do by our genius; and having found that on our proportionate system we can do no good to others, will you tell me, lastly, what good we can do to _ourselves_? observe, nearly every other liberal art or profession has some intense pleasure connected with it, irrespective of any good to others. as lawyers, or physicians, or clergymen, you would have the pleasure of investigation, and of historical reading, as part of your work: as men of science you would be rejoicing in curiosity perpetually gratified respecting the laws and facts of nature: as artists you would have delight in watching the external forms of nature: as day labourers or petty tradesmen, supposing you to undertake such work with as much intellect as you are going to devote to your designing, you would find continued subjects of interest in the manufacture or the agriculture which you helped to improve; or in the problems of commerce which bore on your business. but your architectural designing leads you into no pleasant journeys,--into no seeing of lovely things,--no discerning of just laws,--no warmths of compassion, no humilities of veneration, no progressive state of sight or soul. our conclusion is--must be--that you will not amuse, nor inform, nor help anybody; you will not amuse, nor better, nor inform yourselves; you will sink into a state in which you can neither show, nor feel, nor see, anything, but that one is to two as three is to six. and in that state what should we call ourselves? men? i think not. the right name for us would be--numerators and denominators. vulgar fractions. shall we, then, abandon this theory of the soul of architecture being in proportional lines, and look whether we can find anything better to exert our fancies upon? may we not, to begin with, accept this great principle--that, as our bodies, to be in health, must be _generally_ exercised, so our minds, to be in health, must be _generally_ cultivated? you would not call a man healthy who had strong arms but was paralytic in his feet; nor one who could walk well, but had no use of his hands; nor one who could see well, if he could not hear. you would not voluntarily reduce your bodies to any such partially developed state. much more, then, you would not, if you could help it, reduce your minds to it. now, your minds are endowed with a vast number of gifts of totally different uses--limbs of mind as it were, which, if you don't exercise, you cripple. one is curiosity; that is a gift, a capacity of pleasure in knowing; which if you destroy, you make yourselves cold and dull. another is sympathy; the power of sharing in the feelings of living creatures, which if you destroy, you make yourselves hard and cruel. another of your limbs of mind is admiration; the power of enjoying beauty or ingenuity, which, if you destroy, you make yourselves base and irreverent. another is wit; or the power of playing with the lights on the many sides of truth; which if you destroy, you make yourselves gloomy, and less useful and cheering to others than you might be. so that in choosing your way of work it should be your aim, as far as possible, to bring out all these faculties, as far as they exist in you; not one merely, nor another, but all of them. and the way to bring them out, is simply to concern yourselves attentively with the subjects of each faculty. to cultivate sympathy you must be among living creatures, and thinking about them; and to cultivate admiration, you must be among beautiful things and looking at them. all this sounds much like truism, at least i hope it does, for then you will surely not refuse to act upon it; and to consider farther, how, as architects, you are to keep yourselves in contemplation of living creatures and lovely things. you all probably know the beautiful photographs which have been published within the last year or two of the porches of the cathedral of amiens. i hold one of these up to you, (merely that you may know what i am talking about, as of course you cannot see the detail at this distance, but you will recognise the subject.) have you ever considered how much sympathy, and how much humour, are developed in filling this single doorway [footnote: the tympanum of the south transcept door; it is to be found generally among all collections of architectural photographs] with these sculptures of the history of st. honoré (and, by the way, considering how often we english are now driving up and down the rue st. honoré, we may as well know as much of the saint as the old architect cared to tell us). you know in all legends of saints who ever were bishops, the first thing you are told of them is that they didn't want to be bishops. so here is st. honoré, who doesn't want to be a bishop, sitting sulkily in the corner; he hugs his book with both hands, and won't get up to take his crosier; and here are all the city aldermen of amiens come to _poke_ him up; and all the monks in the town in a great puzzle what they shall do for a bishop if st. honoré won't be; and here's one of the monks in the opposite corner who is quite cool about it, and thinks they'll get on well enough without st honoré,--you see that in his face perfectly. at last st. honoré consents to be bishop, and here he sits in a throne, and has his book now grandly on his desk instead of his knees, and he directs one of his village curates how to find relics in a wood; here is the wood, and here is the village curate, and here are the tombs, with the bones of st. victorien and gentien in them. after this, st. honoré performs grand mass, and the miracle occurs of the appearance of a hand blessing the wafer, which occurrence afterwards was painted for the arms of the abbey. then st. honoré dies; and here is his tomb with his statue on the top; and miracles are being performed at it--a deaf man having his ear touched, and a blind man groping his way up to the tomb with his dog. then here is a great procession in honour of the relics of st. honoré; and under his coffin are some cripples being healed; and the coffin itself is put above the bar which separates the cross from the lower subjects, because the tradition is that the figure on the crucifix of the church of st. firmin bowed its head in token of acceptance, as the relics of st. honoré passed beneath. now just consider the amount of sympathy with human nature, and observance of it, shown in this one bas-relief; the sympathy with disputing monks, with puzzled aldermen, with melancholy recluse, with triumphant prelate, with palsy-stricken poverty, with ecclesiastical magnificence, or miracle-working faith. consider how much intellect was needed in the architect, and how much observance of nature before he could give the expression to these various figures--cast these multitudinous draperies--design these rich and quaint fragments of tombs and altars--weave with perfect animation the entangled branches of the forest. but you will answer me, all this is not architecture at all--it is sculpture. will you then tell me precisely where the separation exists between one and the other? we will begin at the very beginning. i will show you a piece of what you will certainly admit to be a piece of pure architecture; [footnote: see appendix iii., "classical architecture."] it is drawn on the back of another photograph, another of these marvellous tympana from notre dame, which you call, i suppose, impure. well, look on this picture, and on this. don't laugh; you must not laugh, that's very improper of you, this is classical architecture. i have taken it out of the essay on that subject in the "encyclopædia britannica." yet i suppose none of you would think yourselves particularly ingenious architects if you had designed nothing more than this; nay, i will even let you improve it into any grand proportion you choose, and add to it as many windows as you choose; the only thing i insist upon in our specimen of pure architecture is, that there shall be no mouldings nor ornaments upon it. and i suspect you don't quite like your architecture so "pure" as this. we want a few mouldings, you will say--just a few. those who want mouldings, hold up their hands. we are unanimous, i think. will, you, then, design the profiles of these mouldings yourselves, or will you copy them? if you wish to copy them, and to copy them always, of course i leave you at once to your authorities, and your imaginations to their repose. but if you wish to design them yourselves, how do you do it? you draw the profile according to your taste, and you order your mason to cut it. now, will you tell me the logical difference between drawing the profile of a moulding and giving _that_ to be cut, and drawing the folds of the drapery of a statue and giving _those_ to be cut. the last is much more difficult to do than the first; but degrees of difficulty constitute no specific difference, and you will not accept it, surely, as a definition of the difference between architecture and sculpture, that "architecture is doing anything that is easy, and sculpture anything that is difficult." it is true, also, that the carved moulding represents nothing, and the carved drapery represents something; but you will not, i should think, accept, as an explanation of the difference between architecture and sculpture, this any more than the other, that "sculpture is art which has meaning, and architecture art which has none." where, then, is your difference? in this, perhaps, you will say; that whatever ornaments we can direct ourselves, and get accurately cut to order, we consider architectural. the ornaments that we are obliged to leave to the pleasure of the workman, or the superintendence of some other designer, we consider sculptural, especially if they are more or less extraneous and incrusted--not an essential part of the building. accepting this definition, i am compelled to reply, that it is in effect nothing more than an amplification of my first one--that whatever is easy you call architecture, whatever is difficult you call sculpture. for you cannot suppose the arrangement of the place in which the sculpture is to be put is so difficult or so great a part of the design as the sculpture itself. for instance: you all know the pulpit of niccolo pisano, in the baptistry at pisa. it is composed of seven rich _relievi_, surrounded by panel mouldings, and sustained on marble shafts. do you suppose niccolo pisano's reputation--such part of it at least as rests on this pulpit (and much does)--depends on the panel mouldings, or on the relievi? the panel mouldings are by his hand; he would have disdained to leave even them to a common workman; but do you think he found any difficulty in them, or thought there was any credit in them? having once done the sculpture, those enclosing lines were mere child's play to him; the determination of the diameter of shafts and height of capitals was an affair of minutes; his _work_ was in carving the crucifixion and the baptism. or, again, do you recollect orcagna's tabernacle in the church of san michele, at florence? that, also, consists of rich and multitudinous bas-reliefs, enclosed in panel mouldings, with shafts of mosaic, and foliated arches sustaining the canopy. do you think orcagna, any more than pisano, if his spirit could rise in the midst of us at this moment, would tell us that he had trusted his fame to the foliation, or had put his soul's pride into the panelling? not so; he would tell you that his spirit was in the stooping figures that stand round the couch of the dying virgin. or, lastly, do you think the man who designed the procession on the portal of amiens was the subordinate workman? that there was an architect over _him_, restraining him within certain limits, and ordering of him his bishops at so much a mitre, and his cripples at so much a crutch? not so. _here_, on this sculptured shield, rests the master's hand; _this_ is the centre of the master's thought; from this, and in subordination to this, waved the arch and sprang the pinnacle. having done this, and being able to give human expression and action to the stone, all the rest--the rib, the niche, the foil, the shaft--were mere toys to his hand and accessories to his conception: and if once you also gain the gift of doing this, if once you can carve one fronton such as you have here, i tell you, you would be able--so far as it depended on your invention--to scatter cathedrals over england as fast as clouds rise from its streams after summer rain. nay, but perhaps you answer again, our sculptors at present do not design cathedrals, and could not. no, they could not; but that is merely because we have made architecture so dull that they cannot take any interest in it, and, therefore, do not care to add to their higher knowledge the poor and common knowledge of principles of building. you have thus separated building from sculpture, and you have taken away the power of both; for the sculptor loses nearly as much by never having room for the development of a continuous work, as you do from having reduced your work to a continuity of mechanism. you are essentially, and should always be, the same body of men, admitting only such difference in operation as there is between the work of a painter at different times, who sometimes labours on a small picture, and sometimes on the frescoes of a palace gallery. this conclusion, then, we arrive at, _must_ arrive at; the fact being irrevocably so:--that in order to give your imagination and the other powers of your souls full play, you must do as all the great architects of old time did--you must yourselves be your sculptors. phidias, michael angelo, orcagna, pisano, giotto,--which of these men, do you think, could not use his chisel? you say, "it is difficult; quite out of your way." i know it is; nothing that is great is easy; and nothing that is great, so long as you study building without sculpture, can be _in_ your way. i want to put it in your way, and you to find your way to it. but, on the other hand, do not shrink from the task as if the refined art of perfect sculpture were always required from you. for, though architecture and sculpture are not separate arts, there is an architectural _manner_ of sculpture; and it is, in the majority of its applications, a comparatively easy one. our great mistake at present, in dealing with stone at all, is requiring to have all our work too refined; it is just the same mistake as if we were to require all our book illustrations to be as fine work as raphael's. john leech does not sketch so well as leonardo da vinci; but do you think that the public could easily spare him; or that he is wrong in bringing out his talent in the way in which it is most effective? would you advise him, if he asked your advice, to give up his wood-blocks and take to canvas? i know you would not; neither would you tell him, i believe, on the other hand, that because he could not draw as well as leonardo, therefore he ought to draw nothing but straight lines with a ruler, and circles with compasses, and no figure- subjects at all. that would be some loss to you; would it not? you would all be vexed if next week's _punch_ had nothing in it but proportionate lines. and yet, do not you see that you are doing precisely the same thing with _your_ powers of sculptural design that he would be doing with his powers of pictorial design, if he gave you nothing but such lines. you feel that you cannot carve like phidias; therefore you will not carve at all, but only draw mouldings; and thus all that intermediate power which is of especial value in modern days,--that popular power of expression which is within the attainment of thousands,--and would address itself to tens of thousands,--is utterly lost to us in stone, though in ink and paper it has become one of the most desired luxuries of modern civilization. here, then, is one part of the subject to which i would especially invite your attention, namely, the distinctive character which may be wisely permitted to belong to architectural sculpture, as distinguished from perfect sculpture on one side, and from mere geometrical decoration on the other. and first, observe what an indulgence we have in the distance at which most work is to be seen. supposing we were able to carve eyes and lips with the most exquisite precision, it would all be of no use as soon as the work was put far above the eye; but, on the other hand, as beauties disappear by being far withdrawn, so will faults; and the mystery and confusion which are the natural consequence of distance, while they would often render your best skill but vain, will as often render your worst errors of little consequence; nay, more than this, often a deep cut, or a rude angle, will produce in certain positions an effect of expression both startling and true, which you never hoped for. not that mere distance will give animation to the work, if it has none in itself; but if it has life at all, the distance will make that life more perceptible and powerful by softening the defects of execution. so that you are placed, as workmen, in this position of singular advantage, that you may give your fancies free play, and strike hard for the expression that you want, knowing that, if you miss it, no one will detect you; if you at all touch it, nature herself will help you, and with every changing shadow and basking sunbeam bring forth new phases of your fancy. but it is not merely this privilege of being imperfect which belongs to architectural sculpture. it has a true privilege of imagination, far excelling all that can be granted to the more finished work, which, for the sake of distinction, i will call,--and i don't think we can have a much better term--"furniture sculpture;" sculpture, that is, which can be moved from place to furnish rooms. for observe, to that sculpture the spectator is usually brought in a tranquil or prosaic state of mind; he sees it associated rather with what is sumptuous than sublime, and under circumstances which address themselves more to his comfort than his curiosity. the statue which is to be pathetic, seen between the flashes of footmen's livery round the dining-table, must have strong elements of pathos in itself; and the statue which is to be awful, in the midst of the gossip of the drawing- room, must have the elements of awe wholly in itself. but the spectator is brought to _your_ work already in an excited and imaginative mood. he has been impressed by the cathedral wall as it loomed over the low streets, before he looks up to the carving of its porch--and his love of mystery has been touched by the silence and the shadows of the cloister, before he can set himself to decipher the bosses on its vaulting. so that when once he begins to observe your doings, he will ask nothing better from you, nothing kinder from you, than that you would meet this imaginative temper of his half way;--that you would farther touch the sense of terror, or satisfy the expectation of things strange, which have been prompted by the mystery or the majesty of the surrounding scene. and thus, your leaving forms more or less undefined, or carrying out your fancies, however extravagant, in grotesqueness of shadow or shape, will be for the most part in accordance with the temper of the observer; and he is likely, therefore, much more willingly to use his fancy to help your meanings, than his judgment to detect your faults. again. remember that when the imagination and feelings are strongly excited, they will not only bear with strange things, but they will _look_ into _minute_ things with a delight quite unknown in hours of tranquillity. you surely must remember moments of your lives in which, under some strong excitement of feeling, all the details of visible objects presented themselves with a strange intensity and insistance, whether you would or no; urging themselves upon the mind, and thrust upon the eye, with a force of fascination which you could not refuse. now, to a certain extent, the senses get into this state whenever the imagination is strongly excited. things trivial at other times assume a dignity or significance which we cannot explain; but which is only the more attractive because inexplicable: and the powers of attention, quickened by the feverish excitement, fasten and feed upon the minutest circumstances of detail, and remotest traces of intention. so that what would at other times be felt as more or less mean or extraneous in a work of sculpture, and which would assuredly be offensive to the perfect taste in its moments of languor, or of critical judgment, will be grateful, and even sublime, when it meets this frightened inquisitiveness, this fascinated watchfulness, of the roused imagination. and this is all for your advantage; for, in the beginnings of your sculpture, you will assuredly find it easier to imitate minute circumstances of costume or character, than to perfect the anatomy of simple forms or the flow of noble masses; and it will be encouraging to remember that the grace you cannot perfect, and the simplicity you cannot achieve, would be in great part vain, even if you could achieve them, in their appeal to the hasty curiosity of passionate fancy; but that the sympathy which would be refused to your science will be granted to your innocence: and that the mind of the general observer, though wholly unaffected by the correctness of anatomy or propriety of gesture, will follow you with fond and pleased concurrence, as you carve the knots of the hair, and the patterns of the vesture. farther yet. we are to remember that not only do the associated features of the larger architecture tend to excite the strength of fancy, but the architectural laws to which you are obliged to submit your decoration stimulate its _ingenuity_. every crocket which you are to crest with sculpture,--every foliation which you have to fill, presents itself to the spectator's fancy, not only as a pretty thing, but as a _problematic_ thing. it contained, he perceives immediately, not only a beauty which you wished to display, but a necessity which you were forced to meet; and the problem, how to occupy such and such a space with organic form in any probable way, or how to turn such a boss or ridge into a conceivable image of life, becomes at once, to him as to you, a matter of amusement as much as of admiration. the ordinary conditions of perfection in form, gesture, or feature, are willingly dispensed with, when the ugly dwarf and ungainly goblin have only to gather themselves into angles, or crouch to carry corbels; and the want of skill which, in other kinds of work would have been required for the finishing of the parts, will at once be forgiven here, if you have only disposed ingeniously what you have executed roughly, and atoned for the rudeness of your hands by the quickness of your wits. hitherto, however, we have been considering only the circumstances in architecture favourable to the development of the _powers_ of imagination. a yet more important point for us seems, to me, the place which it gives to all the _objects_ of imagination. for, i suppose, you will not wish me to spend any time in proving, that imagination must be vigorous in proportion to the quantity of material which it has to handle; and that, just as we increase the range of what we see, we increase the richness of what we can imagine. granting this, consider what a field is opened to your fancy merely in the subject matter which architecture admits. nearly every other art is severely limited in its subjects--the landscape painter, for instance, gets little help from the aspects of beautiful humanity; the historical painter, less, perhaps, than he ought, from the accidents of wild nature; and the pure sculptor, still less, from the minor details of common life. but is there anything within range of sight, or conception, which may not be of use to _you_, or in which your interest may not be excited with advantage to your art? from visions of angels, down to the least important gesture of a child at play, whatever may be conceived of divine, or beheld of human, may be dared or adopted by you: throughout the kingdom of animal life, no creature is so vast, or so minute, that you cannot deal with it, or bring it into service; the lion and the crocodile will couch about your shafts; the moth and the bee will sun themselves upon your flowers; for you, the fawn will leap; for you, the snail be slow; for you, the dove smooth her bosom; and the hawk spread her wings toward the south. all the wide world of vegetation blooms and bends for you; the leaves tremble that you may bid them be still under the marble snow; the thorn and the thistle, which the earth casts forth as evil, are to you the kindliest servants; no dying petal, nor drooping tendril, is so feeble as to have no more help for you; no robed pride of blossom so kingly, but it will lay aside its purple to receive at your hands the pale immortality. is there anything in common life too mean,--in common too trivial,--to be ennobled by your touch? as there is nothing in life, so there is nothing in lifelessness which has not its lesson for you, or its gift; and when you are tired of watching the strength of the plume, and the tenderness of the leaf, you may walk down to your rough river shore, or into the thickest markets of your thoroughfares, and there is not a piece of torn cable that will not twine into a perfect moulding; there is not a fragment of cast-away matting, or shattered basket-work, that will not work into a chequer or capital. yes: and if you gather up the very sand, and break the stone on which you tread, among its fragments of all but invisible shells you will find forms that will take their place, and that proudly, among the starred traceries of your vaulting; and you, who can crown the mountain with its fortress, and the city with its towers, are thus able also to give beauty to ashes, and worthiness to dust. now, in that your art presents all this material to you, you have already much to rejoice in. but you have more to rejoice in, because all this is submitted to you, not to be dissected or analyzed, but to be sympathized with, and to bring out, therefore, what may be accurately called the moral part of imagination. we saw that, if we kept ourselves among lines only, we should have cause to envy the naturalist, because he was conversant with facts; but you will have little to envy now, if you make yourselves conversant with the feelings that arise out of his facts. for instance, the naturalist coming upon a block of marble, has to begin considering immediately how far its purple is owing to iron, or its whiteness to magnesia; he breaks his piece of marble, and at the close of his day, has nothing but a little sand in his crucible and some data added to the theory of the elements. but _you_ approach your marble to sympathize with it, and rejoice over its beauty. you cut it a little indeed; but only to bring out its veins more perfectly; and at the end of your day's work you leave your marble shaft with joy and complacency in its perfectness, as marble. when you have to watch an animal instead of a stone, you differ from the naturalist in the same way. he may, perhaps, if he be an amiable naturalist, take delight in having living creatures round him;--still, the major part of his work is, or has been, in counting feathers, separating fibres, and analyzing structures. but _your_ work is always with the living creature; the thing you have to get at in him is his life, and ways of going about things. it does not matter to you how many cells there are in his bones, or how many filaments in his feathers; what you want is his moral character and way of behaving himself; it is just that which your imagination, if healthy, will first seize--just that which your chisel, if vigorous, will first cut. you must get the storm spirit into your eagles, and the lordliness into your lions, and the tripping fear into your fawns; and in order to do this, you must be in continual sympathy with every fawn of them; and be hand-in-glove with all the lions, and hand-in-claw with all the hawks. and don't fancy that you will lower yourselves by sympathy with the lower creatures; you cannot sympathize rightly with the higher, unless you do with those: but you have to sympathize with the higher, too-- with queens, and kings, and martyrs, and angels. yes, and above all, and more than all, with simple humanity in all its needs and ways, for there is not one hurried face that passes you in the street that will not be impressive, if you can only fathom it. all history is open to you, all high thoughts and dreams that the past fortunes of men can suggest, all fairy land is open to you--no vision that ever haunted forest, or gleamed over hill-side, but calls you to understand how it came into men's hearts, and may still touch them; and all paradise is open to you--yes, and the work of paradise; for in bringing all this, in perpetual and attractive truth, before the eyes of your fellow-men, you have to join in the employment of the angels, as well as to imagine their companies. and observe, in this last respect, what a peculiar importance, and responsibility, are attached to your work, when you consider its permanence, and the multitudes to whom it is addressed. we frequently are led, by wise people, to consider what responsibility may sometimes attach to words, which yet, the chance is, will be heard by few, and forgotten as soon as heard. but none of _your_ words will be heard by few, and none will be forgotten, for five or six hundred years, if you build well. you will talk to all who pass by; and all those little sympathies, those freaks of fancy, those jests in stone, those workings-out of problems in caprice, will occupy mind after mind of utterly countless multitudes, long after you are gone. you have not, like authors, to plead for a hearing, or to fear oblivion. do but build large enough, and carve boldly enough, and all the world will hear you; they cannot choose but look. i do not mean to awe you by this thought; i do not mean that because you will have so many witnesses and watchers, you are never to jest, or do anything gaily or lightly; on the contrary, i have pleaded, from the beginning, for this art of yours, especially because it has room for the whole of your character--if jest is in you, let the jest be jested; if mathematical ingenuity is yours, let your problem be put, and your solution worked out, as quaintly as you choose; above all, see that your work is easily and happily done, else it will never make anybody else happy; but while you thus give the rein to all your impulses, see that those impulses be headed and centred by one noble impulse; and let that be love--triple love--for the art which you practise, the creation in which you move, and the creatures to whom you minister. i. i say, first, love for the art which you practise. be assured that if ever any other motive becomes a leading one in your mind, as the principal one for exertion, except your love of art, that moment it is all over with your art. i do not say you are to desire money, nor to desire fame, nor to desire position; you cannot but desire all three; nay, you may--if you are willing that i should use the word love in a desecrated sense--love all three; that is, passionately covet them, yet you must not covet or love them in the first place. men of strong passions and imaginations must always care a great deal for anything they care for at all; but the whole question is one of first or second. does your art lead you, or your gain lead you? you may like making money exceedingly; but if it come to a fair question, whether you are to make five hundred pounds less by this business, or to spoil your building, and you choose to spoil your building, there's an end of you. so you may be as thirsty for fame as a cricket is for cream; but, if it come to a fair question, whether you are to please the mob, or do the thing as you know it ought to be done; and you can't do both, and choose to please the mob, it's all over with you--there's no hope for you; nothing that you can do will ever be worth a man's glance as he passes by. the test is absolute, inevitable--is your art first with you? then you are artists; you may be, after you have made your money, misers and usurers; you may be, after you have got your fame, jealous, and proud, and wretched, and base: but yet, _as long as you won't spoil your work_, you are artists. on the other hand--is your money first with you, and your fame first with you? then, you may be very charitable with your money, and very magnificent with your money, and very graceful in the way you wear your reputation, and very courteous to those beneath you, and very acceptable to those above you; but you are _not artists_. you are mechanics, and drudges. ii. you must love the creation you work in the midst of. for, wholly in proportion to the intensity of feeling which you bring to the subject you have chosen, will be the depth and justice of our perception of its character. and this depth of feeling is not to be gained on the instant, when you want to bring it to bear on this or that. it is the result of the general habit of striving to feel rightly; and, among thousands of various means of doing this, perhaps the one i ought specially to name to you, is the keeping yourselves clear of petty and mean cares. whatever you do, don't be anxious, nor fill your heads with little chagrins and little desires. i have just said, that you may be great artists, and yet be miserly and jealous, and troubled about many things. so you may be; but i said also that the miserliness or trouble must not be in your hearts all day. it is possible that you may get a habit of saving money; or it is possible, at a time of great trial, you may yield to the temptation of speaking unjustly of a rival,--and you will shorten your powers arid dim your sight even by this;--but the thing that you have to dread far more than any such unconscious habit, or--any such momentary fall--is the _constancy of small emotions_;--the anxiety whether mr. so-and-so will like your work; whether such and such a workman will do all that you want of him, and so on;--not wrong feelings or anxieties in themselves, but impertinent, and wholly incompatible with the full exercise of your imagination. keep yourselves, therefore, quiet, peaceful, with your eyes open. it doesn't matter at all what mr. so-and-so thinks of your work; but it matters a great deal what that bird is doing up there in its nest, or how that vagabond child at the street corner is managing his game of knuckle-down. and remember, you cannot turn aside from your own interests, to the birds' and the children's interests, unless you have long before got into the habit of loving and watching birds and children; so that it all comes at last to the forgetting yourselves, and the living out of yourselves, in the calm of the great world, or if you will, in its agitation; but always in a calm of your own bringing. do not think it wasted time to submit yourselves to any influence which may bring upon you any noble feeling. rise early, always watch the sunrise, and the way the clouds break from the dawn; you will cast your statue-draperies in quite another than your common way, when the remembrance of that cloud motion is with you, and of the scarlet vesture of the morning. live always in the springtime in the country; you do not know what leaf-form means, unless you have seen the buds burst, and the young leaves breathing low in the sunshine, and wondering at the first shower of rain. but above all, accustom yourselves to look for, and to love, all nobleness of gesture and feature in the human form; and remember that the highest nobleness is usually among the aged, the poor, and the infirm; you will find, in the end, that it is not the strong arm of the soldier, nor the laugh of the young beauty, that are the best studies for you. look at them, and look at them reverently; but be assured that endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty; and that it is not in the high church pews, where the gay dresses are, but in the church free seats, where the widows' weeds are, that you may see the faces that will fit best between the angels' wings, in the church porch. iii. and therefore, lastly, and chiefly, you must love the creatures to whom you minister, your fellow-men; for, if you do not love them, not only will you be little interested in the passing events of life, but in all your gazing at humanity, you will be apt to be struck only by outside form, and not by expression. it is only kindness and tenderness which will ever enable you to see what beauty there is in the dark eyes that are sunk with weeping, and in the paleness of those fixed faces which the earth's adversity has compassed about, till they shine in their patience like dying watchfires through twilight. but it is not this only which makes it needful for you, if you would be great, to be also kind; there is a most important and all-essential reason in the very nature of your own art. so soon as you desire to build largely, and with addition of noble sculpture, you will find that your work must be associative. you cannot carve a whole cathedral yourself--you can carve but few and simple parts of it. either your own work must be disgraced in the mass of the collateral inferiority, or you must raise your fellow-designers to correspondence of power. if you have genius, you will yourselves take the lead in the building you design; you will carve its porch and direct its disposition. but for all subsequent advancement of its detail, you must trust to the agency and the invention of others; and it rests with you either to repress what faculties your workmen have, into cunning subordination to your own; or to rejoice in discovering even the powers that may rival you, and leading forth mind after mind into fellowship with your fancy, and association with your fame. i need not tell you that if you do the first--if you endeavour to depress or disguise the talents of your subordinates--you are lost; for nothing could imply more darkly and decisively than this, that your art and your work were not beloved by you; that it was your own prosperity that you were seeking, and your own skill only that you cared to contemplate. i do not say that you must not be jealous at all; it is rarely in human nature to be wholly without jealousy; and you may be forgiven for going some day sadly home, when you find some youth, unpractised and unapproved, giving the life-stroke to his work which you, after years of training, perhaps, cannot reach; but your jealousy must not conquer--your love of your building must conquer, helped by your kindness of heart. see--i set no high or difficult standard before you. i do not say that you are to surrender your pre-eminence in _mere_ unselfish generosity. but i do say that you must surrender your pre-eminence in your love of your building helped by your kindness; and that whomsoever you find better able to do what will adorn it than you,--that person you are to give place to; and to console yourselves for the humiliation, first, by your joy in seeing the edifice grow more beautiful under his chisel, and secondly, by your sense of having done kindly and justly. but if you are morally strong enough to make the kindness and justice the first motive, it will be better;--best of all, if you do not consider it as kindness at all, but bare and stern justice; for, truly, such help as we can give each other in this world is a _debt_ to each other; and the man who perceives a superiority or a capacity in a subordinate, and neither confesses, nor assists it, is not merely the withholder of kindness, but the committer of injury. but be the motive what you will, only see that you do the thing; and take the joy of the consciousness that, as your art embraces a wider field than all others--and addresses a vaster multitude than all others--and is surer of audience than all others--so it is profounder and holier in fellowship than all others. the artist, when his pupil is perfect, must see him leave his side that he may declare his distinct, perhaps opponent, skill. man of science wrestles with man of science for priority of discovery, and pursues in pangs of jealous haste his solitary inquiry. you alone are called by kindness,-- by necessity,--by equity, to fraternity of toil; and thus, in those misty and massive piles which rise above the domestic roofs of our ancient cities, there was--there may be again--a meaning more profound and true than any that fancy so commonly has attached to them. men say their pinnacles point to heaven. why, so does every tree that buds, and every bird that rises as it sings. men say their aisles are good for worship. why, so is every mountain glen, and rough sea-shore. but this they have of distinct and indisputable glory,--that their mighty walls were never raised, and never shall be, but by men who love and aid each other in their weakness;--that all their interlacing strength of vaulted stone has its foundation upon the stronger arches of manly fellowship, and all their changing grace of depressed or lifted pinnacle owes its cadence and completeness to sweeter symmetries of human soul. lecture v. the work op iron, in nature, art, and policy. _a lecture delivered at tunbridge wells, february, ._ when first i heard that you wished me to address you this evening, it was a matter of some doubt with me whether i could find any subject that would possess any sufficient interest for you to justify my bringing you out of your comfortable houses on a winter's night. when i venture to speak about my own special business of art, it is almost always before students of art, among whom i may sometimes permit myself to be dull, if i can feel that i am useful: but a mere talk about art, especially without examples to refer to (and i have been unable to prepare any careful illustrations for this lecture), is seldom of much interest to a general audience. as i was considering what you might best bear with me in speaking about, there came naturally into my mind a subject connected with the origin and present prosperity of the town you live in; and, it seemed to me, in the out-branchings of it, capable of a very general interest. when, long ago (i am afraid to think how long), tunbridge wells was my switzerland, and i used to be brought down here in the summer, a sufficiently active child, rejoicing in the hope of clambering sandstone cliffs of stupendous height above the common, there used sometimes, as, i suppose, there are in the lives of all children at the wells, to be dark days in my life--days of condemnation to the pantiles and band--under which calamities my only consolation used to be in watching, at every turn in my walk, the welling forth of the spring over the orange rim of its marble basin. the memory of the clear water, sparkling over its saffron stain, came back to me as the strongest image connected with the place; and it struck me that you might not be unwilling, to-night, to think a little over the full significance of that saffron stain, and of the power, in other ways and other functions, of the steelly element to which so many here owe returning strength and life;--chief as it has been always, and is yet more and more markedly so day by day, among the precious gifts of the earth. the subject is, of course, too wide to be more than suggestively treated; and even my suggestions must be few, and drawn chiefly from my own fields of work; nevertheless, i think i shall have time to indicate some courses of thought which you may afterwards follow out for yourselves if they interest you; and so i will not shrink from the full scope of the subject which i have announced to you--the functions of iron, in nature, art, and policy. without more preface, i will take up the first head. i. iron in nature.--you all probably know that the ochreous stain, which, perhaps, is often thought to spoil the basin of your spring, is iron in a state of rust: and when you see rusty iron in other places you generally think, not only that it spoils the places it stains, but that it is spoiled itself--that rusty iron is spoiled iron. for most of our uses it generally is so; and because we cannot use a rusty knife or razor so well as a polished one, we suppose it to be a great defect in iron that it is subject to rust. but not at all. on the contrary, the most perfect and useful state of it is that ochreous stain; and therefore it is endowed with so ready a disposition to get itself into that state. it is not a fault in the iron, but a virtue, to be so fond of getting rusted, for in that condition it fulfils its most important functions in the universe, and most kindly duties to mankind. nay, in a certain sense, and almost a literal one, we may say that iron rusted is living; but when pure or polished, dead. you all probably know that in the mixed air we breathe, the part of it essentially needful to us is called oxygen; and that this substance is to all animals, in the most accurate sense of the word, "breath of life." the nervous power of life is a different thing; but the supporting element of the breath, without which the blood, and therefore the life, cannot be nourished, is this oxygen. now it is this very same air which the iron breathes when it gets rusty. it takes the oxygen from the atmosphere as eagerly as we do, though it uses it differently. the iron keeps all that it gets; we, and other animals, part with it again; but the metal absolutely keeps what it has once received of this aerial gift; and the ochreous dust which we so much despise is, in fact, just so much nobler than pure iron, in so far as it is _iron and the air._ nobler, and more useful--for, indeed, as i shall be able to show you presently--the main service of this metal, and of all other metals, to us, is not in making knives, and scissors, and pokers, and pans, but in making the ground we feed from, and nearly all the substances first needful to our existence. for these are all nothing but metals and oxygen--metals with breath put into them. sand, lime, clay, and the rest of the earths--potash and soda, and the rest of the alkalies--are all of them metals which have undergone this, so to speak, vital change, and have been rendered fit for the service of man by permanent unity with the purest air which he himself breathes. there is only one metal which does not rust readily; and that, in its influence on man hitherto, has caused death rather than life; it will not be put to its right use till it is made a pavement of, and so trodden under foot. is there not something striking in this fact, considered largely as one of the types, or lessons, furnished by the inanimate creation? here you have your hard, bright, cold, lifeless metal--good enough for swords and scissors--but not for food. you think, perhaps, that your iron is wonderfully useful in a pure form, but how would you like the world, if all your meadows, instead of grass, grew nothing but iron wire--if all your arable ground, instead of being made of sand and clay, were suddenly turned into flat surfaces of steel--if the whole earth, instead of its green and glowing sphere, rich with forest and flower, showed nothing but the image of the vast furnace of a ghastly engine--a globe of black, lifeless, excoriated metal? it would be that,--probably it was once that; but assuredly it would be, were it not that all the substance of which it is made sucks and breathes the brilliancy of the atmosphere; and as it breathes, softening from its merciless hardness, it falls into fruitful and beneficent dust; gathering itself again into the earths from which we feed, and the stones with which we build;-- into the rocks that frame the mountains, and the sands that bind the sea. hence, it is impossible for you to take up the most insignificant pebble at your feet, without being able to read, if you like, this curious lesson in it. you look upon it at first as if it were earth only. nay, it answers, "i am not earth--i am earth and air in one; part of that blue heaven which you love, and long for, is already in me; it is all my life--without it i should be nothing, and able for nothing; i could not minister to you, nor nourish you--i should be a cruel and helpless thing; but, because there is, according to my need and place in creation, a kind of soul in me, i have become capable of good, and helpful in the circles of vitality." thus far the same interest attaches to all the earths, and all the metals of which they are made; but a deeper interest, and larger beneficence belong to that ochreous earth of iron which stains the marble of your springs. it stains much besides that marble. it stains the great earth wheresoever you can see it, far and wide--it is the colouring substance appointed to colour the globe for the sight, as well as subdue it to the service of man. you have just seen your hills covered with snow, and, perhaps, have enjoyed, at first, the contrast of their fair white with the dark blocks of pine woods; but have you ever considered how you would like them always white--not pure white, but dirty white--the white of thaw, with all the chill of snow in it, but none of its brightness? that is what the colour of the earth would be without its iron; that would be its colour, not here or there only, but in all places, and at all times. follow out that idea till you get it in some detail. think first of your pretty gravel walks in your gardens, yellow and fine, like plots of sunshine between the flower- beds; fancy them all suddenly turned to the colour of ashes. that is what they would be without iron ochre. think of your winding walks over the common, as warm to the eye as they are dry to the foot, and imagine them all laid down suddenly with gray cinders. then pass beyond the common into the country, and pause at the first ploughed field that you see sweeping up the hill sides in the sun, with its deep brown furrows, and wealth of ridges all a-glow, heaved aside by the ploughshare, like deep folds of a mantle of russet velvet--fancy it all changed suddenly into grisly furrows in a field of mud. that is what it would be without iron. pass on, in fancy, over hill and dale, till you reach the bending line of the sea shore; go down upon its breezy beach--watch the white foam flashing among the amber of it, and all the blue sea embayed in belts of gold: then fancy those circlets of far sweeping shore suddenly put into mounds of mourning--all those golden sands turned into gray slime, the fairies no more able to call to each other, "come unto these yellow sands;" but, "come unto these drab sands." that is what they would be, without iron. iron is in some sort, therefore, the sunshine and light of landscape, so far as that light depends on the ground; but it is a source of another kind of sunshine, quite as important to us in the way we live at present--sunshine, not of landscape, but of dwelling-place. in these days of swift locomotion i may doubtless assume that most of my audience have been somewhere out of england--have been in scotland, or france, or switzerland. whatever may have been their impression, on returning to their own country, of its superiority or inferiority in other respects, they cannot but have felt one thing about it--the comfortable look of its towns and villages. foreign towns are often very picturesque, very beautiful, but they never have quite that look of warm self-sufficiency and wholesome quiet, with which our villages nestle themselves down among the green fields. if you will take the trouble to examine into the sources of this impression, you will find that by far the greater part of that warm and satisfactory appearance depends upon the rich scarlet colour of the bricks and tiles. it does not belong to the neat building--very neat building has an uncomfortable rather than a comfortable look--but it depends on the _warm_ building; our villages are dressed in red tiles as our old women are in red cloaks; and it does not matter how worn the cloaks, or how bent and bowed the roof may be, so long as there are no holes in either one or the other, and the sobered but unextinguishable colour still glows in the shadow of the hood, and burns among the green mosses of the gable. and what do you suppose dyes your tiles of cottage roof? you don't paint them. it is nature who puts all that lovely vermilion into the clay for you; and all that lovely vermilion is this oxide of iron. think, therefore, what your streets of towns would become--ugly enough, indeed, already, some of them, but still comfortable-looking-- if instead of that warm brick red, the houses became all pepper-and- salt colour. fancy your country villages changing from that homely scarlet of theirs which, in its sweet suggestion of laborious peace, is as honourable as the soldiers' scarlet of laborious battle--suppose all those cottage roofs, i say, turned at once into the colour of unbaked clay, the colour of street gutters in rainy weather. that's what they would be, without iron. there is, however, yet another effect of colour in our english country towns which, perhaps, you may not all yourselves have noticed, but for which you must take the word of a sketcher. they are not so often merely warm scarlet as they are warm purple;--a more beautiful colour still: and they owe this colour to a mingling with the vermilion of the deep grayish or purple hue of our fine welsh slates on the more respectable roofs, made more blue still by the colour of intervening atmosphere. if you examine one of these welsh slates freshly broken, you will find its purple colour clear and vivid; and although never strikingly so after it has been long exposed to weather, it always retains enough of the tint to give rich harmonies of distant purple in opposition to the green of our woods and fields. whatever brightness or power there is in the hue is entirely owing to the oxide of iron. without it the slates would either be pale stone colour, or cold gray, or black. thus far we have only been considering the use and pleasantness of iron in the common earth of clay. but there are three kinds of earth which in mixed mass and prevalent quantity, form the world. those are, in common language, the earths of clay, of lime, and of flint. many other elements are mingled with these in sparing quantities; but the great frame and substance of the earth is made of these three, so that wherever you stand on solid ground, in any country of the globe, the thing that is mainly under your feet will be either clay, limestone, or some condition of the earth of flint, mingled with both. these being what we have usually to deal with, nature seems to have set herself to make these three substances as interesting to us, and as beautiful for us, as she can. the clay, being a soft and changeable substance, she doesn't take much pains about, as we have seen, till it is baked; she brings the colour into it only when it receives a permanent form. but the limestone and flint she paints, in her own way, in their native state: and her object in painting them seems to be much the same as in her painting of flowers; to draw us, careless and idle human creatures, to watch her a little, and see what she is about--that being on the whole good for us,--her children. for nature is always carrying on very strange work with this limestone and flint of hers: laying down beds of them at the bottom of the sea; building islands out of the sea; filling chinks and veins in mountains with curious treasures; petrifying mosses, and trees, and shells; in fact, carrying on all sorts of business, subterranean or submarine, which it would be highly desirable for us, who profit and live by it, to notice as it goes on. and apparently to lead us to do this, she makes picture-books for us of limestone and flint; and tempts us, like foolish children as we are, to read her books by the pretty colours in them. the pretty colours in her limestone-books form those variegated marbles which all mankind have taken delight to polish and build with from the beginning of time; and the pretty colours in her flint-books form those agates, jaspers, cornelians, bloodstones, onyxes, cairngorms, chrysoprases, which men have in like manner taken delight to cut, and polish, and make ornaments of, from the beginning of time; and yet, so much of babies are they, and so fond of looking at the pictures instead of reading the book, that i question whether, after six thousand years of cutting and polishing, there are above two or three people out of any given hundred, who know, or care to know, how a bit of agate or a bit of marble was made, or painted. how it was made, may not be always very easy to say; but with what it was painted there is no manner of question. all those beautiful violet veinings and variegations of the marbles of sicily and spain, the glowing orange and amber colours of those of siena, the deep russet of the rosso antico, and the blood-colour of all the precious jaspers that enrich the temples of italy; and, finally, all the lovely transitions of tint in the pebbles of scotland and the rhine, which form, though not the most precious, by far the most interesting portion of our modern jewellers' work;--all these are painted by nature with this one material only, variously proportioned and applied--the oxide of iron that stains your tunbridge springs. but this is not all, nor the best part of the work of iron. its service in producing these beautiful stones is only rendered to rich people, who can afford to quarry and polish them. but nature paints for all the world, poor and rich together: and while, therefore, she thus adorns the innermost rocks of her hills, to tempt your investigation, or indulge your luxury,--she paints, far more carefully, the outsides of the hills, which are for the eyes of the shepherd and the ploughman. i spoke just now of the effect in the roofs of our villages of their purple slates: but if the slates are beautiful even in their flat and formal rows on house-roofs, much more are they beautiful on the rugged crests and flanks of their native mountains. have you ever considered, in speaking as we do so often of distant blue hills, what it is that makes them blue? to a certain extent it is distance; but distance alone will not do it. many hills look white, however distant. that lovely dark purple colour of our welsh and highland hills is owing, not to their distance merely, but to their rocks. some of their rocks are, indeed, too dark to be beautiful, being black or ashy gray; owing to imperfect and porous structure. but when you see this dark colour dashed with russet and blue, and coming out in masses among the green ferns, so purple that you can hardly tell at first whether it is rock or heather, then you must thank your old tunbridge friend, the oxide of iron. but this is not all. it is necessary for the beauty of hill scenery that nature should colour not only her soft rocks, but her hard ones; and she colours them with the same thing, only more beautifully. perhaps you have wondered at my use of the word "purple," so often of stones; but the greeks, and still more the romans, who had profound respect for purple, used it of stone long ago. you have all heard of "porphyry" as among the most precious of the harder massive stones. the colour which gave it that noble name, as well as that which gives the flush to all the rosy granite of egypt--yes, and to the rosiest summits of the alps themselves--is still owing to the same substance--your humble oxide of iron. and last of all: a nobler colour than all these--the noblest colour ever seen on this earth--one which belongs to a strength greater than that of the egyptian granite, and to a beauty greater than that of the sunset or the rose--is still mysteriously connected with the presence of this dark iron. i believe it is not ascertained on what the crimson of blood actually depends; but the colour is connected, of course, with its vitality, and that vitality with the existence of iron as one of its substantial elements. is it not strange to find this stern and strong metal mingled so delicately in our human life, that we cannot even blush without its help? think of it, my fair and gentle hearers; how terrible the alternative--sometimes you have actually no choice but to be brazen- faced, or iron-faced! in this slight review of some of the functions of the metal, you observe that i confine myself strictly to its operations as a colouring element. i should only confuse your conception of the facts, if i endeavoured to describe its uses as a substantial element, either in strengthening rocks, or influencing vegetation by the decomposition of rocks. i have not, therefore, even glanced at any of the more serious uses of the metal in the economy of nature. but what i wish you to carry clearly away with you is the remembrance that in all these uses the metal would be nothing without the air. the pure metal has no power, and never occurs in nature at all except in meteoric stones, whose fall no one can account for, and which are useless after they have fallen: in the necessary work of the world, the iron is invariably joined with the oxygen, and would be capable of no service or beauty whatever without it. ii. iron in art.--passing, then, from the offices of the metal in the operations of nature to its uses in the hands of man, you must remember, in the outset, that the type which has been thus given you, by the lifeless metal, of the action of body and soul together, has noble antitype in the operation of all human power. all art worthy the name is the energy--neither of the human body alone, nor of the human soul alone, but of both united, one guiding the other: good craftsmanship and work of the fingers, joined with good emotion and work of the heart. there is no good art, nor possible judgment of art, when these two are not united; yet we are constantly trying to separate them. our amateurs cannot be persuaded but that they may produce some kind of art by their fancy or sensibility, without going through the necessary manual toil. that is entirely hopeless. without a certain number, and that a very great number, of steady acts of hand--a practice as careful and constant as would be necessary to learn any other manual business--no drawing is possible. on the other side, the workman, and those who employ him, are continually trying to produce art by trick or habit of fingers, without using their fancy or sensibility. that also is hopeless. without mingling of heart-passion with hand-power, no art is possible. [footnote: no fine art, that is. see the previous definition of fine art at p. .] the highest art unites both in their intensest degrees: the action of the hand at its finest, with that of the heart at its fullest. hence it follows that the utmost power of art can only be given in a material capable of receiving and retaining the influence of the subtlest touch of the human hand. that hand is the most perfect agent of material power existing in the universe; and its full subtlety can only be shown when the material it works on, or with, is entirely yielding. the chords of a perfect instrument will receive it, but not of an imperfect one; the softly bending point of the hair pencil, and soft melting of colour, will receive it, but not even the chalk or pen point, still less the steel point, chisel, or marble. the hand of a sculptor may, indeed, be as subtle as that of a painter, but all its subtlety is not bestowable nor expressible: the touch of titian, correggio, or turner, [footnote: see appendix iv., "subtlety of hand."] is a far more marvellous piece of nervous action than can be shown in anything but colour, or in the very highest conditions of executive expression in music. in proportion as the material worked upon is less delicate, the execution necessarily becomes lower, and the art with it. this is one main principle of all work. another is, that whatever the material you choose to work with, your art is base if it does not bring out the distinctive qualities of that material. the reason of this second law is, that if you don't want the qualities of the substance you use, you ought to use some other substance: it can be only affectation, and desire to display your skill, that lead you to employ a refractory substance, and therefore your art will all be base. glass, for instance, is eminently, in its nature, transparent. if you don't want transparency, let the glass alone. do not try to make a window look like an opaque picture, but take an opaque ground to begin with. again, marble is eminently a solid and massive substance. unless you want mass and solidity, don't work in marble. if you wish for lightness, take wood; if for freedom, take stucco; if for ductility, take glass. don't try to carve leathers, or trees, or nets, or foam, out of marble. carve white limbs and broad breasts only out of that. so again, iron is eminently a ductile and tenacious substance-- tenacious above all things, ductile more than most. when you want tenacity, therefore, and involved form, take iron. it is eminently made for that. it is the material given to the sculptor as the companion of marble, with a message, as plain as it can well be spoken, from the lips of the earth-mother, "here's for you to cut, and here's for you to hammer. shape this, and twist that. what is solid and simple, carve out; what is thin and entangled, beat out. i give you all kinds of forms to be delighted in;--fluttering leaves as well as fair bodies; twisted branches as well as open brows. the leaf and the branch you may beat and drag into their imagery: the body and brow you shall reverently touch into their imagery. and if you choose rightly and work rightly, what you do shall be safe afterwards. your slender leaves shall not break off in my tenacious iron, though they may be rusted a little with an iron autumn. your broad surfaces shall not be unsmoothed in my pure crystalline marble--no decay shall touch them. but if you carve in the marble what will break with a touch, or mould in the metal what a stain of rust or verdigris will spoil, it is your fault--not mine." these are the main principles in this matter; which, like nearly all other right principles in art, we moderns delight in contradicting as directly and specially as may be. we continually look for, and praise, in our exhibitions the sculpture of veils, and lace, and thin leaves, and all kinds of impossible things pushed as far as possible in the fragile stone, for the sake of showing the sculptor's dexterity. [footnote: i do not mean to attach any degree of blame to the effort to represent leafage in marble for certain expressive purposes. the later works of mr. munro have depended for some of their most tender thoughts on a delicate and skilful use of such accessories. and in general, leaf sculpture is good and admirable, if it renders, as in gothic work, the grace and lightness of the leaf by the arrangement of light and shadow --supporting the masses well by strength of stone below; but all carving is base which proposes to itself _slightness_ as an aim, and tries to imitate the absolute thinness of thin or slight things, as much modern wood carving does, i saw in italy, a year or two ago, a marble sculpture of birds' nests.] on the other hand, we _cast_ our iron into bars--brittle, though an inch thick--sharpen them at the ends, and consider fences, and other work, made of such materials, decorative! i do not believe it would be easy to calculate the amount of mischief done to our taste in england by that fence iron-work of ours alone. if it were asked of us by a single characteristic, to distinguish the dwellings of a country into two broad sections; and to set, on one side, the places where people were, for the most part, simple, happy, benevolent, and honest; and, on the other side, the places where at least a great number of the people were sophisticated, unkind, uncomfortable, and unprincipled, there is, i think, one feature that you could fix upon as a positive test: the uncomfortable and unprincipled parts of a country would be the parts where people lived among iron railings, and the comfortable and principled parts where they had none. a broad generalization, you will say! perhaps a little too broad; yet, in all sobriety, it will come truer than you think. consider every other kind of fence or defence, and you will find some virtue in it; but in the iron railing none. there is, first, your castle rampart of stone--somewhat too grand to be considered here among our types of fencing; next, your garden or park wall of brick, which has indeed often an unkind look on the outside, but there is more modesty in it than unkindness. it generally means, not that the builder of it wants to shut you out from the view of his garden, but from the view of himself: it is a frank statement that as he needs a certain portion of time to himself, so he needs a certain portion of ground to himself, and must not be stared at when he digs there in his shirt- sleeves, or plays at leapfrog with his boys from school, or talks over old times with his wife, walking up and down in the evening sunshine. besides, the brick wall has good practical service in it, and shelters you from the east wind, and ripens your peaches and nectarines, and glows in autumn like a sunny bank. and, moreover, your brick wall, if you build it properly, so that it shall stand long enough, is a beautiful thing when it is old, and has assumed its grave purple red, touched with mossy green. next to your lordly wall, in dignity of enclosure, comes your close-set wooden paling, which is more objectionable, because it commonly means enclosure on a larger scale than people want. still it is significative of pleasant parks, and well-kept field walks, and herds of deer, and other such aristocratic pastoralisms, which have here and there their proper place in a country, and may be passed without any discredit. next to your paling, comes your low stone dyke, your mountain fence, indicative at a glance either of wild hill country, or of beds of stone beneath the soil; the hedge of the mountains--delightful in all its associations, and yet more in the varied and craggy forms of the loose stones it is built of; and next to the low stone wall, your lowland hedge, either in trim line of massive green, suggested of the pleasances of old elizabethan houses, and smooth alleys for aged feet, and quaint labyrinths for young ones, or else in fair entanglement of eglantine and virgin's bower, tossing its scented luxuriance along our country waysides;--how many such you have here among your pretty hills, fruitful with black clusters of the bramble for boys in autumn, and crimson hawthorn berries for birds in winter. and then last, and most difficult to class among fences, comes your handrail, expressive of all sorts of things; sometimes having a knowing and vicious look, which it learns at race-courses; sometimes an innocent and tender look, which it learns at rustic bridges over cressy brooks; and sometimes a prudent and protective look, which it learns on passes of the alps, where it has posts of granite and bars of pine, and guards the brows of cliffs and the banks of torrents. so that in all these kinds of defence there is some good, pleasant, or noble meaning. but what meaning has the iron railing? either, observe, that you are living in the midst of such bad characters that you must keep them out by main force of bar, or that you are yourself of a character requiring to be kept inside in the same manner. your iron railing always means thieves outside, or bedlam inside; it _can_ mean nothing else than that. if the people outside were good for anything, a hint in the way of fence would be enough for them; but because they are violent and at enmity with you, you are forced to put the close bars and the spikes at the top. last summer i was lodging for a little while in a cottage in the country, and in front of my low window there were, first some beds of daisies, then a row of gooseberry and currant bushes, and then a low wall about three feet above the ground, covered with stone-cress. outside, a corn-field, with its green ears glistening in the sun, and a field path through it, just past the garden gate. from my window i could see every peasant of the village who passed that way, with basket on arm for market, or spade on shoulder for field. when i was inclined for society, i could lean over my wall, and talk to anybody; when i was inclined for science, i could botanize all along the top of my wall-- there were four species of stone-cress alone growing on it; and when i was inclined for exercise, i could jump over my wall, backwards and forwards. that's the sort of fence to have in a christian country; not a thing which you can't walk inside of without making yourself look like a wild beast, nor look at out of your window in the morning without expecting to see somebody impaled upon it in the night. and yet farther, observe that the iron railing is a useless fence--it can shelter nothing, and support nothing; you can't nail your peaches to it, nor protect your flowers with it, nor make anything whatever out of its costly tyranny; and besides being useless, it is an insolent fence;--it says plainly to everybody who passes--"you may be an honest person,--but, also, you may be a thief: honest or not, you shall not get in here, for i am a respectable person, and much above you; you shall only see what a grand place i have got to keep you out of--look here, and depart in humiliation." this, however, being in the present state of civilization a frequent manner of discourse, and there being unfortunately many districts where the iron railing is unavoidable, it yet remains a question whether you need absolutely make it ugly, no less than significative of evil. you must have railings round your squares in london, and at the sides of your areas; but need you therefore have railings so ugly that the constant sight of them is enough to neutralise the effect of all the schools of art in the kingdom? you need not. far from such necessity, it is even in your power to turn all your police force of iron bars actually into drawing masters, and natural historians. not, of course, without some trouble and some expense; you can do nothing much worth doing, in this world, without trouble, you can get nothing much worth having without expense. the main question is only--what is worth doing and having:--consider, therefore, if this be not. here is your iron railing, as yet, an uneducated monster; a sombre seneschal, incapable of any words, except his perpetual "keep out!" and "away with you!" would it not be worth some trouble and cost to turn this ungainly ruffian porter into a well-educated servant; who, while he was severe as ever in forbidding entrance to evilly-disposed people, should yet have a kind word for well-disposed people, and a pleasant look, and a little useful information at his command, in case he should be asked a question by the passers-by? we have not time to-night to look at many examples of ironwork; and those i happen to have by me are not the best; ironwork is not one of my special subjects of study; so that i only have memoranda of bits that happened to come into picturesque subjects which i was drawing for other reasons. besides, external ironwork is more difficult to find good than any other sort of ancient art; for when it gets rusty and broken, people are sure, if they can afford it, to send it to the old iron shop, and get a fine new grating instead; and in the great cities of italy, the old iron is thus nearly all gone: the best bits i remember in the open air were at brescia;--fantastic sprays of laurel- like foliage rising over the garden gates; and there are a few fine fragments at verona, and some good trellis-work enclosing the scala tombs; but on the whole, the most interesting pieces, though by no means the purest in style, are to be found in out-of-the-way provincial towns, where people do not care, or are unable, to make polite alterations. the little town of bellinzona, for instance, on the south of the alps, and that of sion on the north, have both of them complete schools of ironwork in their balconies and vineyard gates. that of bellinzona is the best, though not very old--i suppose most of it of the seventeenth century; still it is very quaint and beautiful. here, for example, are two balconies, from two different houses; one has been a cardinal's, and the hat is the principal ornament of the balcony; its tassels being wrought with delightful delicacy and freedom; and catching the eye clearly even among the mass of rich wreathed leaves. these tassels and strings are precisely the kind of subject fit for ironwork--noble in ironwork, they would have been entirely ignoble in marble, on the grounds above stated. the real plant of oleander standing in the window enriches the whole group of lines very happily. the other balcony, from a very ordinary-looking house in the same street, is much more interesting in its details. it is shown in the plate as it appeared last summer, with convolvulus twined about the bars, the arrow-shaped living leaves mingled among the leaves of iron; but you may see in the centre of these real leaves a cluster of lighter ones, which are those of the ironwork itself. this cluster is worth giving a little larger to show its treatment. fig. (in appendix v.) is the front view of it: fig. , its profile. it is composed of a large tulip in the centre; then two turkscap lilies; then two pinks, a little conventionalized; then two narcissi; then two nondescripts, or, at least, flowers i do not know; and then two dark buds, and a few leaves. i say, dark buds, for all these flowers have been coloured in their original state. the plan of the group is exceedingly simple: it is all enclosed in a pointed arch (fig. , appendix v.): the large mass of the tulip forming the apex; a six-foiled star on each side; then a jagged star; then a five-foiled star; then an unjagged star or rose; finally a small bud, so as to establish relation and cadence through the whole group. the profile is very free and fine, and the upper bar of the balcony exceedingly beautiful in effect;--none the less so on account of the marvellously simple means employed. a thin strip of iron is bent over a square rod; out of the edge of this strip are cut a series of triangular openings--widest at top, leaving projecting teeth of iron (appendix, fig. ); then each of these projecting pieces gets a little sharp tap with the hammer in front, which beaks its edge inwards, tearing it a little open at the same time, and the thing is done. the common forms of swiss ironwork are less naturalistic than these italian balconies, depending more on beautiful arrangements of various curve; nevertheless, there has been a rich naturalist school at fribourg, where a few bell-handles are still left, consisting of rods branched into laurel and other leafage. at geneva, modern improvements have left nothing; but at annecy, a little good work remains; the balcony of its old hôtel de ville especially, with a trout of the lake --presumably the town arms--forming its central ornament. i might expatiate all night--if you would sit and hear me--on the treatment of such required subject, or introduction of pleasant caprice by the old workmen; but we have no more time to spare, and i must quit this part of our subject--the rather as i could not explain to you the intrinsic merit of such ironwork without going fully into the theory of curvilinear design; only let me leave with you this one distinct assertion--that the quaint beauty and character of many natural objects, such as intricate branches, grass, foliage (especially thorny branches and prickly foliage), as well as that of many animals, plumed, spined, or bristled, is sculpturally expressible in iron only, and in iron would be majestic and impressive in the highest degree; and that every piece of metal work you use might be, rightly treated, not only a superb decoration, but a most valuable abstract of portions of natural forms, holding in dignity precisely the same relation to the painted representation of plants, that a statue does to the painted form of man. it is difficult to give you an idea of the grace and interest which the simplest objects possess when their forms are thus abstracted from among the surrounding of rich circumstance which in nature disturbs the feebleness of our attention. in plate , a few blades of common green grass, and a wild leaf or two--just as they were thrown by nature,--are thus abstracted from the associated redundance of the forms about them, and shown on a dark ground: every cluster of herbage would furnish fifty such groups, and every such group would work into iron (fitting it, of course, rightly to its service) with perfect ease, and endless grandeur of result. iii. iron in policy.--having thus obtained some idea of the use of iron in art, as dependent on its ductility, i need not, certainly, say anything of its uses in manufacture and commerce; we all of us know enough,--perhaps a little too much--about _them_. so i pass lastly to consider its uses in policy; dependent chiefly upon its tenacity-- that is to say, on its power of bearing a pull, and receiving an edge. these powers, which enable it to pierce, to bind, and to smite, render it fit for the three great instruments, by which its political action may be simply typified; namely, the plough, the fetter, and the sword. on our understanding the right use of these three instruments, depend, of course, all our power as a nation, and all our happiness as individuals. i. the plough.--i say, first, on our understanding the right use of the plough, with which, in justice to the fairest of our labourers, we must always associate that feminine plough--the needle. the first requirement for the happiness of a nation is that it should understand the function in this world of these two great instruments: a happy nation may be defined as one in which the husband's hand is on the plough, and the housewife's on the needle; so in due time reaping its golden harvest, and shining in golden vesture: and an unhappy nation is one which, acknowledging no use of plough nor needle, will assuredly at last find its storehouse empty in the famine, and its breast naked to the cold. perhaps you think this is a mere truism, which i am wasting your time in repeating. i wish it were. by far the greater part of the suffering and crime which exist at this moment in civilized europe, arises simply from people not understanding this truism--not knowing that produce or wealth is eternally connected by the laws of heaven and earth with resolute labour; but hoping in some way to cheat or abrogate this everlasting law of life, and to feed where they have not furrowed, and be warm where they have not woven. i repeat, nearly all our misery and crime result from this one misapprehension. the law of nature is, that a certain quantity of work is necessary to produce a certain quantity of good, of any kind whatever. if you want knowledge, you must toil for it: if food, you must toil for it; and if pleasure, you must toil for it. but men do not acknowledge this law, or strive to evade it, hoping to get their knowledge, and food, and pleasure for nothing; and in this effort they either fail of getting them, and remain ignorant and miserable, or they obtain them by making other men work for their benefit; and then they are tyrants and robbers. yes, and worse than robbers. i am not one who in the least doubts or disputes the progress of this century in many things useful to mankind; but it seems to me a very dark sign respecting us that we look with so much indifference upon dishonesty and cruelty in the pursuit of wealth. in the dream of nebuchadnezzar it was only the _feet_ that were part of iron and part of clay; but many of us are now getting so cruel in our avarice, that it seems as if, in us, the _heart_ were part of iron, and part of clay. from what i have heard of the inhabitants of this town, i do not doubt but that i may be permitted to do here what i have found it usually thought elsewhere highly improper and absurd to do, namely, trace a few bible sentences to their practical result. you cannot but have noticed how often in those parts of the bible which are likely to be oftenest opened when people look for guidance, comfort, or help in the affairs of daily life, namely, the psalms and proverbs, mention is made of the guilt attaching to the _oppression_ of the poor. observe: not the neglect of them, but the _oppression_ of them: the word is as frequent as it is strange. you can hardly open either of those books, but somewhere in their pages you will find a description of the wicked man's attempts against the poor: such as--"he doth ravish the poor when he getteth him into his net." "he sitteth in the lurking places of the villages; his eyes are privily set against the poor." "in his pride he doth persecute the poor, and blesseth the covetous, whom god abhorreth." "his mouth is full of deceit and fraud; in the secret places doth he murder the innocent. have the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread? they have drawn out the sword, and bent the bow, to cast down the poor and needy." "they are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression." "pride compasseth them about as a chain, and violence as a garment." "their poison is like the poison of a serpent. ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth." yes: "ye weigh the violence of your hands:"--weigh these words as well. the last things we ever usually think of weighing are bible words. we like to dream and dispute over them; but to weigh them, and see what their true contents are--anything but that. yet, weigh these; for i have purposely taken all these verses, perhaps more striking to you read in this connection, than separately in their places, out of the psalms, because, for all people belonging to the established church of this country these psalms are appointed lessons, portioned out to them by their clergy to be read once through every month. presumably, therefore, whatever portions of scripture we may pass by or forget, these at all events, must be brought continually to our observance as useful for direction of daily life. now, do we ever ask ourselves what the real meaning of these passages may be, and who these wicked people are, who are "murdering the innocent?" you know it is rather singular language this!--rather strong language, we might, perhaps, call it-- hearing it for the first time. murder! and murder of innocent people!-- nay, even a sort of cannibalism. eating people,--yes, and god's people, too--eating _my_ people as if they were bread! swords drawn, bows bent, poison of serpents mixed! violence of hands weighed, measured, and trafficked with as so much coin! where is all this going on? do you suppose it was only going on in the time of david, and that nobody but jews ever murder the poor? if so, it would surely be wiser not to mutter and mumble for our daily lessons what does not concern us; but if there be any chance that it may concern us, and if this description, in the psalms, of human guilt is at all generally applicable, as the descriptions in the psalms of human sorrow are, may it not be advisable to know wherein this guilt is being committed round about us, or by ourselves? and when we take the words of the bible into our mouths in a congregational way, to be sure whether we mean merely to chant a piece of melodious poetry relating to other people--(we know not exactly to whom)--or to assert our belief in facts bearing somewhat stringently on ourselves and our daily business. and if you make up your minds to do this no longer, and take pains to examine into the matter, you will find that these strange words, occurring as they do, not in a few places only, but almost in every alternate psalm and every alternate chapter of proverb, or prophecy, with tremendous reiteration, were not written for one nation or one time only; but for all nations and languages, for all places and all centuries; and it is as true of the wicked man now as ever it was of nabal or dives, that "his eyes are set against the poor." set _against_ the poor, mind you. not merely set _away_ from the poor, so as to neglect or lose sight of them, but set against, so as to afflict and destroy them. this is the main point i want to fix. your attention upon. you will often hear sermons about neglect or carelessness of the poor. but neglect and carelessness are not at all the points. the bible hardly ever talks about neglect of the poor. it always talks of _oppression_ of the poor--a very different matter. it does not merely speak of passing by on the other side, and binding up no wounds, but of drawing the sword and ourselves smiting the men down. it does not charge us with being idle in the pest-house, and giving no medicine, but with being busy in the pest-house, and giving much poison. may we not advisedly look into this matter a little, even tonight, and ask first, who are these poor? no country is, or ever will be, without them: that is to say, without the class which cannot, on the average, do more by its labour than provide for its subsistence, and which has no accumulations of property laid by on any considerable scale. now there are a certain number of this class whom we cannot oppress with much severity. an able-bodied and intelligent workman--sober, honest, and industrious, will almost always command a fair price for his work, and lay by enough in a few years to enable him to hold his own in the labour market. but all men are not able-bodied, nor intelligent, nor industrious; and you cannot expect them to be. nothing appears to me at once more ludicrous and more melancholy than the way the people of the present age usually talk about the morals of labourers. you hardly ever address a labouring man upon his prospects in life, without quietly assuming that he is to possess, at starting, as a small moral capital to begin with, the virtue of socrates, the philosophy of plato, and the heroism of epaminondas. "be assured, my good man,"--you say to him,--"that if you work steadily for ten hours a day all your life long, and if you drink nothing but water, or the very mildest beer, and live on very plain food, and never lose your temper, and go to church every sunday, and always remain content in the position in which providence has placed you, and never grumble nor swear; and always keep your clothes decent, and rise early, and use every opportunity of improving yourself, you will get on very well, and never come to the parish." all this is exceedingly true; but before giving the advice so confidently, it would be well if we sometimes tried it practically ourselves, and spent a year or so at some hard manual labour, not of an entertaining kind--ploughing or digging, for instance, with a very moderate allowance of beer; nothing hut bread and cheese for dinner; no papers nor muffins in the morning; no sofas nor magazines at night; one small room for parlour and kitchen; and a large family of children always in the middle of the floor. if we think we could, under these circumstances, enact socrates or epaminondas entirely to our own satisfaction, we shall be somewhat justified in requiring the same behaviour from our poorer neighbours; but if not, we should surely consider a little whether among the various forms of the oppression of the poor, we may not rank as one of the first and likeliest--the oppression of expecting too much from them. but let this pass; and let it be admitted that we can never be guilty of oppression towards the sober, industrious, intelligent, exemplary labourer. there will always be in the world some who are not altogether, intelligent and exemplary; we shall, i believe, to the end of time find the majority somewhat unintelligent, a little inclined to be idle, and occasionally, on saturday night, drunk; we must even be prepared to hear of reprobates who like skittles on sunday morning better than prayers; and of unnatural parents who send their children out to beg instead of to go to school. now these are the kind of people whom you _can_ oppress, and whom you do oppress, and that to purpose,--and with all the more cruelty and the greater sting, because it is just their own fault that puts them into your power. you know the words about wicked people are, "he doth ravish the poor when he getteth him _into his net_." this getting into the net is constantly the fault or folly of the sufferer--his own heedlessness or his own indolence; but after he is once in the net, the oppression of him, and making the most of his distress, are ours. the nets which we use against the poor are just those worldly embarrassments which either their ignorance or their improvidence are almost certain at some time or other to bring them into: then, just at the time when we ought to hasten to help them, and disentangle them, and teach them how to manage better in future, we rush forward to _pillage_ them, and force all we can out of them in their adversity. for, to take one instance only, remember this is literally and simply what we do, whenever we buy, or try to buy, cheap goods-- goods offered at a price which we know cannot be remunerative for the labour involved in them. whenever we buy such goods, remember we are stealing somebody's labour. don't let us mince the matter. i say, in plain saxon, stealing--taking from him the proper reward of his work, and putting it into our own pocket. you know well enough that the thing could not have been offered you at that price, unless distress of some kind had forced the producer to part with it. you take advantage of this distress, and you force as much out of him as you can under the circumstances. the old barons of the middle ages used, in general, the thumbscrew to extort property; we moderns use, in preference, hunger or domestic affliction: but the fact of extortion remains precisely the same. whether we force the man's property from him by pinching his stomach, or pinching his fingers, makes some difference anatomically;-- morally, none whatsoever: we use a form of torture of some sort in order to make him give up his property; we use, indeed, the man's own anxieties, instead of the rack; and his immediate peril of starvation, instead of the pistol at the head; but otherwise we differ from front de bÅ�uf, or dick turpin, merely in being less dexterous, more cowardly, and more cruel. more cruel, i say, because the fierce baron and the redoubted highwayman are reported to have robbed, at least by preference, only the rich; _we_ steal habitually from the poor. we buy our liveries, and gild our prayer-books, with pilfered pence out of children's and sick men's wages, and thus ingeniously dispose a given quantity of theft, so that it may produce the largest possible measure of delicately distributed suffering. but this is only one form of common oppression of the poor--only one way of taking our hands off the plough handle, and binding another's upon it. this first way of doing it is the economical way--the way preferred by prudent and virtuous people. the bolder way is the acquisitive way:--the way of speculation. you know we are considering at present the various modes in which a nation corrupts itself, by not acknowledging the eternal connection between its plough and its pleasure;--by striving to get pleasure, without working for it. well, i say the first and commonest way of doing so is to try to get the product of other people's work, and enjoy it ourselves, by cheapening their labour in times of distress: then the second way is that grand one of watching the chances of the market;--the way of speculation. of course there are some speculations that are fair and honest-- speculations made with our own money, and which do not involve in their success the loss, by others, of what we gain. but generally modern speculation involves much risk to others, with chance of profit only to ourselves: even in its best conditions it is merely one of the forms of gambling or treasure hunting; it is either leaving the steady plough and the steady pilgrimage of life, to look for silver mines beside the way; or else it is the full stop beside the dice-tables in vanity fair --investing all the thoughts and passions of the soul in the fall of the cards, and choosing rather the wild accidents of idle fortune than the calm and accumulative rewards of toil. and this is destructive enough, at least to our peace and virtue. but is usually destructive of far more than _our_ peace, or _our_ virtue. have you ever deliberately set yourselves to imagine and measure the suffering, the guilt, and the mortality caused necessarily by the failure of any large-dealing merchant, or largely-branched bank? take it at the lowest possible supposition- count, at the fewest you choose, the families whose means of support have been involved in the catastrophe. then, on the morning after the intelli- gence of ruin, let us go forth amongst them in earnest thought; let us use that imagination which we waste so often on fictitious sorrow, to measure the stern facts of that multitudinous distress; strike open the private doors of their chambers, and enter silently into the midst of the domestic misery; look upon the old men, who had reserved for their failing strength some remainder of rest in the evening-tide of life, cast helplessly back into its trouble and tumult; look upon the active strength of middle age suddenly blasted into incapacity--its hopes crushed, and its hardly earned rewards snatched away in the same instant--at once the heart withered, and the right arm snapped; look upon the piteous children, delicately nurtured, whose soft eyes, now large with wonder at their parents' grief, must soon be set in the dimness of famine; and, far more than all this, look forward to the length of sorrow beyond--to the hardest labour of life, now to be undergone either in all the severity of unexpected and inexperienced trial, or else, more bitter still, to be begun again, and endured for the second time, amidst the ruins of cherished hopes and the feebleness of advancing years, embittered by the continual sting and taunt of the inner feeling that it has all been brought about, not by the fair course of appointed circumstance, but by miserable chance and wanton treachery; and, last of all, look beyond this--to the shattered destinies of those who have faltered under the trial, and sunk past recovery to despair. and then consider whether the hand which has poured this poison into all the springs of life be one whit less guiltily red with human blood than that which literally pours the hemlock into the cup, or guides the dagger to the heart? we read with horror of the crimes of a borgia or a tophana; but there never lived borgias such as live now in the midst of us. the cruel lady of ferrara slew only in the strength of passion--she slew only a few, those who thwarted her purposes or who vexed her soul; she slew sharply and suddenly, embittering the fate of her victims with no foretastes of destruction, no prolongations of pain; and, finally and chiefly, she slew, not without remorse, nor without pity. but _we,_ in no storm of passion--in no blindness of wrath,--we, in calm and clear and untempted selfishness, pour our poison--not for a few only, but for multitudes;--not for those who have wronged us, or resisted,--but for those who have trusted us and aided:--we, not with sudden gift of merciful and unconscious death, but with slow waste of hunger and weary rack of disappointment and despair;--we, last and chiefly, do our murdering, not with any pauses of pity or scorching of conscience, but in facile and forgetful calm of mind--and so, forsooth, read day by day, complacently, as if they meant any one else than ourselves, the words that forever describe the wicked: "the _poison of asps_ is under their lips, and their _feet are swift to shed blood._" you may indeed, perhaps, think there is some excuse for many in this matter, just because the sin is so unconscious; that the guilt is not so great when it is unapprehended, and that it is much more pardonable to slay heedlessly than purposefully. i believe no feeling can be more mistaken, and that in reality, and in the sight of heaven; the callous indifference which pursues its own interests at any cost of life, though it does not definitely adopt the purpose of sin, is a state of mind at once more heinous and more hopeless than the wildest aberrations of ungoverned passion. there may be, in the last case, some elements of good and of redemption still mingled in the character; but, in the other, few or none. there may be hope for the man who has slain his enemy in anger; hope even for the man who has betrayed his friend in fear; but what hope for him who trades in unregarded blood, and builds his fortune on unrepented treason? but, however this may be, and wherever you may think yourselves bound in justice to impute the greater sin, be assured that the question is one of responsibilities only, not of facts. the definite result of all our modern haste to be rich is assuredly, and constantly, the murder of a certain number of persons by our hands every year. i have not time to go into the details of another--on the whole, the broadest and terriblest way in which we cause the destruction of the poor--namely, the way of luxury and waste, destroying, in improvidence, what might have been the support of thousands; [footnote: the analysis of this error will be found completely carried out in my lectures on the political economy of art. and it is an error worth analyzing; for until it is finally trodden under foot, no healthy political, economical, or moral action is _possible_ in any state. i do not say this impetuously or suddenly, for i have investigated this subject as deeply; and as long, as my own special subject of art; and the principles of political economy which i have stated in those lectures are as sure as the principles of euclid. foolish readers doubted their certainty, because i told them i had "never read any books on political economy" did they suppose i had got my knowledge of art by reading books?] but if you follow out the subject for yourselves at home--and what i have endeavoured to lay before you to-night will only be useful to you if you do--you will find that wherever and whenever men are endeavouring to _make money hastily_, and to avoid the labour which providence has appointed to be tho only source of honourable profit;--and also wherever and whenever they permit themselves to _spend it luxuriously_, without reflecting how far they are misguiding the labour of others;--there and then, in either case, they are literally and infallibly causing, for their own benefit or their own pleasure, a certain annual number of human deaths; that, therefore, the choice given to every man born into this world is, simply, whether he will be a labourer, or an assassin; and that whosoever has not his hand on the stilt of the plough, has it on the hilt of the dagger. it would also be quite vain for me to endeavour to follow out this evening the lines of thought which would be suggested by the other two great political uses of iron in the fetter and the sword: a few words only i must permit myself respecting both. . the fetter.--as the plough is the typical instrument of industry, so the fetter is the typical instrument of the restraint or subjection necessary in a nation--either literally, for its evil-doers, or figuratively, in accepted laws, for its wise and good men. you have to choose between this figurative and literal use; for depend upon it, the more laws you accept, the fewer penalties you will have to endure, and the fewer punishments to enforce. for wise laws and just restraints are to a noble nation not chains, but chain mail--strength and defence, though something also of an incumbrance. and this necessity of restraint, remember, is just as honourable to man as the necessity of labour. you hear every day greater numbers of foolish people speaking about liberty, as if it were such an honourable thing: so far from being that, it is, on the whole, and in the broadest sense, dishonourable, and an attribute of the lower creatures. no human being, however great or powerful, was ever so free as a fish. there is always something that he must, or must not do; while the fish may do whatever he likes. all the kingdoms of the world put together are not half so large as the sea, and all the railroads and wheels that ever were, or will be, invented are not so easy as fins. you will find, on fairly thinking of it, that it is his restraint which is honourable to man, not his liberty; and, what is more, it is restraint which is honourable even in the lower animals. a butterfly is much more free than a bee; but you honour the bee more, just because it is subject to certain laws which fit it for orderly function in bee society and throughout the world, of the two abstract things, liberty and restraint, restraint is always the more honourable. it is true, indeed, that in these and all other matters you never can reason finally from the abstraction, for both liberty and restraint are good when they are nobly chosen, and both are bad when they are basely chosen; but of the two, i repeat, it is restraint which characterizes the higher creature, and betters the lower creature: and, from the ministering of the archangel to the labour of the insect,--from the poising of the planets to the gravitation of a grain of dust,--the power and glory of all creatures, and all matter, consist in their obedience, not in their freedom. the sun has no liberty--a dead leaf has much. the dust of which you are formed has no liberty. its liberty will come--with its corruption. and, therefore, i say boldly, though it seems a strange thing to say in england, that as the first power of a nation consists in knowing how to guide the plough, its second power consists in knowing how to wear the fetter:-- . the sword.--and its third power, which perfects it as a nation, consist in knowing how to wield the sword, so that the three talismans of national existence are expressed in these three short words--labour, law, and courage. this last virtue we at least possess; and all that is to be alleged against us is that we do not honour it enough. i do not mean honour by acknowledgment of service, though sometimes we are slow in doing even that. but we do not honour it enough in consistent regard to the lives and souls of our soldiers. how wantonly we have wasted their lives you have seen lately in the reports of their mortality by disease, which a little care and science might have prevented; but we regard their souls less than their lives, by keeping them in ignorance and idleness, and regarding them merely as instruments of battle. the argument brought forward for the maintenance of a standing army usually refers only to expediency in the case of unexpected war, whereas, one of the chief reasons for the maintenance of an army is the advantage of the military system as a method of education. the most fiery and headstrong, who are often also the most gifted and generous of your youths, have always a tendency both in the lower and upper classes to offer themselves for your soldiers: others, weak and unserviceable in a civil capacity, are tempted or entrapped into the army in a fortunate hour for them: out of this fiery or uncouth material, it is only a soldier's discipline which can bring the full value and power. even at present, by mere force of order and authority, the army is the salvation of myriads; and men who, under other circumstances, would have sunk into lethargy or dissipation, are redeemed into noble life by a service which at once summons and directs their energies. how much more than this military education is capable of doing, you will find only when you make it education indeed. we have no excuse for leaving our private soldiers at their present level of ignorance and want of refinement, for we shall invariably find that, both among officers and men, the gentlest and best informed are the bravest; still less have we excuse for diminishing our army, either in the present state of political events, or, as i believe, in any other conjunction of them that for many a year will be possible in this world. you may, perhaps, be surprised at my saying this; perhaps surprised at my implying that war itself can be right, or necessary, or noble at all. nor do i speak of all war as necessary, nor of all war as noble. both peace and war are noble or ignoble according to their kind and occasion. no man has a profounder sense of the horror and guilt of ignoble war than i have: i have personally seen its effects, upon nations, of unmitigated evil, on soul and body, with perhaps as much pity, and as much bitterness of indignation, as any of those whom you will hear continually declaiming in the cause of peace. but peace may be sought in two ways. one way is as gideon sought it, when he built his altar in ophrah, naming it, "god send peace," yet sought this peace that he loved, as he was ordered to seek it, and the peace was sent, in god's way:--"the country was in quietness forty years in the days of gideon." and the other way of seeking peace is as menahem sought it when he gave the king of assyria a thousand talents of silver, that "his hand might be with him." that is, you may either win your peace, or buy it:--win it, by resistance to evil;--buy it, by compromise with evil. you may buy your peace, with silenced consciences;--you may buy it, with broken vows,--buy it, with lying words,--buy it, with base connivances,--buy it, with the blood of the slain, and the cry of the captive, and the silence of lost souls--over hemispheres of the earth, while you sit smiling at your serene hearths, lisping comfortable prayers evening and morning, and counting your pretty protestant beads (which are flat, and of gold, instead of round, and of ebony, as the monks' ones were), and so mutter continually to yourselves, "peace, peace," when there is no peace; but only captivity and death, for you, as well as for those you leave unsaved;--and yours darker than theirs. i cannot utter to you what i would in this matter; we all see too dimly, as yet, what our great world-duties are, to allow any of us to try to outline their enlarging shadows. but think over what i have said, and as you return to your quiet homes to-night, reflect that their peace was not won for you by your own hands; but by theirs who long ago jeoparded their lives for you, their children; and remember that neither this inherited peace, nor any other, can be kept, but through the same jeopardy. no peace was ever won from fate by subterfuge or agreement; no peace is ever in store for any of us, but that which we shall win by victory over shame or sin;--victory over the sin that oppresses, as well as over that which corrupts. for many a year to come, the sword of every righteous nation must be whetted to save or subdue; nor will it be by patience of others' suffering, but by the offering of your own, that you ever will draw nearer to the time when the great change shall pass upon the iron of the earth;--when men shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; neither shall they learn war any more. appendices. appendix i. right and wrong. readers who are using my _elements of drawing_ may be surprised by my saying here that tintoret may lead them wrong; while in the _elements_ he is one of the six men named as being "always right." i bring the apparent inconsistency forward at the beginning of this appendix, because the illustration of it will be farther useful in showing the real nature of the self-contradiction which is often alleged against me by careless readers. it is not only possible, but a frequent condition of human action, to _do_ right and _be_ right--yet so as to mislead other people if they rashly imitate the thing done. for there are many rights which are not absolutely, but relatively right--right only for _that_ person to do under those circumstances,--not for _this_ person to do under other circumstances. thus it stands between titian and tintoret. titian is always absolutely right. you may imitate him with entire security that you are doing the best thing that can possibly be done for the purpose in hand. tintoret is always relatively right--relatively to his own aims and peculiar powers. but you must quite understand tintoret before you can be sure what his aim was, and why he was then right in doing what would not be right always. if, however, you take the pains thus to understand him, he becomes entirely instructive and exemplary, just as titian is; and therefore i have placed him among those are "always right," and you can only study him rightly with that reverence for him. then the artists who are named as "admitting question of right and wrong," are those who from some mischance of circumstance or short- coming in their education, do not always do right, even with relation to their own aims and powers. take for example the quality of imperfection in drawing form. there are many pictures of tintoret in which the trees are drawn with a few curved flourishes of the brush instead of leaves. that is (absolutely) wrong. if you copied the tree as a model, you would be going very wrong indeed. but it is relatively, and for tintoret's purposes, right. in the nature of the superficial work you will find there must have been a cause for it. somebody perhaps wanted the picture in a hurry to fill a dark corner. tintoret good-naturedly did all he could--painted the figures tolerably--had five minutes left only for the trees, when the servant came. "let him wait another five minutes." and this is the best foliage we can do in the time. entirely, admirably, unsurpassably right, under the conditions. titian would not have worked under them, but tintoret was kinder and humbler; yet he may lead you wrong if you don't understand him. or, perhaps, another day, somebody came in while tintoret was at work, who tormented tintoret. an ignoble person! titian would have been polite to him, and gone on steadily with his trees. tintoret cannot stand the ignobleness; it is unendurably repulsive and discomfiting to him. "the black plague take him--and the trees, too! shall such a fellow see me paint!" and the trees go all to pieces. this, in you, would be mere ill-breeding and ill-temper. in tintoret it was one of the necessary conditions of his intense sensibility; had he been capable, then, of keeping his temper, he could never have done his greatest works. let the trees go to pieces, by all means; it is quite right they should; he is always right. but in a background of gainsborough you would find the trees unjustifiably gone to pieces. the carelessness of form there is definitely purposed by him;--adopted as an advisable thing; and therefore it is both absolutely and relatively wrong;--it indicates his being imperfectly educated as a painter, and not having brought out all his powers. it may still happen that the man whose work thus partially erroneous is greater far, than others who have fewer faults. gainsborough's and reynolds' wrongs are more charming than almost anybody else's right. still, they occasionally _are_ wrong--but the venetians and velasquez, [footnote: at least after his style was formed; early pictures, like the adoration of the magi in our gallery, are of little value.] never. i ought, perhaps, to have added in that manchester address (only one does not like to say things that shock people) some words of warning against painters likely to mislead the student. for indeed, though here and there something may be gained by looking at inferior men, there is always more to be gained by looking at the best; and there is not time, with all the looking of human life, to exhaust even one great painter's instruction. how then shall we dare to waste our sight and thoughts on inferior ones, even if we could do so, which we rarely can, without danger of being led astray? nay, strictly speaking, what people call inferior painters are in general no painters. artists are divided by an impassable gulf into the men who can paint, and who cannot. the men who can paint often fall short of what they should have done;--are repressed, or defeated, or otherwise rendered inferior one to another: still there is an everlasting barrier between them and the men who cannot paint--who can only in various popular ways pretend to paint. and if once you know the difference, there is always some good to be got by looking at a real painter--seldom anything but mischief to be got out of a false one; but do not suppose real painters are common. i do not speak of living men; but among those who labour no more, in this england of ours, since it first had a school, we have had only five real painters;--reynolds, gainsborough, hogarth, richard wilson, and turner. the reader may, perhaps, think i have forgotten wilkie. no. i once much overrated him as an expressional draughtsman, not having then studied the figure long enough to be able to detect superficial sentiment. but his colour i have never praised; it is entirely false and valueless. and it would tie unjust to english art if i did not here express my regret that the admiration of constable, already harmful enough in england, is extending even into france. there was, perhaps, the making, in constable, of a second or third-rate painter, if any careful discipline had developed in him the instincts which, though unparalleled for narrowness, were, as far as they went, true. but as it is, he is nothing more than an industrious and innocent amateur blundering his way to a superficial expression of one or two popular aspects of common nature. and my readers may depend upon it, that all blame which i express in this sweeping way is trustworthy. i have often had to repent of over- praise of inferior men; and continually to repent of insufficient praise of great men; but of broad condemnation, never. for i do not speak it but after the most searching examination of the matter, and under stern sense of need for it: so that whenever the reader is entirely shocked by what i say, he may be assured every word is true.[footnote: he must, however, be careful to distinguish blame-- however strongly expressed, of some special fault or error in a true painter,--from these general statements of inferiority or worthlessness. thus he will find me continually laughing at wilson's tree-painting; not because wilson could not paint, but because he had never looked at a tree.] it is just because it so much offends him, that it was necessary: and knowing that it must offend him, i should not have ventured to say it, without certainty of its truth. i say "certainty," for it is just as possible to be certain whether the drawing of a tree or a stone is true or false, as whether the drawing of a triangle is; and what i mean primarily by saying that a picture is in all respects worthless, is that it is in all respects false: which is not a matter of opinion at all, but a matter of ascertainable fact, such as i never assert till i have ascertained. and the thing so commonly said about my writings, that they are rather persuasive than just; and that though my "language" may be good, i am an unsafe guide in art criticism, is, like many other popular estimates in such matters, not merely untrue, but precisely the reverse of the truth; it is truth, like reflections in water, distorted much by the shaking receptive surface, and in every particular, upside down. for my "language," until within the last six or seven years, was loose, obscure, and more or less feeble; and still, though i have tried hard to mend it, the best i can do is inferior to much contemporary work. no description that i have ever given of anything is worth four lines of tennyson; and in serious thought, my half-pages are generally only worth about as much as a single sentence either of his, or of carlyle's. they are, i well trust, as true and necessary; but they are neither so concentrated nor so well put. but i am an entirely safe guide in art judgment: and that simply as the necessary result of my having given the labour of life to the determination of facts, rather than to the following of feelings or theories. not, indeed, that my work is free from mistakes; it admits many, and always must admit many, from its scattered range; but, in the long run, it will be found to enter sternly and searchingly into the nature of what it deals with, and the kind of mistake it admits is never dangerous, consisting, usually, in pressing the truth too far. it is quite easy, for instance, to take an accidental irregularity in a piece of architecture, which less careful examination would never have detected at all, for an intentional irregularity; quite possible to misinterpret an obscure passage in a picture, which a less earnest observer would never have tried to interpret. but mistakes of this kind--honest, enthusiastic mistakes--are never harmful; because they are always made in a true direction,--falls forward on the road, not into the ditch beside it; and they are sure to be corrected by the next comer. but the blunt and dead mistakes made by too many other writers on art--the mistakes of sheer inattention, and want of sympathy--are mortal. the entire purpose of a great thinker may be difficult to fathom, and we may be over and over again more or less mistaken in guessing at his meaning; but the real, profound, nay, quite bottomless, and unredeemable mistake, is the fool's thought--that he had no meaning. i do not refer, in saying this, to any of my statements respecting subjects which it has been my main work to study: as far as i am aware, i have never yet misinterpreted any picture of turner's, though often remaining blind to the half of what he had intended: neither have i as yet found anything to correct in my statements respecting venetian architecture; [footnote: the subtle portions of the byzantine palaces, given in precise measurements in the second volume of the "stones of venice," were alleged by architects to be accidental irregularities. they will be found, by every one who will take the pains to examine them, most assuredly and indisputably intentional,--and not only so, but one of the principal subjects of the designer's care.] but in _casual references_ to what has been quickly seen, it is impossible to guard wholly against error, without losing much valuable observation, true in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, and harmless even when erroneous. appendix ii. reynolds' disappointment. it is very fortunate that in the fragment of mason's mss., published lately by mr. cotton in his "sir joshua reynolds' notes," [footnote: smith, soho square, .] record is preserved of sir joshua's feelings respecting the paintings in the window of new college, which might otherwise have been supposed to give his full sanction to this mode of painting on glass. nothing can possibly be more curious, to my mind, than the great painter's expectations; or his having at all entertained the idea that the qualities of colour which are peculiar to opaque bodies could be obtained in a transparent medium; but so it is: and with the simplicity and humbleness of an entirely great man he hopes that mr. jervas on glass is to excel sir joshua on canvas. happily, mason tells us the result. "with the copy jervas made of this picture he was grievously disappointed. 'i had frequently,' he said to me, 'pleased myself by reflecting, after i had produced what i thought a brilliant effect of light and shadow on my canvas, how greatly that effect would be heightened by the transparency which the painting on glass would be sure to produce. it turned out quite the reverse.'" appendix iii. classical architecture. this passage in the lecture was illustrated by an enlargement of the woodcut, fig. ; but i did not choose to disfigure the middle of this book with it. it is copied from the th plate of the third edition of the _encyclopædia britannica_ (edinburgh, ), and represents an english farmhouse arranged on classical principles. if the reader cares to consult the work itself, he will find in the same plate another composition of similar propriety, and dignified by the addition of a pediment, beneath the shadow of which "a private gentleman who has a small family may find conveniency." appendix iv. subtlety of hand. i had intended in one or other of these lectures to have spoken at some length of the quality of refinement in colour, but found the subject would lead me too far. a few words are, however, necessary in order to explain some expressions in the text. "refinement in colour" is indeed a tautological expression, for colour, in the true sense of the word, does not exist until it _is_ refined. dirt exists,--stains exist,--and pigments exist, easily enough in all places; and are laid on easily enough by all hands; but colour exists only where there is tenderness, and can be laid on only by a hand which has strong life in it. the law concerning colour is very strange, very noble, in some sense almost awful. in every given touch laid on canvas, if one grain of the colour is inoperative, and does not take its full part in producing the hue, the hue will be imperfect. the grain of colour which does not work is dead. it infects all about it with its death. it must be got quit of, or the touch is spoiled. we acknowledge this instinctively in our use of the phrases "dead colour," "killed colour," "foul colour." those words are, in some sort, literally true. if more colour is put on than is necessary, a heavy touch when a light one would have been enough, the quantity of colour that was not wanted, and is overlaid by the rest, is as dead, and it pollutes the rest. there will be no good in the touch. the art of painting, properly so called, consists in laying on the least possible colour that will produce the required result, and this measurement, in all the ultimate, that is to say, the principal, operations of colouring, is so delicate that not one human hand in a million has the required lightness. the final touch of any painter properly so named, of correggio--titian--turner--or reynolds--would be always quite invisible to any one watching the progress of the work, the films of hue being laid thinner than the depths of the grooves in mother-of-pearl. the work may be swift, apparently careless, nay, to the painter himself almost unconscious. great painters are so organized that they do their best work without effort: but analyze the touches afterwards, and you will find the structure and depth of the colour laid mathematically demonstrable to be of literally infinite fineness, the last touches passing away at their edges by untraceable gradation. the very essence of a master's work may thus be removed by a picture- cleaner in ten minutes. observe, however, this thinness exists only in portions of the ultimate touches, for which the preparation may often have been made with solid colours, commonly, and literally, called "dead colouring," but even that is always subtle if a master lays it--subtle at least in drawing, if simple in hue; and farther, observe that the refinement of work consists not in laying absolutely _little_ colour, but in always laying precisely the right quantity. to lay on little needs indeed the rare lightness of hand; but to lay much,--yet not one atom _too_ much, and obtain subtlety, not by withholding strength, but by precision of pause,--that is the master's final sign-manual--power, knowledge, and tenderness all united. a great deal of colour may often be wanted; perhaps quite a mass of it, such as shall project from the canvas; but the real painter lays this mass of its required thickness and shape with as much precision as if it were a bud of a flower which he had to touch into blossom; one of turner's loaded fragments of white cloud is modelled and gradated in an instant, as if it alone were the subject of the picture, when the same quantity of colour, under another hand, would be a lifeless lump. the following extract from a letter in the _literary gazette_ of th november, , which i was obliged to write to defend a questioned expression respecting turner's subtlety of hand from a charge of hyperbole, contains some interesting and conclusive evidence on the point, though it refers to pencil and chalk drawing only:-- "i must ask you to allow me yet leave to reply to the objections you make to two statements in my catalogue, as those objections would otherwise diminish its usefulness. i have asserted that, in a given drawing (named as one of the chief in the series), turner's pencil did not move over the thousandth of an inch without meaning; and you charge this expression with extravagant hyperbole. on the contrary, it is much within the truth, being merely a mathematically accurate description of fairly good execution in either drawing or engraving. it is only necessary to measure a piece of any ordinary good work to ascertain this. take, for instance, finden's engraving at the th page of rogers' poems; in which the face of the figure, from the chin to the top of the brow, occupies just a quarter of an inch, and the space between the upper lip and chin as nearly as possible one-seventeenth of an inch. the whole mouth occupies one-third of this space, say one- fiftieth of an inch, and within that space both the lips and the much more difficult inner corner of the mouth are perfectly drawn and rounded, with quite successful and sufficiently subtle expression. any artist will assure you that in order to draw a mouth as well as this, there must be more than twenty gradations of shade in the touches; that is to say, in this case, gradations changing, with meaning, within less than the thousandth of an inch. "but this is mere child's play compared to the refinement of a first- rate mechanical work--much more of brush or pencil drawing by a master's hand. in order at once to furnish you with authoritative evidence on this point, i wrote to mr. kingsley, tutor of sidney-sussex college, a friend to whom i always have recourse when i want to be precisely right in any matter; for his great knowledge both of mathematics and of natural science is joined, not only with singular powers of delicate experimental manipulation, but with a keen sensitiveness to beauty in art. his answer, in its final statement respecting turner's work, is amazing even to me, and will, i should think, be more so to your readers. observe the successions of measured and tested refinement: here is no. :-- "'the finest mechanical work that i know, which is not optical, is that done by nobert in the way of ruling lines. i have a series ruled by him on glass, giving actual scales from . and . of an inch, perfectly correct to these places of decimals, and he has executed others as fine as . , though i do not know how far he could repeat these last with accuracy.' "this is no. of precision. mr. kingsley proceeds to no. :-- "'but this is rude work compared to the accuracy necessary for the construction of the object-glass of a microscope such as rosse turns out.' "i am sorry to omit the explanation which follows of the ten lenses composing such a glass, 'each of which must be exact in radius and in surface, and all have their axes coincident:' but it would not be intelligible without the figure by which it is illustrated; so i pass to mr. kingsley's no. :-- "'i am tolerably familiar,' he proceeds, 'with the actual grinding and polishing of lenses and specula, and have produced by my own hand some by no means bad optical work, and i have copied no small amount of turner's work, and _i still look with awe at the combined delicacy and precision of his hand_; it beats optical work out of sight. in optical work, as in refined drawing, the hand goes beyond the eye, and one has to depend upon the feel; and when one has once learned what a delicate affair touch is, one gets a horror of all coarse work, and is ready to forgive any amount of feebleness, sooner than that boldness which is akin to impudence. in optics the distinction is easily seen when the work is put to trial; but here too, as in drawing, it requires an educated eye to tell the difference when the work is only moderately bad; but with "bold" work, nothing can be seen but distortion and fog: and i heartily wish the same result would follow the same kind of handling in drawing; but here, the boldness cheats the unlearned by looking like the precision of the true man. it is very strange how much better our ears are than our eyes in this country: if an ignorant man were to be "bold" with a violin, he would not get many admirers, though his boldness was far below that of ninety-nine out of a hundred drawings one sees.' "the words which i have put in italics in the above extract are those which were surprising to me. i knew that turner's was as refined as any optical work, but had no idea of its going beyond it. mr. kingsley's word 'awe' occurring just before, is, however, as i have often felt, precisely the right one. when once we begin at all to understand the handling of any truly great executor, such as that of any of the three great venetians, of correggio, or turner, the awe of it is something greater than can be felt from the most stupendous natural scenery. for the creation of such a system as a high human intelligence, endowed with its ineffably perfect instruments of eye and hand, is a far more appalling manifestation of infinite power, than the making either of seas or mountains. "after this testimony to the completion of turner's work, i need not at length defend myself from the charge of hyperbole in the statement that, 'as far as i know, the galleries of europe may be challenged to produce one sketch [footnote: a sketch, observe,--not a finished drawing. sketches are only proper subjects of comparison with each other when they contain about the same quantity of work: the test of their merit is the quantity of truth told with a given number of touches. the assertion in the catalogue which this letter was written to defend, was made respecting the sketch of rome, no. .] that shall equal the chalk study no. , or the feeblest of the memoranda in the st and following frames;' which memoranda, however, it should have been observed, are stated at the th page to be in some respects 'the grandest work in grey that he did in his life.' for i believe that, as manipulators, none but the four men whom i have just named (the three venetians and correggio) were equal to turner; and, as far as i know, none of those four ever put their full strength into sketches. but whether they did or not, my statement in the catalogue is limited by my own knowledge: and, as far as i can trust that knowledge, it is not an enthusiastic statement, but an entirely calm and considered one. it may be a mistake but it is not a hyperbole." appendix v. i can only give, to illustrate this balcony, fac-similes of rough memoranda made on a single leaf of my note-book, with a tired hand; but it may be useful to young students to see them, in order that they may know the difference between notes made to get at the gist and heart of a thing, and notes made merely to look neat. only it must be observed that the best characters of free drawing are always lost even in the most careful facsimile; and i should not show even these slight notes in woodcut imitation, unless the reader had it in his power, by a glance at the st or th plates in _modern painters_ (and yet better, by trying to copy a piece of either of them), to ascertain how far i can draw or not. i refer to these plates, because, though i distinctly stated in the preface that they, together with the th, th, th, and th, were executed on the steel by my own hand, (the use of the dry point in the foregrounds of the th and st plates being moreover wholly different from the common processes of etching) i find it constantly assumed that they were engraved for me--as if direct lying in such matters were a thing of quite common usage. fig. is the centre-piece of the balcony, but a leaf-spray is omitted on the right-hand side, having been too much buried among the real leaves to be drawn. fig. shows the intended general effect of its masses, the five-leaved and six-leaved flowers being clearly distinguishable at any distance. fig. is its profile, rather carefully drawn at the top, to show the tulip and turkscap lily leaves. underneath there is a plate of iron beaten into broad thin leaves, which gives the centre of the balcony a gradual sweep outwards, like the side of a ship of war. the central profile is of the greatest importance in ironwork, as the flow of it affects the curves of the whole design, not merely in surface, as in marble carving, but in their intersections, when the side is seen through the front. the lighter leaves, _b b_, are real bindweed. fig. shows two of the teeth of the border, illustrating their irregularity of form, which takes place quite to the extent indicated. fig. is the border at the side of the balcony, showing the most interesting circumstance in the treatment of the whole, namely, the enlargement and retraction of the teeth of the cornice, as it approaches the wall. this treatment of the whole cornice as a kind of wreath round the balcony, having its leaves flung loose at the back, and set close at the front, as a girl would throw a wreath of leaves round her hair, is precisely the most finished indication of a good workman's mind to be found in the whole thing. fig. shows the outline of the retracted leaves accurately. it was noted in the text that the whole of this ironwork had been coloured. the difficulty of colouring ironwork rightly, and the necessity of doing it in some way or other, have been the principal reasons for my never having entered heartily into this subject; for all the ironwork i have ever seen look beautiful was rusty, and rusty iron will not answer modern purposes. nevertheless it may be painted, but it needs some one to do it who knows what painting means, and few of us do--certainly none, as yet, of our restorers of decoration or writers on colour. it is a marvellous thing to me that book after book should appear on this last subject, without apparently the slightest consciousness on the part of the writers that the first necessity of beauty in colour is gradation, as the first necessity of beauty in line is curvature,--or that the second necessity in colour is mystery or subtlety, as the second necessity in line is softness. colour ungradated is wholly valueless; colour unmysterious is wholly barbarous. unless it looses itself and melts away towards other colours, as a true line loses itself and melts away towards other lines, colour has no proper existence, in the noble sense of the word. what a cube, or tetrahedron, is to organic form, ungradated and unconfused colour is to organic colour; and a person who attempts to arrange colour harmonies without gradation of tint is in precisely the same category, as an artist who should try to compose a beautiful picture out of an accumulation of cubes and parallelepipeds. the value of hue in all illuminations on painted glass of fine periods depends primarily on the expedients used to make the colours palpitate and fluctuate; _inequality_ of brilliancy being the _condition_ of brilliancy, just as inequality of accent is the condition of power and loveliness in sound. the skill with which the thirteenth century illuminators in books, and the indians in shawls and carpets, use the minutest atoms of colour to gradate other colours, and confuse the eye, is the first secret in their gift of splendour: associated, however, with so many other artifices which are quite instinctive and unteachable, that it is of little use to dwell upon them. delicacy of organization in the designer given, you will soon have all, and without it, nothing. however, not to close my book with desponding words, let me set down, as many of us like such things, five laws to which there is no exception whatever, and which, if they can enable no one to produce good colour, are at least, as far as they reach, accurately condemnatory of bad colour. . all good colour is gradated. a blush rose (or, better still, a blush itself), is the type of rightness in arrangement of pure hue. . all harmonies of colour depend for their vitality on the action and helpful operation of every particle of colour they contain. . the final particles of colour necessary to the completeness of a colour harmony are always infinitely small; either laid by immeasurably subtle touches of the pencil, or produced by portions of the colouring substance, however distributed, which are so absolutely small as to become at the intended distance infinitely so to the eye. . no colour harmony is of high order unless it involves indescribable tints. it is the best possible sign of a colour when nobody who sees it knows what to call it, or how to give an idea of it to any one else. even among simple hues the most valuable are those which cannot be defined; the most precious purples will look brown beside pure purple, and purple beside pure brown; and the most precious greens will be called blue if seen beside pure green, and green if seen beside pure blue. . the finer the eye for colour, the less it will require to gratify it intensely. but that little must be supremely good and pure, as the finest notes of a great singer, which are so near to silence. and a great colourist will make even the absence of colour lovely, as the fading of the perfect voice makes silence sacred. arts and crafts essays _arts and crafts essays_ by members of the arts and crafts exhibition society _with a preface_ by william morris london rivington, percival, & co. preface the papers that follow this need no explanation, since they are directed towards special sides of the arts and crafts. mr. crane has put forward the aims of the arts and crafts exhibition society _as_ an exhibition society, therefore i need not enlarge upon that phase of this book. but i will write a few words on the way in which it seems to me we ought to face the present position of that revival in decorative art of which our society is one of the tokens. and, in the first place, the very fact that there is a "revival" shows that the arts aforesaid have been sick unto death. in all such changes the first of the new does not appear till there is little or no life left in the old, and yet the old, even when it is all but dead, goes on living in corruption, and refuses to get itself put quietly out of the way and decently buried. so that while the revival advances and does some good work, the period of corruption goes on from worse to worse, till it arrives at the point when it can no longer be borne, and disappears. to give a concrete example: in these last days there are many buildings erected which (in spite of our eclecticism, our lack of a traditional style) are at least well designed and give pleasure to the eye; nevertheless, so hopelessly hideous and vulgar is general building that persons of taste find themselves regretting the brown brick box with its feeble and trumpery attempts at ornament, which characterises the style of building current at the end of the last and beginning of this century, because there is some style about it, and even some merit of design, if only negative. the position which we have to face then is this: the lack of beauty in modern life (of decoration in the best sense of the word), which in the earlier part of the century was unnoticed, is now recognised by a part of the public as an evil to be remedied if possible; but by far the larger part of civilised mankind does not feel that lack in the least, so that no general sense of beauty is extant which would _force_ us into the creation of a feeling for art which in its turn would _force_ us into taking up the dropped links of tradition, and once more producing genuine organic art. such art as we have is not the work of the mass of craftsmen unconscious of any definite style, but producing beauty instinctively; conscious rather of the desire to turn out a creditable piece of work than of any aim towards positive beauty. that is the essential motive power towards art in past ages; but our art is the work of a small minority composed of educated persons, fully conscious of their aim of producing beauty, and distinguished from the great body of workmen by the possession of that aim. i do not, indeed, ignore the fact that there is a school of artists belonging to this decade who set forth that beauty is not an essential part of art; which they consider rather as an instrument for the statement of fact, or an exhibition of the artist's intellectual observation and skill of hand. such a school would seem at first sight to have an interest of its own as a genuine traditional development of the art of the eighteenth century, which, like all intellectual movements in that century, was negative and destructive; and this all the more as the above-mentioned school is connected with science rather than art. but on looking closer into the matter it will be seen that this school cannot claim any special interest on the score of tradition. for the eighteenth century art was quite unconscious of its tendency towards ugliness and nullity, whereas the modern "impressionists" loudly proclaim their enmity to beauty, and are no more unconscious of their aim than the artists of the revival are of their longing to link themselves to the traditional art of the past. here we have then, on the one hand, a school which is pushing rather than drifting into the domain of the empirical science of to-day, and another which can only work through its observation of an art which was once organic, but which died centuries ago, leaving us what by this time has become but the wreckage of its brilliant and eager life, while at the same time the great mass of civilisation lives on content to forgo art almost altogether. nevertheless the artists of both the schools spoken of are undoubtedly honest and eager in pursuit of art under the conditions of modern civilisation; that is to say, that they have this much in common with the schools of tradition, that they do what they are impelled to do, and that the public would be quite wrong in supposing them to be swayed by mere affectation. now it seems to me that this impulse in men of certain minds and moods towards certain forms of art, this genuine eclecticism, is all that we can expect under modern civilisation; that we can expect no _general_ impulse towards the fine arts till civilisation has been transformed into some other condition of life, the details of which we cannot foresee. let us then make the best of it, and admit that those who practise art must nowadays be conscious of that practice; conscious i mean that they are either adding a certain amount of artistic beauty and interest to a piece of goods which would, if produced in the ordinary way, have no beauty or artistic interest, or to produce works of art, to supply the lack of tradition by diligently cultivating in ourselves the sense of beauty (_pace_ the impressionists), skill of hand, and niceness of observation, without which only a _makeshift_ of art can be got; and also, so far as we can, to call the attention of the public to the fact that there are a few persons who are doing this, and even earning a livelihood by so doing, and that therefore, in spite of the destructive tradition of our immediate past, in spite of the great revolution in the production of wares, which this century only has seen on the road to completion, and which on the face of it, and perhaps essentially, is hostile to art, in spite of all difficulties which the evolution of the later days of society has thrown in the way of that side of human pleasure which is called art, there is still a minority with a good deal of life in it which is not content with what is called utilitarianism, which, being interpreted, means the reckless waste of life in the pursuit of the means of life. it is this conscious cultivation of art and the attempt to interest the public in it which the arts and crafts exhibition society has set itself to help, by calling special attention to that really most important side of art, the decoration of utilities by furnishing them with genuine artistic finish in place of trade finish. william morris. _july ._ contents page of the revival of design and handicraft: with notes on the work of the arts and crafts exhibition society. walter crane textiles. william morris of decorative painting and design. walter crane of wall papers. walter crane fictiles. g. t. robinson metal work. w. a. s. benson stone and wood carving. somers clarke furniture. stephen webb stained glass. somers clarke table glass. somers clarke printing. william morris and emery walker bookbinding. t. j. cobden-sanderson of mural painting. f. madox brown of sgraffito work. heywood sumner of stucco and gesso. g. t. robinson of cast iron. w. r. lethaby of dyeing as an art. william morris of embroidery. may morris of lace. alan s. cole of book illustration and book decoration. reginald blomfield of designs and working drawings. lewis f. day furniture and the room. edward s. prior of the room and furniture. halsey ricardo the english tradition. reginald blomfield carpenters' furniture. w. r. lethaby of decorated furniture. j. h. pollen of carving. stephen webb intarsia and inlaid wood-work. t. g. jackson woods and other materials. stephen webb of modern embroidery. mary e. turner of materials. may morris colour. may morris stitches and mechanism. alan s. cole design. john d. sedding on designing for the art of embroidery. selwyn image of the revival of design and handicraft: with notes on the work of the arts and crafts exhibition society the decorative artist and the handicraftsman have hitherto had but little opportunity of displaying their work in the public eye, or rather of appealing to it upon strictly artistic grounds in the same sense as the pictorial artist; and it is a somewhat singular state of things that at a time when the arts are perhaps more looked after, and certainly more talked about, than they have ever been before, and the beautifying of houses, to those to whom it is possible, has become in some cases almost a religion, so little is known of the actual designer and maker (as distinct from the proprietary manufacturer or middleman) of those familiar things which contribute so much to the comfort and refinement of life--of our chairs and cabinets, our chintzes and wall-papers, our lamps and pitchers--the lares and penates of our households, which with the touch of time and association often come to be regarded with so peculiar an affection. nor is this condition of affairs in regard to applied art without an explanation, since it is undeniable that under the modern industrial system that personal element, which is so important in all forms of art, has been thrust farther and farther into the background, until the production of what are called ornamental objects, and the supply of ornamental additions generally, instead of growing out of organic necessities, have become, under a misapplication of machinery, driven by the keen competition of trade, purely commercial affairs--questions of the supply and demand of the market artificially stimulated and controlled by the arts of the advertiser and the salesman bidding against each other for the favour of a capricious and passing fashion, which too often takes the place of a real love of art in our days. of late years, however, a kind of revival has been going on, as a protest against the conviction that, with all our modern mechanical achievements, comforts, and luxuries, life is growing "uglier every day," as mr. morris puts it. even our painters are driven to rely rather on the accidental beauty which, like a struggling ray through a london fog, sometimes illumes and transfigures the sordid commonplace of everyday life. we cannot, however, live on sensational effects without impairing our sense of form and balance--of beauty, in short. we cannot concentrate our attention on pictorial and graphic art, and come to regard it as the one form worth pursuing, without losing our sense of construction and power of adaptation in design to all kinds of very different materials and purposes--that sense of relation--that architectonic sense which built up the great monuments of the past. the true root and basis of all art lies in the handicrafts. if there is no room or chance of recognition for really artistic power and feeling in design and craftsmanship--if art is not recognised in the humblest object and material, and felt to be as valuable in its own way as the more highly rewarded pictorial skill--the arts cannot be in a sound condition; and if artists cease to be found among the crafts there is great danger that they will vanish from the arts also, and become manufacturers and salesmen instead. it was with the object of giving some visible expression to these views that the exhibitions of the arts and crafts society were organised. as was to be expected, many difficulties had to be encountered. in the endeavour to assign due credit to the responsible designer and workman, it was found sometimes difficult to do so amid the very numerous artificers (in some cases) who under our industrial conditions contribute to the production of a work. it will readily be understood that the organisation of exhibitions of this character, and with such objects as have been stated, is a far less simple matter than an ordinary picture exhibition. instead of having an array of artists whose names and addresses are in every catalogue, our constituency, as it were, outside the personal knowledge of the committee, had to be discovered. under the designation of so-and-so and co. many a skilful designer and craftsman may be concealed; and individual and independent artists in design and handicraft are as yet few and far between. however, in the belief, as elsewhere expressed, that it is little good nourishing the tree at the head if it is dying at the root, and that, living or dying, the desirability of an accurate diagnosis while there is any doubt of our artistic health will at once be admitted, the society determined to try the experiment and so opened their first exhibition. the reception given to it having so far justified our plea for the due recognition of the arts and crafts of design, and our belief in their fundamental importance--the amount of public interest and support accorded to the exhibition having, in fact, far exceeded our anticipations, it was determined to hold a second on the same lines, and to endeavour to carry out, with more completeness than was at first found possible, those principles of work, ideas, and aims in art for which we contended, and to make the exhibition a rallying point, as it were, for all sympathetic workers. regarding design as a species of language capable of very varied expression through the medium of different methods and materials, it naturally follows that there is all the difference in the world between one treatment and another, both of design and material; and, moreover, every material has its own proper capacity and appropriate range of expression, so that it becomes the business of the sympathetic workman to discover this and give it due expansion. for the absence of this discriminating sense no amount of mechanical smoothness or imitative skill can compensate; and it is obvious that any attempt to imitate or render the qualities peculiar to one material in another leads the workman on a false track. now, we have only to consider how much of the work commonly produced, which comes under the head of what is called "industrial art," depends upon this very false quality of imitation (whether as to design or material) to show how far we have departed in the ordinary processes of manufacture and standards of trade from primitive and true artistic instincts. the demand, artificially stimulated, is less for thought or beauty than for novelty, and all sorts of mechanical invention are applied, chiefly with the view of increasing the rate of production and diminishing its cost, regardless of the fact that anything in the nature of bad or false art is dear at any price. plain materials and surfaces are infinitely preferable to inorganic and inappropriate ornament; yet there is not the simplest article of common use made by the hand of man that is not capable of receiving some touch of art--whether it lies in the planning and proportions, or in the final decorative adornment; whether in the work of the smith, the carpenter, the carver, the weaver, or the potter, and the other indispensable crafts. with the organisation of industry on the grand scale, and the enormous application of machinery in the interests of competitive production for profit, when both art and industry are forced to make their appeal to the unreal and impersonal _average_, rather than to the real and personal _you_ and _me_, it is not wonderful that beauty should have become divorced from use, and that attempts to concede its demands, and the desire for it, should too often mean the ill-considered bedizenment of meaningless and unrelated ornament. the very producer, the designer, and craftsman, too, has been lost sight of, and his personality submerged in that of a business firm, so that we have reached the _reductio ad absurdum_ of an impersonal artist or craftsman trying to produce things of beauty for an impersonal and unknown public--a purely conjectural matter from first to last. under such conditions it is hardly surprising that the arts of design should have declined, and that the idea of art should have become limited to pictorial work (where, at least, the artist may be known, in some relation to his public, and comparatively free). partly as a protest against this state of things, and partly to concentrate the awakened feeling for beauty in the accessories of life, the arts and crafts exhibition society commenced their work. the movement, however, towards a revival of design and handicraft, the effort to unite--or rather to re-unite--the artist and the craftsman, so sundered by the industrial conditions of our century, has been growing and gathering force for some time past. it reflects in art the intellectual movement of inquiry into fundamental principles and necessities, and is a practical expression of the philosophy of the conditioned. it is true it has many different sides and manifestations, and is under many different influences and impelled by different aims. with some the question is closely connected with the commercial prosperity of england, and her prowess in the competitive race for wealth; with others it is enough if the social well-being and happiness of her people is advanced, and that the touch of art should lighten the toil of joyless lives. the movement, indeed, represents in some sense a revolt against the hard mechanical conventional life and its insensibility to beauty (quite another thing to ornament). it is a protest against that so-called industrial progress which produces shoddy wares, the cheapness of which is paid for by the lives of their producers and the degradation of their users. it is a protest against the turning of men into machines, against artificial distinctions in art, and against making the immediate market value, or possibility of profit, the chief test of artistic merit. it also advances the claim of all and each to the common possession of beauty in things common and familiar, and would awaken the sense of this beauty, deadened and depressed as it now too often is, either on the one hand by luxurious superfluities, or on the other by the absence of the commonest necessities and the gnawing anxiety for the means of livelihood; not to speak of the everyday uglinesses to which we have accustomed our eyes, confused by the flood of false taste, or darkened by the hurried life of modern towns in which huge aggregations of humanity exist, equally removed from both art and nature and their kindly and refining influences. it asserts, moreover, the value of the practice of handicraft as a good training for the faculties, and as a most valuable counteraction to that overstraining of purely mental effort under the fierce competitive conditions of the day; apart from the very wholesome and real pleasure in the fashioning of a thing with claims to art and beauty, the struggle with and triumph over the stubborn technical necessities which refuse to be gainsaid. and, finally, thus claiming for man this primitive and common delight in common things made beautiful, it makes, through art, the great socialiser for a common and kindred life, for sympathetic and helpful fellowship, and demands conditions under which your artist and craftsman shall be free. "see how great a matter a little fire kindleth." some may think this is an extensive programme--a remote ideal for a purely artistic movement to touch. yet if the revival of art and handicraft is not a mere theatric and imitative impulse; if it is not merely to gratify a passing whim of fashion, or demand of commerce; if it has reality and roots of its own; if it is not merely a delicate luxury--a little glow of colour at the end of a sombre day--it can hardly mean less than what i have written. it must mean either the sunset or the dawn. the success which had hitherto attended the efforts of our society, the sympathy and response elicited by the claims which had been advanced by us on behalf of the arts and crafts of design, and (despite difficulties and imperfections) i think it may be said the character of our exhibitions, and last, but not least, the public interest and support, manifested in various ways, and from different parts of the country, went far to prove both their necessity and importance. we were therefore encouraged to open a third exhibition in the autumn of . in this last it was the society's object to make in it leading features of two crafts in which good design and handicraft are of the utmost importance, namely, furniture and embroidery; and endeavours were made to get together good examples of each. it may be noted that while some well-known firms, who had hitherto held aloof, now exhibited with us, the old difficulty about the names of the responsible executants continued; but while some evaded the question, others were models of exactitude in this respect, proving that in this as in other questions where there is a will there is a way. the arts and crafts exhibition society, while at first, of necessity, depending on the work of a comparatively limited circle, had no wish to be narrower than the recognition of certain fundamental principles in design will allow, and, indeed, desired but to receive and to show the _best_ after its kind in contemporary design and handicraft. judgment is not always infallible, and the best is not always forthcoming, and in a mixed exhibition it is difficult to maintain an unvarying standard. at present, indeed, an exhibition may be said to be but a necessary evil; but it is the only means of obtaining a standard, and giving publicity to the works of designer and craftsman; but it must be more or less of a compromise, and of course no more can be done than to make an exhibition of contemporary work representative of current ideas and skill, since it is impossible to get outside our own time. in some quarters it appears to have been supposed that our exhibitions are intended to appeal, by the exhibition of cheap and saleable articles, to what are rudely termed "the masses"; we appeal to _all_ certainly, but it should be remembered that cheapness in art and handicraft is well-nigh impossible, save in some forms of more or less mechanical reproduction. in fact, cheapness as a rule, in the sense of low-priced production, can only be obtained at the cost of cheapness--that is, the cheapening of human life and labour; surely, in reality, a most wasteful and extravagant cheapness! it is difficult to see how, under present economic conditions, it can be otherwise. art is, in its true sense, after all, the crown and flowering of life and labour, and we cannot reasonably expect to gain that crown except at the true value of the human life and labour of which it is the result. of course there is the difference of cost between materials to be taken into account: a table may be of oak or of deal; a cloth may be of silk or of linen; but the labour, skill, taste, intelligence, thought, and fancy, which give the sense of art to the work, are much the same, and, being bound up with human lives, need the means of life in its completion for their proper sustenance. at all events, i think it may be said that the principle of the essential unity and interdependence of the arts has been again asserted--the brotherhood of designer and craftsman; that goes for something, with whatever imperfections or disadvantages its acknowledgment may have been obscured. in putting this principle before the public, the arts and crafts exhibition society has availed itself from the first of both lecture and essay, as well as the display of examples. lectures and demonstrations were given during the progress of the exhibitions, and essays written by well-known workers in the crafts of which they treated have accompanied the catalogues. these papers have now been collected together, and revised by their authors, and appear in book form under the editorship of mr. william morris, whose name has been practically associated with the revival of beauty in the arts and crafts of design in many ways before our society came into existence, and who with his co-workers may be said to have been the pioneer of our english renascence, which it is our earnest desire to foster and perpetuate. every movement which has any substance and vitality must expect to encounter misrepresentation, and even abuse, as well as sympathy and support. in its work, so far, the society to which i have the honour to belong has had its share of both, perhaps. those pledged to the support of existing conditions, whether in art or social life, are always sensitive to attacks upon their weak points, and it is not possible to avoid touching them to any man who ventures to look an inch or two beyond the immediate present. but the hostility of some is as much a mark of vitality and progress as the sympathy of others. the sun strikes hottest as the traveller climbs the hill; and we must be content to leave the value of our work to the unfailing test of time. walter crane. textiles there are several ways of ornamenting a woven cloth: ( ) real tapestry, ( ) carpet-weaving, ( ) mechanical weaving, ( ) printing or painting, and ( ) embroidery. there has been no improvement (indeed, as to the main processes, no change) in the manufacture of the wares in all these branches since the fourteenth century, as far as the wares themselves are concerned; whatever improvements have been introduced have been purely commercial, and have had to do merely with reducing the cost of production; nay, more, the commercial improvements have on the whole been decidedly injurious to the quality of the wares themselves. the noblest of the weaving arts is tapestry, in which there is nothing mechanical: it may be looked upon as a mosaic of pieces of colour made up of dyed threads, and is capable of producing wall ornament of any degree of elaboration within the proper limits of duly considered decorative work. as in all wall-decoration, the first thing to be considered in the designing of tapestry is the force, purity, and elegance of the _silhouette_ of the objects represented, and nothing vague or indeterminate is admissible. but special excellences can be expected from it. depth of tone, richness of colour, and exquisite gradation of tints are easily to be obtained in tapestry; and it also demands that crispness and abundance of beautiful detail which was the especial characteristic of fully developed mediæval art. the style of even the best period of the renaissance is wholly unfit for tapestry: accordingly we find that tapestry retained its gothic character longer than any other of the pictorial arts. a comparison of the wall-hangings in the great hall at hampton court with those in the solar or drawing-room, will make this superiority of the earlier design for its purpose clear to any one not lacking in artistic perception: and the comparison is all the fairer, as both the gothic tapestries of the solar and the post-gothic hangings of the hall are pre-eminently good of their kinds. not to go into a description of the process of weaving tapestry, which would be futile without illustrations, i may say that in contradistinction to mechanical weaving, the warp is quite hidden, with the result that the colours are as solid as they can be made in painting. carpet-weaving is somewhat of the nature of tapestry: it also is wholly unmechanical, but its use as a floor-cloth somewhat degrades it, especially in our northern or western countries, where people come out of the muddy streets into rooms without taking off their shoes. carpet-weaving undoubtedly arose among peoples living a tent life, and for such a dwelling as a tent, carpets are the best possible ornaments. carpets form a mosaic of small squares of worsted, or hair, or silk threads, tied into a coarse canvas, which is made as the work progresses. owing to the comparative coarseness of the work, the designs should always be very elementary in form, and _suggestive_ merely of forms of leafage, flowers, beasts and birds, etc. the soft gradations of tint to which tapestry lends itself are unfit for carpet-weaving; beauty and variety of colour must be attained by harmonious juxtaposition of tints, bounded by judiciously chosen outlines; and the pattern should lie absolutely flat upon the ground. on the whole, in designing carpets the method of _contrast_ is the best one to employ, and blue and red, quite frankly used, with white or very light outlines on a dark ground, and black or some very dark colour on a light ground, are the main colours on which the designer should depend. in making the above remarks i have been thinking only of the genuine or hand-made carpets. the mechanically-made carpets of to-day must be looked upon as makeshifts for cheapness' sake. of these, the velvet pile and brussels are simply coarse worsted velvets woven over wires like other velvet, and cut, in the case of the velvet pile; and kidderminster carpets are stout cloths, in which abundance of warp (a warp to each weft) is used for the sake of wear and tear. the velvet carpets need the same kind of design as to colour and quality as the real carpets; only, as the colours are necessarily limited in number, and the pattern must repeat at certain distances, the design should be simpler and smaller than in a real carpet. a kidderminster carpet calls for a small design in which the different planes, or plies, as they are called, are well interlocked. mechanical weaving has to repeat the pattern on the cloth within comparatively narrow limits; the number of colours also is limited in most cases to four or five. in most cloths so woven, therefore, the best plan seems to be to choose a pleasant ground colour and to superimpose a pattern mainly composed of either a lighter shade of that colour, or a colour in no very strong contrast to the ground; and then, if you are using several colours, to light up this general arrangement either with a more forcible outline, or by spots of stronger colour carefully disposed. often the lighter shade on the darker suffices, and hardly calls for anything else: some very beautiful cloths are merely damasks, in which the warp and weft are of the same colour, but a different tone is obtained by the figure and the ground being woven with a longer or shorter twill: the _tabby_ being tied by the warp very often, the _satin_ much more rarely. in any case, the patterned webs produced by mechanical weaving, if the ornament is to be effective and worth the doing, require that same gothic crispness and clearness of detail which has been spoken of before: the geometrical structure of the pattern, which is a necessity in all recurring patterns, should be boldly insisted upon, so as to draw the eye from accidental figures, which the recurrence of the pattern is apt to produce. the meaningless stripes and spots and other tormentings of the simple twill of the web, which are so common in the woven ornament of the eighteenth century and in our own times, should be carefully avoided: all these things are the last resource of a jaded invention and a contempt of the simple and fresh beauty that comes of a sympathetic _suggestion_ of natural forms: if the pattern be vigorously and firmly drawn with a true feeling for the beauty of line and _silhouette_, the play of light and shade on the material of the simple twill will give all the necessary variety. i invite my readers to make another comparison: to go to the south kensington museum and study the invaluable fragments of the stuffs of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries of syrian and sicilian manufacture, or the almost equally beautiful webs of persian design, which are later in date, but instinct with the purest and best eastern feeling; they may also note the splendid stuffs produced mostly in italy in the later middle ages, which are unsurpassed for richness and _effect_ of design, and when they have impressed their minds with the productions of this great historic school, let them contrast with them the work of the vile pompadour period, passing by the early seventeenth century as a period of transition into corruption. they will then (if, once more, they have real artistic perception) see at once the difference between the results of irrepressible imagination and love of beauty, on the one hand, and, on the other, of restless and weary vacuity of mind, forced by the exigencies of fashion to do something or other to the innocent surface of the cloth in order to distinguish it in the market from other cloths; between the handiwork of the free craftsman doing as he _pleased_ with his work, and the drudgery of the "operative" set to his task by the tradesman competing for the custom of a frivolous public, which had forgotten that there was such a thing as art. the next method of ornamenting cloth is by painting it or printing on it with dyes. as to the painting of cloths with dyes by hand, which is no doubt a very old and widely practised art, it has now quite disappeared (modern society not being rich enough to pay the necessary price for such work), and its place has now been taken by printing by block or cylinder-machine. the remarks made on the design for mechanically woven cloths apply pretty much to these printed stuffs: only, in the first place, more play of delicate and pretty colour is possible, and more variety of colour also; and in the second, much more use can be made of hatching and dotting, which are obviously suitable to the method of block-printing. in the many-coloured printed cloths, frank red and blue are again the mainstays of the colour arrangement; these colours, softened by the paler shades of red, outlined with black and made more tender by the addition of yellow in small quantities, mostly forming part of brightish greens, make up the colouring of the old persian prints, which carry the art as far as it can be carried. it must be added that no textile ornament has suffered so much as cloth-printing from those above-mentioned commercial inventions. a hundred years ago the processes for printing on cloth differed little from those used by the indians and persians; and even up to within forty years ago they produced colours that were in themselves good enough, however inartistically they might be used. then came one of the most wonderful and most useless of the inventions of modern chemistry, that of the dyes made from coal-tar, producing a series of hideous colours, crude, livid--and cheap,--which every person of taste loathes, but which nevertheless we can by no means get rid of until we are able to struggle successfully against the doom of cheap and nasty which has overtaken us. last of the methods of ornamenting cloth comes embroidery: of the design for which it must be said that one of its aims should be the exhibition of beautiful material. furthermore, it is not worth doing unless it is either very copious and rich, or very delicate--or both. for such an art nothing patchy or scrappy, or half-starved, should be done: there is no excuse for doing anything which is not strikingly beautiful; and that more especially as the exuberance of beauty of the work of the east and of mediæval europe, and even of the time of the renaissance, is at hand to reproach us. it may be well here to warn those occupied in embroidery against the feeble imitations of japanese art which are so disastrously common amongst us. the japanese are admirable naturalists, wonderfully skilful draughtsmen, deft beyond all others in mere execution of whatever they take in hand; and also great masters of style within certain narrow limitations. but with all this, a japanese design is absolutely worthless unless it is executed with japanese skill. in truth, with all their brilliant qualities as handicraftsmen, which have so dazzled us, the japanese have no architectural, and therefore no decorative, instinct. their works of art are isolated and blankly individualistic, and in consequence, unless where they rise, as they sometimes do, to the dignity of a suggestion for a picture (always devoid of human interest), they remain mere wonderful toys, things quite outside the pale of the evolution of art, which, i repeat, cannot be carried on without the architectural sense that connects it with the history of mankind. to conclude with some general remarks about designing for textiles: the aim should be to combine clearness of form and firmness of structure with the mystery which comes of abundance and richness of detail; and this is easier of attainment in woven goods than in flat painted decoration and paper-hangings; because in the former the stuffs usually hang in folds and the pattern is broken more or less, while in the latter it is spread out flat against the wall. do not introduce any lines or objects which cannot be explained by the structure of the pattern; it is just this logical sequence of form, this growth which looks as if, under the circumstances, it could not have been otherwise, which prevents the eye wearying of the repetition of the pattern. never introduce any shading for the purpose of making an object look round; whatever shading you use should be used for explanation only, to show what you mean by such and such a piece of drawing; and even that you had better be sparing of. do not be afraid of large patterns; if properly designed they are more restful to the eye than small ones: on the whole, a pattern where the structure is large and the details much broken up is the most useful. large patterns are not necessarily startling; this comes more of violent relief of the figure from the ground, or inharmonious colouring: beautiful and logical form relieved from the ground by well-managed contrast or gradation, and lying flat on the ground, will never weary the eye. very small rooms, as well as very large ones, look best ornamented with large patterns, whatever you do with the middling-sized ones. as final maxims: never forget the material you are working with, and try always to use it for doing what it can do best: if you feel yourself hampered by the material in which you are working, instead of being helped by it, you have so far not learned your business, any more than a would-be poet has, who complains of the hardship of writing in measure and rhyme. the special limitations of the material should be a pleasure to you, not a hindrance: a designer, therefore, should always thoroughly understand the processes of the special manufacture he is dealing with, or the result will be a mere _tour de force_. on the other hand, it is the pleasure in understanding the capabilities of a special material, and using them for suggesting (not imitating) natural beauty and incident, that gives the _raison d'être_ of decorative art. william morris. of decorative painting and design the term decorative painting implies the existence of painting which is not decorative: a strange state of things for an art which primarily and pre-eminently appeals to the eye. if we look back to the times when the arts and crafts were in their most flourishing and vigorous condition, and dwelt together, like brethren, in unity--say to the fifteenth century--such a distinction did not exist. painting only differed in its application, and in degree, not in kind. in the painting of a ms., of the panels of a coffer, of a ceiling, a wall, or an altar-piece, the painter was alike--however different his theme and conception--possessed with a paramount impulse to decorate, to make the space or surface he dealt with as lovely to the eye in design and colour as he had skill to do. the art of painting has, however, become considerably differentiated since those days. we are here in the nineteenth century encumbered with many distinctions in the art. there is obviously much painting which is not decorative, or ornamental in any sense, which has indeed quite other objects. it may be the presentment of the more superficial natural facts, phases, or accidents of light; the pictorial dramatising of life or past history; the pointing of a moral; or the embodiment of romance and poetic thought or symbol. not but what it is quite possible for a painter to deal with such things and yet to produce a work that shall be decorative. a picture, of course, may be a piece of decorative art of the most beautiful kind; but to begin with, if it is an easel picture, it is not necessarily related to anything but itself: its painter is not bound to consider anything outside its own dimensions; and, indeed, the practice of holding large and mixed picture-shows has taught him the uselessness of so doing. then, too, the demand for literal presentment of the superficial facts or phases of nature often removes the painter and his picture still farther from the architectural, decorative, and constructive artist and the handicraftsman, who are bound to think of plan, and design, and materials--of the adaptation of their work, in short--while the painter seeks only to be an unbiassed recorder of all accidents and sensational conditions of nature and life,--and so we get our illustrated newspapers on a grand scale. an illustrated newspaper, however, in spite of the skill and enterprise it may absorb, is not somehow a joy for ever; and, after all, if literalism and instantaneous appearances are the only things worth striving for in painting, the photograph beats any painter at that. if truth is the object of the modern painter of pictures--truth as distinct from or opposed to beauty--beauty is certainly the object of the decorative painter, but beauty not necessarily severed from truth. without beauty, however, decoration has no reason for existence; indeed it can hardly be said to exist. next to beauty, the first essential of a decoration is that it shall be related to its environment, that it shall express or acknowledge the conditions under which it exists. if a fresco on a wall, for instance, it adorns the wall without attempting to look like a hole cut in it through which something is accidentally seen; if a painting on a vase, it acknowledges the convexity of the shape, and helps to express instead of contradicting it; if on a panel in a cabinet or door, it spreads itself in an appropriate filling on an organic plan to cover it; being, in short, ornamental by its very nature, its first business is to ornament. there exist, therefore, certain definite tests for the work of the decorative artist. does the design fit its place and material? is it in scale with its surroundings and in harmony with itself? is it fair and lovely in colour? has it beauty and invention? has it thought and poetic feeling? these are the demands a decorator has to answer, and by his answer he must stand or fall; but such questions show that the scope of decoration is no mean one. it must be acknowledged that a mixed exhibition does not easily afford the fairest or completest tests of such qualities. an exhibition is at best a compromise, a convenience, a means of comparison, and to enable work to be shown to the public; but of course is, after all, only really and properly exhibited when it is in the place and position and light for which it was destined. the tests by which to judge a designer's work are only complete then. as the stem and branches to the leaves, flowers, and fruit of a tree, so is design to painting. in decoration one cannot exist without the other, as the beauty of a figure depends upon the well-built and well-proportioned skeleton and its mechanism. you cannot separate a house from its plan and foundations. so it is in decoration; often thought of lightly as something trivial and superficial, a merely aimless combination of curves and colours, or a mere _réchauffé_ of the dead languages of art, but really demanding the best thought and capacity of a man; and in the range of its application it is not less comprehensive. the mural painter is not only a painter, but a poet, historian, dramatist, philosopher. what should we know, how much should we realise, of the ancient world and its life without him, and his brother the architectural sculptor? how would ancient egypt live without her wall paintings--or rome, or pompeii, or mediæval italy? how much of beauty as well as of history is contained in the illuminated pages of the books of the middle ages! some modern essays in mural painting show that the habit of mind and method of work fostered by the production of trifles for the picture market is not favourable to monumental painting. neither the mood nor the skill, indeed, can be grown like a mushroom; such works as the sistine chapel, the stanzi of raphael, or the apartimenti borgia, are the result of long practice through many centuries, and intimate relationship and harmony in the arts, as well as a certain unity of public sentiment. the true soil for the growth of the painter in this higher sense is a rich and varied external life: familiarity from early youth with the uses of materials and methods, and the hand facility which comes of close and constant acquaintanceship with the tools of the artist, who sums up and includes in himself other crafts, such as modelling, carving, and the hammering of metal, architectural design, and a knowledge of all the ways man has used to beautify and deck the surroundings and accessories of life to satisfy his delight in beauty. we know that painting was strictly an applied art in its earlier history, and all through the middle ages painters were in close alliance with the other crafts of design, and their work in one craft no doubt reacted on and influenced that in another, while each was kept distinct. at all events, painters like albert dürer and holbein were also masters of design in all ways. through the various arts and crafts of the greek, mediæval, or early renaissance periods, there is evident, from the examples which have come down to us, a certain unity and common character in design, asserting itself through all diverse individualities: each art is kept distinct, with a complete recognition of the capacity and advantages of its own particular method and purpose. in our age, for various reasons (social, commercial, economic), the specialised and purely pictorial painter is dominant. his aims and methods influence other arts and crafts, but by no means advantageously as a rule; since, unchecked by judicious ideas of design, attempts are made in unsuitable materials to produce so-called realistic force, and superficial and accidental appearances dependent on peculiar qualities of lighting and atmosphere, quite out of place in any other method than painting, or in any place but an easel picture. from such tendencies, such influences as these, in the matter of applied art and design, we are striving to recover. one of the first results is, perhaps, this apparently artificial distinction between decorative and other painting. but along with this we have painters whose easel pictures are in feeling and treatment quite adaptable as wall and panel decorations, and they are painters who, as a rule, have studied other methods in art, and drawn their inspiration from the mode of mediæval or early renaissance times. much might be said of different methods and materials of work in decorative painting, but i have hardly space here. the decorative painter prefers a certain flatness of effect, and therefore such methods as fresco, in which the colours are laid on while the plaster ground is wet, and tempera naturally appeal to him. in the latter the colours ground in water and used with size, or white and yolk of egg, or prepared with starch, worked on a dry ground, drying lighter than when they are put on, have a peculiar luminous quality, while the surface is free from any gloss. both these methods need direct painting and finishing as the work proceeds. by a method of working in ordinary oil colours on a ground of fibrous plaster, using rectified spirit of turpentine or benzine as a medium, much of the quality of fresco or tempera may be obtained, with the advantage that the plaster ground may be a movable panel. there are, however, other fields for the decorative painter than wall painting; as, for instance, domestic furniture, which may vary in degree of elaboration from the highly ornate cassone or marriage coffer of mediæval italy to the wreaths and sprays which decked chairs and bed-posts even within our century. there has been of late some revival of painting as applied chiefly to the panels of cabinets, or the decoration of piano fronts and cases. the same causes produce the same results. with the search after, and desire for, beauty in life, we are again driven to study the laws of beauty in design and painting; and in so doing painters will find again the lost thread, the golden link of connection and intimate association with the sister arts and handicrafts, whereof none is before or after another, none is greater or less than the other. walter crane. of wall papers while the tradition and practice of mural painting as applied to interior walls and ceilings of houses still linger in italy, in the form of often skilful if not always tasteful tempera work, in more western countries, like england, france, and america, under the economic conditions and customs of commercial civilisation, with its smoky cities, and its houses built by the hundred to one pattern, perhaps, and let on short terms, as regards domestic decoration--except in the case of a few wealthy freeholders--mural painting has ceased to exist. its place has been taken by what after all is but a substitute for it, namely, wall paper. i am not aware that any specimen of wall paper has been discovered that has claims to any higher antiquity than the sixteenth century, and it only came much into use in the last, increasing in the present, until it has become well-nigh a universal covering for domestic walls, and at the same time has shown a remarkable development in design, varying from very unpretending patterns and printings in one colour to elaborate block-printed designs in many colours, besides cheap machine-printed papers, where all the tints are printed from the design on a roller at once. since mr. william morris has shown what beauty and character in pattern, and good and delicate choice of tint can do for us, giving in short a new impulse in design, a great amount of ingenuity and enterprise has been spent on wall papers in england, and in the better kinds a very distinct advance has been made upon the patterns of inconceivable hideousness, often of french origin, of the period of the second empire--a period which perhaps represents the most degraded level of taste in decoration generally. the designer of patterns for wall papers heretofore has been content to imitate other materials, and adapt the characteristics of the patterns found, say, in silk damask hangings or tapestry, or even imitate the veining of wood, or marble, or tiles; but since the revival of interest in art, the study of its history, and knowledge of style, a new impulse has been given, and patterns are constructed with more direct reference to their beauty, and interest as such, while strictly adapted to the methods of manufacture. great pains are often taken by our principal makers to secure good designs and harmonious colourings, and though a manufacturer and director of works is always more or less controlled by the exigencies of the market and the demands of the tentative salesman--considerations which have no natural connection with art, though highly important as economic conditions affecting its welfare--very remarkable results have been produced, and a special development of applied design may almost be said to have come into existence with the modern use of wall papers. the manufacture suffers like most others from the keenness and unscrupulousness of commercial competition, which leads to the production of specious imitations of _bonâ fide_ designs, and unauthorised use of designs originally intended for other purposes, and this of course presses unfairly upon the more conscientious maker, so long as the public do not decline to be deceived. english wall papers are made in lengths inches wide. french wall papers are inches wide. this has probably been found most convenient in working in block-printing: it is obvious to any one who has seen the printers at work that a wider block than inches would be unwieldy, since the block is printed by hand, being suspended from above by a cord, and guided by the workman's hand from the well of colour, into which it is dipped, to the paper flat on a table before him. the designer must work to the given width, and though his design may vary in depth, must never exceed inches square, except where double blocks are used. his main business is to devise his pattern so that it will repeat satisfactorily over an indefinite wall space without running into awkward holes or lines. it may be easy enough to draw a spray or two of leaves or flowers which will stand by themselves, but to combine them in an organic pattern which shall repeat pleasantly over a wall surface requires much ingenuity and a knowledge of the conditions of the manufacture, apart from play of fancy and artistic skill. one way of concealing the joints of the repeat of the pattern is by contriving what is called a drop-repeat, so that, in hanging, the paper-hanger, instead of placing each repeat of pattern side by side, is enabled to join the pattern at a point its own depth below, which varies the effect, and arranges the chief features or masses on an alternating plan. the modern habit of regarding the walls of a room chiefly as a background to pictures, furniture, or people, and perhaps the smallness of the average room, has brought rather small, thickly dispersed, leafy patterns into vogue, retiring in colour for the most part. while, however, we used to see rotund and accidental bunches of roses (the pictorial or sketchy treatment of which contrasted awkwardly with their formal repetition), we now get a certain sense of adaptation, and the necessity of a certain flatness of treatment; and most of us who have given much thought to the subject feel that when natural forms are dealt with, under such conditions, suggestion is better than any attempt at realisation, or naturalistic or pictorial treatment, and that a design must be constructed upon some systematic plan, if not absolutely controlled by a geometric basis. wall papers are printed from blocks prepared from designs, the outlines of which are reproduced by means of flat brass wire driven edgeways into the wood block. one block for each tint is used. first one colour is printed on a length of paper, a piece of yards long and inches wide, which is passed over sticks suspended across the workshop. when the first colour is dry the next is printed, and so on; the colours being mixed with size and put in shallow trays or wells, into which the blocks are dipped. a cheaper kind is printed by steam power from rollers on which the design has been reproduced in the same way by brass wire, which holds the colour; but in the case of machine-printed papers all the tints are printed at once. thus the pattern is often imperfect and blurred. a more elaborate and costly kind of wall paper is that which is stamped and gilded, in emulation of stamped and gilded leather, which it resembles in effect and quality of surface. for this method the design is reproduced in relief as a _repoussée_ brass plate, and from this a mould or matrix is made, and the paper being damped is stamped in a press into the matrix, and so takes the pattern in relief, which is generally covered with white metal and lacquered to a gold hue, and this again may be rubbed in with black, which by filling the interstices gives emphasis to the design and darkens the gold to bronze; or the gilded surface may be treated in any variety of colour by means of painting or lacquer, or simply relieved by colouring the ground. but few of us own our own walls, or the ground they stand upon: but few of us can afford to employ ourselves or skilled artists and craftsmen in painting our rooms with beautiful fancies: but if we can get well-designed repeating patterns by the yard, in agreeable tints, with a pleasant flavour perchance of nature or antiquity, for a few shillings or pounds, ought we not to be happy? at all events, wall-paper makers should naturally think so. walter crane. fictiles earliest amongst the inventions of man and his endeavour to unite art with craft is the fictile art. his first needs in domestic life, his first utensils, his first efforts at civilisation, came from the mother earth, whose son he believed himself to be, and his ashes or his bones returned to earth enshrined in the fictile vases he created from their common clay. and these fictiles tell the story of his first art-instincts, and of his yearnings to unite beauty with use. they tell, too, more of his history than is enshrined and preserved by any other art; for almost all we know of many a people and many a tongue is learned from the fictile record, the sole relic of past civilisations which the destroyer time has left us. begun in the simplest fashion, fashioned by the simplest means, created from the commonest materials, fictile art grew with man's intellectual growth, and fictile craft grew with his knowledge; the latter conquering, in this our day, when the craftsman strangles the artist alike in this as in all other arts. to truly foster and forward the art, the craftsman and the artist should, where possible, be united, or at least should work in common, as was the case when, in each civilisation, the potter's art flourished most, and when the scientific base was of less account than was the art employed upon it. in its earliest stages the local clay sufficed for the formative portion of the work, and the faiences of most european countries offer more artistic results to us than do the more scientifically compounded porcelains. in the former case the native clay seemed more easily to ally itself with native art, to record more of current history, to create artistic genius rather than to be content with attempting to copy misunderstood efforts of other peoples and other times. but when science ransacked the earth for foreign bodies and ingredients, foreign decorative ideas came with them and fictile art was no more a vernacular one. it attempted to disguise itself, to show the craftsman superior to the artist; and then came the manufacturer and the reign of quantity over quality, the casting in moulds by the gross and the printing by the thousands. be it understood these remarks only apply to the introduction of porcelain into europe. in the east where the clay is native, the art is native; the potter's hand and the wheel yet maintain the power of giving the potter his individuality as the creator and the artist, and save him from being but the servant and the slave of a machine. between faience and porcelain comes, midway, stoneware, in which many wonderfully, and some fearfully, made things have been done of late, but which possesses the combined qualities of faience and porcelain--the ease of manipulation of the former, and the hardness and durability of the latter; but the tendency to over-elaborate the detail of its decoration, and rely less on the beauty of its semi-glossy surface than on meretricious ornament, has rather spoiled a very hopeful movement in ceramic art. probably the wisest course to pursue at the present would be to pay more attention to faiences decorated with simple glazes or with "slip" decoration, and this especially in modelled work. a continuation of the artistic career of the della robbia family is yet an unfulfilled desideratum, notwithstanding that glazed faiences have never since their time ceased to be made, and that glazed figure work of large scale prevailed in the eighteenth century. unglazed terra cotta, an artistic product eminently suited to our climate and to our urban architecture, has but partially developed itself, and this more in the direction of moulded and cast work than that of really plastic art; and albeit that from its dawn to this present the fictile art has been exercised abundantly, its rôle is by no means exhausted. the artist and the craftsman have yet a wide field before them, but it would be well that the former should, for some while to come, take the lead. science has too long reigned supreme in a domain wherein she should have been not more than equal sovereign. she has had her triumphs, great triumphs too, triumphs which have been fraught with good in an utilitarian sense, but she has tyrannised too rigidly over the realm of art. let us now try to equalise the dual rule. g. t. robinson. metal work in discussing the artistic aspect of metal work, we have to take into account the physical properties and appropriate treatment of the following metals: the precious metals, gold and silver; copper, both pure and alloyed with other metals, especially tin and zinc in various proportions to form the many kinds of brass and bronze; lead, with a group of alloys of which pewter is typical; and iron, in the three forms of cast iron, wrought iron, and steel. all these have been made to serve the purpose of the artist, and the manipulation of them, while presenting many differences in detail, presents certain broad characteristics in common which distinguish them from the raw material of other crafts. whether they are found native in the metallic state as is usual in the case of gold, or combined with many other minerals in the form of ore as is more common with other metals, fire is the primal agency by which they are made available for our needs. the first stage in their manipulation is to melt and cast them into ingots of a size convenient to the purpose intended. secondly, all these metals when pure, and many alloys, are in varying degree malleable and ductile, are, in fact, if sufficient force be applied, plastic. hence arises the first broad division in the treatment of metals. the fluid metal may, by the use of suitable moulds, be cast at once to the shape required, or the casting may be treated merely as the starting-point for a whole series of operations--forging, rolling, chipping, chasing, wire-drawing, and many more. another property of the metals which must be noticed is, that not only can separate masses of metals be melted down and fused into one, but it is possible, under various conditions, of which the one invariably necessary is perfectly clean surfaces of contact, to unite separate portions of the same or different metals without fusion of the mass. for our present purpose the most important instance of this is the process of soldering, by which two surfaces are united by the application of sufficient heat to melt more fusible metal which is introduced between them, and which combines with both so as firmly to unite them on solidifying. closely allied to this are the processes by which one metal is, for purposes of adornment or preservation from corrosion, coated with a thin film or deposit of another, usually more costly, metal. though hereafter electro-metallurgy may assert its claim to artistic originality as a third division, for the present all metal work, so far as its artistic aspect depends upon process, falls naturally into one of the two broad divisions of cast metal and wrought metal. both have been employed from a time long anterior to written history; ornaments of beaten gold, and tools of cast bronze, are alike found among the relics of very early stages of civilisation, and in early stages both alike are artistic. the choice between the two processes is determined by such considerations as convenience of manufacture and the physical properties of the metals, and the different purposes in view. when a thick and comparatively massive shape is required, it is often easier to cast it at once. for thinner and lighter forms it is usually more convenient to treat the ingot or crude product of the furnace as mere raw material for a long series of workings under the hammer, or its patent mechanical equivalents, the rolling and pressing mills of modern mechanics. the choice is further influenced by the toughness generally characteristic of wrought metal, whereas the alloys which yield the cleanest castings are by no means universally the best in other respects. iron is the extreme instance of this: ordinary cast iron being an impure form of the metal, which is too brittle to be worked under the hammer, but is readily cast into moulds, being fluid at a temperature which, though high, is easily obtained in a blast furnace. wrought iron, however, which is usually obtained from cast iron by a process called puddling, whereby the impurities are burnt out, does not become fluid enough to pour into moulds; but on the other hand, pieces at a white heat can be united into a solid mass by skilful hammering, a process which is called welding, and, together with the fact that from its great hardness it is usually worked hot, is specially distinctive of the blacksmith's craft. in no other metal is the separation between the two branches so wide as in iron. the misdirected skill of some modern iron-founders has caused the name of cast iron to be regarded as the very negative of art, and has even thrown suspicion on the process of casting itself as one of questionable honesty. nevertheless, as a craft capable of giving final shape to metal, it has manifestly an artistic aspect, and, in fact, bronze statuary, a fine art pure and simple, is reproduced from the clay model merely by moulding and casting. we must therefore look for the artistic conditions in the preparation of the model or pattern, the impress of which in sand or loam forms the mould; the pattern may be carved in wood or modelled in clay, but the handling of the wood or clay is modified by the conditions under which the form is reproduced. and lastly, the finished object may either retain the surface formed as the metal solidifies, as in the case of the bronzes cast by the wax process, or the skin may be removed by the use of cutting tools, chisels and files and gravers, so that, as in the case of many of the better french bronzes, the finished work is strictly carved work. on the contrary, much silversmith's work, as well as such simple objects as chinese gongs and indian "lotahs," after being cast approximately to shape are finished by hammer work, that is, treated as plastic material with tools that force the material into shape instead of cutting the shape out of the mass by removing exterior portions of material. attempts to imitate both processes by casting only, thus dispensing with the cost of finishing, are common, but as they dispense likewise with all beauty in the product, even if they do not substitute varnished and tinted zinc for better metal, their success is commercial only. we have thus three characteristic kinds of surface resulting from the conditions of treatment, marking out three natural divisions of the art: and be it noted that questions of surface or texture are all-important in the arts; beauty is skin deep. first, the natural skin of the metal solidified in contact with the mould, and more or less closely imitative of the surface of the original model, usually for our purposes a plastic surface; secondly, there is carved, technically called chased, work; and thirdly, beaten or wrought work, which in ornament is termed embossing. superimposed on these we have the cross divisions of the crafts according to the special metal operated on, and in the existing industrial organisation the groups thus obtained have to be further divided into many sub-heads, according to the articles produced; and finally, another commercial distinction has to be drawn which greatly affects the present condition of handicraft, that is, the division of the several trades into craftsmen and salesmen. there can be no doubt that the extent of the existing dissociation of the producing craftsman from the consumer is an evil for the arts, and that the growing preponderance of great stores is inimical to excellence of workmanship. it is, perhaps, an advantage for the workman to be relieved from the office of salesman; the position of the village smith plying his calling in face of his customers might not suit every craft, but the services of the middleman are dearly bought at the price of artistic freedom. it is too often in the power of the middleman to dictate the quality of workmanship, too often his seeming interest to ordain that it shall be bad. the choice of a metal for any particular purpose is determined by physical properties combined with considerations of cost. iron, if only for its cheapness, is the material for the largest works of metal; while in the form of steel it is the best available material for many very small works, watch-springs for instance: it has the defect of liability to rust; the surfaces of other metals may tarnish, but iron rusts through. for the present only one application of cast iron concerns us--its use for grates and stoves. the point to remember is, that as the material has but little beauty, its employment should be restricted to the quantity prescribed by the demands of utility. wrought iron, on the contrary, gives very great scope to the artist, and it offers this peculiar advantage, that the necessity of striking while the iron is hot enforces such free dexterity of handling in the ordinary smith, that he has comparatively little to learn if set to produce ornamental work, and thus renewed interest in the art has found craftsmen enough who could readily respond to the demand made upon them. copper, distinguished among metals by its glowing red tint, has as a material for artistic work been overshadowed by its alloys, brass and bronze; partly because they make sounder castings, partly it is to be feared from the approach of their colour to gold. holding an intermediate position between iron and the precious metals, they are the material of innumerable household utensils and smaller architectural fittings. lead, tin, and zinc scarcely concern the artist to-day, though neither plumber nor pewterer has always been restricted to plain utilitarianism. gold and silver have been distinguished in all ages as the precious metals, both for their comparative rarity and their freedom from corrosion, and their extreme beauty. they are both extremely malleable and very readily worked. unhappily there is little original english work being done in these metals. the more ordinary wares have all life and feeling taken out of them by mechanical finish, an abrasive process being employed to remove every sign of tool-marks. the all-important surface is thus obliterated. as to design, fashion oscillates between copies of one past period and another. a comparison of one of these copies with an original will make the distinction between the work of a man paid to do his quickest and one paid to do his best clearer than volumes of description. indeed, when all is said, a writer can but indicate the logic that underlies the craft, or hint at the relation which subsists between the process, the material, and the finished ware: the distinction between good and bad in art eludes definition; it is not an affair of reason, but of perception. w. a. s. benson. stone and wood carving the crafts of the stone and wood carver may fairly be taken in review at the same time, although they differ in themselves. it is a misfortune that there should be so great a gulf as there is between the craftsman who is called, and considers himself to be properly called, "a sculptor" and his fellow-craftsman who is called "a carver." in these days the "sculptor" is but too often a man who would think it a condescension to execute what, for want of a better name, we must call decorative work. in truth, the sculptor is the outcome of that entire separation which has come about between the love of beauty, once common in everyday life, and art, as it is now called--a thing degraded to the purposes of a toy, a mere ornament for the rich. the sculptor is trained to make these ornaments, things which have no relation to their surroundings, but which may be placed now in a drawing-room, now in a conservatory or a public square, alone and unsheltered. he is a child of the studio. the result of this training is, he has lost all knowledge how to produce work of a decorative character. he understands nothing of design in a wide sense, but being able to model a figure with tolerable success he rests therewith content. being designed, as it is, in the studio, his work is wanting in sympathy with its surroundings; it does not fall into its place, it is not a part of a complete conception. things were not so when sculpture and what, for want of a better term, we have called "stone and wood carving" were at their prime. the greek craftsman could produce both the great figure of the god, which stood alone as the central object in the temple, and (working in thorough sympathy with the architect) the decorative sculpture of less importance which was attached to the building round about, and without which the beauty of the fabric was incomplete. so also the great florentine sculptors spent themselves with equal zeal on a door, the enclosure of a choir, a pulpit, or a tomb, which in those days meant not merely the effigy of the departed, but a complete design of many parts all full of beauty and skill. in the great days of mediæval art sculpture played a part of the highest importance. the works then produced are not only excellent in themselves, but are so designed as to form a part of the building they adorn. how thoroughly unfinished would be the west front of the cathedral at wells, or the portals of amiens or reims, without their sculpture. how rarely can we feel this sense of satisfaction, of unity of result, between the work of the sculptor and the architect in our buildings of to-day. the figures are "stood about" like ornaments on the mantelpiece. the architect seems as unable to prepare for them as the sculptor to make them. we seldom see congruity even between the figure and the pedestal on which it stands. the want of this extended sympathy leads to another ill result. wood, stone, and metal, different as they are, are treated by the artist in much the same fashion. the original model in clay seems to stand behind everything. the "artist" makes the clay model; his subordinates work it out in one or another material. the result can only be unsatisfactory because the natural limitations fixed by the qualities of the different materials have been neglected, whereas they should stand forth prominently in the mind of the artist from the moment he first conceives his design. marble, stones--some hard, some soft,--terra cotta, metals, or wood, each demand a difference of treatment. for example, the fibrous nature of wood enables the craftsman to produce work which would fall to pieces at the first blow if executed in stone. the polished and varied surface of marble demands a treatment of surface and section of mouldings which in stone would seem tame and poor. again, it must not be forgotten that most works in stone or marble are built up. they are composed of many blocks standing one on the other. with wood it is quite different. used in thick pieces it splits; good wood-work is therefore framed together, the framing and intermediate panelling lending itself to the richest decoration; but anything in the design which suggests stone construction is obviously wrong. in short, wood must be treated as a material that is fibrous and tenacious, and in planks or slabs; stone or marble as of close, even texture, brittle and in blocks. consequent on these differences of texture, we find that the tools and method of handling them used by the wood-carver differ in many respects from those used by the worker in stone or marble. one material is scooped and cut out, the other is attacked by a constant repetition of blows. in the history of mediæval art we find that the craft of the stone-carver was perfectly understood long before that of his brother craftsman in wood. whilst the first had all through europe attained great perfection in the thirteenth century, the second did not reach the same standard till the fifteenth, and with the classic revival it died out. nothing displays more fully the adaptation of design and decoration to the material than much of the fifteenth-century stall-work in our english cathedrals. these could only be executed in wood; the design is suited to that material only; but when the italian influence creeps in, the designs adopted are in fact suited to fine stone, marble, or alabaster, and not to wood. until the craftsman in stone and wood is more of an architect, and the architect more of a craftsman, we cannot hope for improvement. somers clarke. furniture the institution of schools of art and design, and the efforts of serials and magazines devoted to artistic matters, have had their proper effect in the creation of a pretty general distaste for the clumsy and inartistic forms which characterised cabinets and furniture generally some years back. unfortunately for the movement, some manufacturers saw their opportunity in the demand thus created for better and more artistic shapes to produce bad and ill-made copies of good designs, which undermined the self-respect of the unfortunate man (frequently a good and sufficient craftsman) whose ill hap it was to be obliged to make them, and vexed the soul of the equally unfortunate purchaser. the introduction of machinery for moulding, which left only the fitting and polishing to be done by the craftsman, and which enabled manufacturers to produce two or three cabinets in the time formerly occupied in the making of one, was all against the quality and stability of the work. no good work was ever done in a hurry: the craftsman may be rapid, but his rapidity is the result of very deliberate thought, and not of hurry. good furniture, however, cannot be made rapidly. all wood, no matter how long it is kept, nor how dry it may be superficially, will always shrink again when cut into. it follows that the longer the interval between the cutting up of the wood, and its fitting together, the better for the work. in the old times the parts of a cabinet lay about in the workman's benchway for weeks, and even months, and were continually turned over and handled by him while he was engaged on the mouldings and other details. the wood thus became really dry, and no further shrinkage could take place after it was put together. a word here about the designing of cabinets. modern furniture designers are far too much influenced by considerations of style, and sacrifice a good deal that is valuable in order to conform to certain rules which, though sound enough in their relation to architecture, do not really apply to furniture at all. much more pleasing, and not necessarily less artistic work would be produced, were designers, and handicraftsmen too, encouraged to allow their imagination more scope, and to get more of their own individuality into their work, instead of being the slaves of styles invented by people who lived under quite different conditions from those now prevailing. mouldings as applied to cabinets are nearly always too coarse, and project too much. this applies equally to the carvings, which should always be quite subordinate to the general design and mouldings, and (in its application to surfaces) should be in low relief. this is quite compatible with all necessary vigour as well as refinement. the idea that boldness--viz. high projection of parts in carving--has anything to do with vigour is a common one, but is quite erroneous. all the power and vigour which he is capable of putting into anything, the clever carver can put into a piece of ornament which shall not project more than a quarter of an inch from the ground in any part. indeed, i have known good carvers who did their best work within those limits. knowledge of line, of the management of planes, with dexterity in the handling of surfaces, is all he requires. another common mistake is to suppose that smoothness of surface has anything to do with finish properly so called. if only half the time which is commonly spent in smoothing and polishing carved surfaces was devoted to the more thorough study and development of the various parts of the design, and the correction of the outlines, the surface might very well be left to take care of itself, and the work would be the better for it. there is not space in this paper to do more than glance at a few other methods in ordinary use for cabinet decoration. marquetry, inlays of ivory, and various other materials have always been extensively used, and sometimes with excellent effect. in many old examples the surface of the solid wood was cut away to the pattern, and various other kinds of wood pressed into the lines so sunk. the method more generally adopted now is to insert the pattern into veneer which has been prepared to receive it, and mount the whole on a solid panel or shape with glue. the besetting sin of the modern designer or maker of marquetry is a tendency to "loud" colour and violent contrasts of both colour and grain. it is common to see as many as a dozen different kinds of wood used in the decoration of a modern cabinet--some of them stained woods, and the colours of no two of them in harmony. the best work in this kind depends for its effect on a rich, though it may be low tone of colour. it is seldom that more than two or three different kinds of wood are used, but each kind is so carefully selected for the purpose of the design, and is used in so many different ways, that, while the all-important "tone" is kept throughout, the variety of surface is almost infinite. for this reason, though it is not necessary that the designer should actually cut the work himself, it is most essential that he should always be within call of the cutter, and should himself select every piece of wood which is introduced into the design. this kind of work is sometimes shaded with hot sand; at other times a darker wood is introduced into the pattern for the shadows. the latter is the better way; the former is the cheaper. the polishing of cabinet work. i have so strong an objection in this connection to the french polisher and all his works and ways, that, notwithstanding the popular prejudice in favour of brilliant surfaces, i would have none of him. formerly the cabinetmaker was accustomed to polish his own work, sometimes by exposing the finished surfaces to the light for a few weeks in order to darken them, and then applying beeswax with plentiful rubbing. this was the earliest and the best method, but in later times a polish composed of naphtha and shellac was used. the latter polish, though open to many of the objections which may be urged against that now in use, was at least hard and lasting, which can hardly be said of its modern substitute. the action of the more reputable cabinetmaking firms has been, of late, almost wholly in the direction of better design and construction; but a still better guarantee of progress in the future of the craft is found in the fact that the craftsman who takes an artistic and intelligent, and not a merely mechanical interest in his work, is now often to be met. to such men greater individual freedom is alone wanting. stephen webb. stained glass in these days there is a tendency to judge the merits of stained glass from the standpoint of the archæologist. it is good or bad in so far as it is directly imitative of work of the fourteenth or fifteenth century. the art had reached to a surprising degree of beauty and perfection in the fifteenth century, and although under the influence of the renaissance some good work was done, it rapidly declined only to lift its head once more with the revived study of the architecture of the middle ages. the burning energy of pugin, which nothing could escape, was directed towards this end, but the attainment of a mere archæological correctness was the chief aim in view. the crude draughtsmanship of the ancient craftsman was diligently imitated, but the spirit and charm of the original was lost, as, in a mere imitation, it must be. in the revival of the art, whilst there was an attempt to imitate the drawing, there was no attempt to reproduce the quality of the ancient glass. thus, brilliant, transparent, and unbroken tints were used, lacking all the richness and splendour of colour so characteristic of the originals. under these conditions of blind imitation the modern worker in stained glass produced things probably more hideous than the world ever saw before. departing altogether from the traditions of the mediæval schools, whether ancient or modern, there has arisen another school which has found its chief exponents at munich. the object of these people has been, ignoring the condition under which they must necessarily work, to produce an ordinary picture in enamelled colours upon sheets of glass. the result has been the production of mere transparencies no better than painted blinds. what then, it may be asked, are the limiting conditions, imposed upon him by the nature of the materials, within which the craftsman must work to produce a satisfactory result? in the first place, a stained glass window is not an easel picture. it does not stand within a frame, as does the easel picture, in isolation from the objects surrounding it; it is not even an object to be looked at by itself; its duty is, not only to be beautiful, but to play its part in the adornment of the building in which it is placed, being subordinated to the effect the interior is intended to produce as a whole. it is, in fact, but one of many parts that go to _produce a complete result_. a visit to one of our mediæval churches, such as york minster, gloucester cathedral, or malvern priory, church buildings, which still retain much of their ancient glass, and a comparison of the unity of effect there experienced with the internecine struggle exhibited in most buildings furnished by the glass painters of to-day, will surely convince the most indifferent that there is yet much to be learned. secondly, the great difference between coloured glass and painted glass must be kept in view. a coloured glass window is in the nature of a mosaic. not only are no large pieces of glass used, but each piece is separated from and at the same time joined to its neighbour by a thin grooved strip of lead which holds the two. "_coloured glass_ is obtained by a mixture of metallic oxides whilst in a state of fusion. this colouring pervades the substance of the glass and becomes incorporated with it."[ ] it is termed "pot-metal." an examination of such a piece of glass will show it to be full of varieties of a given colour, uneven in thickness, full of little air-bubbles and other accidents which cause the rays of light to play in and through it with endless variety of effect. it is the exact opposite to the clear sheet of ordinary window-glass. to build up a decorative work (and such a form of expression may be found very appropriate in this craft) in coloured glass, the pieces must be carefully selected, the gradations of tint in a given piece being made use of to gain the result aimed at. the leaded "canes" by which the whole is held together are made use of to aid the effect. fine lines and hatchings are painted as with "silver stain," and in this respect only is there any approach to enamelling in the making of a coloured glass window. the glass mosaic as above described is held in its place in the window by horizontal iron bars, and the position of these is a matter of some importance, and is by no means overlooked by the artist in considering the effect of his finished work. a well-designed coloured glass window is, in fact, like nothing else in the world but itself. it is not only a mosaic; it is not merely a picture. it is the honest outcome of the use of glass for making a beautiful window which shall transmit light and not look like anything but what it is. the effect of the work is obtained by the contrast of the rich colours of the pot-metal with the pearly tones of the clear glass. we must now describe a _painted_ window, so that the distinction between a coloured and a painted window may be clearly made out. quoting from the same book as before--"to paint glass the artist uses a plate of translucent glass, and applies the design and colouring with vitrifiable colours. these colours, true enamels, are the product of metallic oxides combined with vitreous compounds called fluxes. through the medium of these, assisted by a strong heat, the colouring matters are fixed upon the plate of glass." in the painted window we are invited to forget that glass is being used. shadows are obtained by loading the surface with enamel colours; the fullest rotundity of modelling is aimed at; the lead and iron so essentially necessary to the construction and safety of the window are concealed with extraordinary skill and ingenuity. the spectator perceives a hole in the wall with a very indifferent picture in it--overdone in the high lights, smoky and unpleasant in the shadows, in no sense decorative. we need concern ourselves no more with painted windows; they are thoroughly false and unworthy of consideration. of coloured or stained windows, as they are more commonly called, many are made, mostly bad, but there are amongst us a few who know how to make them well, and these are better than any made elsewhere in europe at this time. somers clarke. footnotes: [ ] _industrial arts_, "historical sketches," p. , published for the committee of council on education. chapman and hall. table glass few materials lend themselves more readily to the skill of the craftsman than glass. the fluid or viscous condition of the "metal" as it comes from the "pot," the way in which it is shaped by the breath of the craftsman, and by his skill in making use of centrifugal force, these and many other things too numerous to mention are all manifested in the triumphs of the venetian glass-blower. at the first glance we see that the vessel he has made is of a material once liquid. he takes the fullest advantage of the conditions under which he works, and the result is a beautiful thing which can be produced in but one way. for many centuries the old methods were followed, but with the power to produce the "metal," or glass of extreme purity and transparency, came the desire to leave the old paths, and produce work in imitation of crystal. the wheel came into play, and cut and engraved glass became general. at first there was nothing but a genuine advance or variation on the old modes. the specimens of clear glass made at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries are well designed to suit the capabilities of the material. the form given to the liquid metal by the craftsman's skill is still manifest, its delicate transparency accentuated here and there by cutting the surface into small facets, or engraving upon it graceful designs; but as skill increased so taste degraded. the graceful outlines and natural curves of the old workers gave place to distortions of line but too common in all decorative works of the period. a little later and the material was produced in mere lumps, cut and tormented into a thousand surfaces, suggesting that the work was made from the solid, as, in part, it was. this miserable stuff reached its climax in the early years of the present reign. since then a great reaction has taken place. for example, the old decanter, a massive lump of misshapen material better suited to the purpose of braining a burglar than decorating a table, has given place to a light and gracefully formed vessel, covered in many cases with well-designed surface engraving, and thoroughly suited both to the uses it is intended to fulfil and the material of which it is made. and not only so, but a distinct variation and development upon the old types has been made. the works produced have not been merely copies, but they have their own character. it is not necessary to describe the craft of the glass-blower. it is sufficient to say that he deals with a material which, when it comes to his hands, is a liquid, solidifying rapidly on exposure to the air; that there is hardly a limit to the delicacy of the film that can be made; and, in addition to using a material of one colour, different colours can be laid one over the other, the outer ones being afterwards cut through by the wheel, leaving a pattern in one colour on a ground of another. there has developed itself of late an unfortunate tendency to stray from the path of improvement,[ ] but a due consideration on the part both of the purchaser and of the craftsman of how the material should be used will result, it may be hoped, in farther advances on the right road. somers clarke. footnotes: [ ] novelty rather than improvement is the rock on which our craftsmen are but too often wrecked. printing printing, in the only sense with which we are at present concerned, differs from most if not from all the arts and crafts represented in the exhibition in being comparatively modern. for although the chinese took impressions from wood blocks engraved in relief for centuries before the wood-cutters of the netherlands, by a similar process, produced the block books, which were the immediate predecessors of the true printed book, the invention of movable metal letters in the middle of the fifteenth century may justly be considered as the invention of the art of printing. and it is worth mention in passing that, as an example of fine typography, the earliest book printed with movable types, the gutenberg, or "forty-two line bible" of about , has never been surpassed. printing, then, for our purpose, may be considered as the art of making books by means of movable types. now, as all books not primarily intended as picture-books consist principally of types composed to form letterpress, it is of the first importance that the letter used should be fine in form; especially as no more time is occupied, or cost incurred, in casting, setting, or printing beautiful letters than in the same operations with ugly ones. and it was a matter of course that in the middle ages, when the craftsmen took care that beautiful form should always be a part of their productions whatever they were, the forms of printed letters should be beautiful, and that their arrangement on the page should be reasonable and a help to the shapeliness of the letters themselves. the middle ages brought caligraphy to perfection, and it was natural therefore that the forms of printed letters should follow more or less closely those of the written character, and they followed them very closely. the first books were printed in black letter, _i.e._ the letter which was a gothic development of the ancient roman character, and which developed more completely and satisfactorily on the side of the "lower-case" than the capital letters; the "lower-case" being in fact invented in the _early_ middle ages. the earliest book printed with movable type, the aforesaid gutenberg bible, is printed in letters which are an exact imitation of the more formal ecclesiastical writing which obtained at that time; this has since been called "missal type," and was in fact the kind of letter used in the many splendid missals, psalters, etc., produced by printing in the fifteenth century. but the first bible actually dated (which also was printed at maintz by peter schoeffer in the year ) imitates a much freer hand, simpler, rounder, and less _spiky_, and therefore far pleasanter and easier to read. on the whole the type of this book may be considered the _ne-plus-ultra_ of gothic type, especially as regards the lower-case letters; and type very similar was used during the next fifteen or twenty years not only by schoeffer, but by printers in strasburg, basle, paris, lubeck, and other cities. but though on the whole, except in italy, gothic letter was most often used, a very few years saw the birth of roman character not only in italy, but in germany and france. in sweynheim and pannartz began printing in the monastery of subiaco near rome, and used an exceedingly beautiful type, which is indeed to look at a transition between gothic and roman, but which must certainly have come from the study of the twelfth or even the eleventh century mss. they printed very few books in this type, three only; but in their very first books in rome, beginning with the year , they discarded this for a more completely roman and far less beautiful letter. but about the same year mentelin at strasburg began to print in a type which is distinctly roman; and the next year gunther zeiner at augsburg followed suit; while in at paris udalric gering and his associates turned out the first books printed in france, also in roman character. the roman type of all these printers is similar in character, and is very simple and legible, and unaffectedly designed for _use_; but it is by no means without beauty. it must be said that it is in no way like the transition type of subiaco, and though more roman than that, yet scarcely more like the complete roman type of the earliest printers of rome. a further development of the roman letter took place at venice. john of spires and his brother vindelin, followed by nicholas jenson, began to print in that city, , ; their type is on the lines of the german and french rather than of the roman printers. of jenson it must be said that he carried the development of roman type as far as it can go: his letter is admirably clear and regular, but at least as beautiful as any other roman type. after his death in the "fourteen eighties," or at least by , printing in venice had declined very much; and though the famous family of aldus restored its technical excellence, rejecting battered letters, and paying great attention to the "press work" or actual process of _printing_, yet their type is artistically on a much lower level than jenson's, and in fact they must be considered to have ended the age of fine printing in italy. jenson, however, had many contemporaries who used beautiful type, some of which--as, _e.g._, that of jacobus rubeus or jacques le rouge--is scarcely distinguishable from his. it was these great venetian printers, together with their brethren of rome, milan, parma, and one or two other cities, who produced the splendid editions of the classics, which are one of the great glories of the printer's art, and are worthy representatives of the eager enthusiasm for the revived learning of that epoch. by far the greater part of these _italian_ printers, it should be mentioned, were germans or frenchmen, working under the influence of italian opinion and aims. it must be understood that through the whole of the fifteenth and the first quarter of the sixteenth centuries the roman letter was used side by side with the gothic. even in italy most of the theological and law books were printed in gothic letter, which was generally more formally gothic than the printing of the german workmen, many of whose types, indeed, like that of the subiaco works, are of a transitional character. this was notably the case with the early works printed at ulm, and in a somewhat lesser degree at augsburg. in fact gunther zeiner's first type (afterwards used by schussler) is remarkably like the type of the before-mentioned subiaco books. in the low countries and cologne, which were very fertile of printed books, gothic was the favourite. the characteristic dutch type, as represented by the excellent printer gerard leew, is very pronounced and uncompromising gothic. this type was introduced into england by wynkyn de worde, caxton's successor, and was used there with very little variation all through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and indeed into the eighteenth. most of caxton's own types are of an earlier character, though they also much resemble flemish or cologne letter. after the end of the fifteenth century the degradation of printing, especially in germany and italy, went on apace; and by the end of the sixteenth century there was no really beautiful printing done: the best, mostly french or low-country, was neat and clear, but without any _distinction_; the worst, which perhaps was the english, was a terrible falling-off from the work of the earlier presses; and things got worse and worse through the whole of the seventeenth century, so that in the eighteenth printing was very miserably performed. in england about this time, an attempt was made (notably by caslon, who started business in london as a type-founder in ) to improve the letter in form. caslon's type is clear and neat, and fairly well designed; he seems to have taken the letter of the elzevirs of the seventeenth century for his model: type cast from his matrices is still in everyday use. in spite, however, of his praiseworthy efforts, printing had still one last degradation to undergo. the seventeenth century founts were bad rather negatively than positively. but for the beauty of the earlier work they might have seemed tolerable. it was reserved for the founders of the later eighteenth century to produce letters which are _positively_ ugly, and which, it may be added, are dazzling and unpleasant to the eye owing to the clumsy thickening and vulgar thinning of the lines: for the seventeenth-century letters are at least pure and simple in line. the italian, bodoni, and the frenchman, didot, were the leaders in this luckless change, though our own baskerville, who was at work some years before them, went much on the same lines; but his letters, though uninteresting and poor, are not nearly so gross and vulgar as those of either the italian or the frenchman. with this change the art of printing touched bottom, so far as fine printing is concerned, though paper did not get to its worst till about . the chiswick press in revived caslon's founts, printing for messrs. longman the diary of lady willoughby. this experiment was so far successful that about messrs. miller and richard of edinburgh were induced to cut punches for a series of "old style" letters. these and similar founts, cast by the above firm and others, have now come into general use and are obviously a great improvement on the ordinary "modern style" in use in england, which is in fact the bodoni type a little reduced in ugliness. the design of the letters of this modern "old style" leaves a good deal to be desired, and the whole effect is a little too gray, owing to the thinness of the letters. it must be remembered, however, that most modern printing is done by machinery on soft paper, and not by the hand press, and these somewhat wiry letters are suitable for the machine process, which would not do justice to letters of more generous design. it is discouraging to note that the improvement of the last fifty years is almost wholly confined to great britain. here and there a book is printed in france or germany with some pretension to good taste, but the general revival of the old forms has made no way in those countries. italy is contentedly stagnant. america has produced a good many showy books, the typography, paper, and illustrations of which are, however, all wrong, oddity rather than rational beauty and meaning being apparently the thing sought for both in the letters and the illustrations. to say a few words on the principles of design in typography: it is obvious that legibility is the first thing to be aimed at in the forms of the letters; this is best furthered by the avoidance of irrational swellings and spiky projections, and by the using of careful purity of line. even the caslon type when enlarged shows great shortcomings in this respect: the ends of many of the letters such as the t and e are hooked up in a vulgar and meaningless way, instead of ending in the sharp and clear stroke of jenson's letters; there is a grossness in the upper finishings of letters like the c, the a, and so on, an ugly pear-shaped swelling defacing the form of the letter: in short, it happens to this craft, as to others, that the utilitarian practice, though it professes to avoid ornament, still clings to a foolish, because misunderstood conventionality, deduced from what was once ornament, and is by no means _useful_; which title can only be claimed by _artistic_ practice, whether the art in it be conscious or unconscious. in no characters is the contrast between the ugly and vulgar illegibility of the modern type and the elegance and legibility of the ancient more striking than in the arabic numerals. in the old print each figure has its definite individuality, and one cannot be mistaken for the other; in reading the modern figures the eyes must be strained before the reader can have any reasonable assurance that he has a , an , or a before him, unless the press work is of the best: this is awkward if you have to read bradshaw's guide in a hurry. one of the differences between the fine type and the utilitarian must probably be put down to a misapprehension of a commercial necessity: this is the narrowing of the modern letters. most of jenson's letters are designed within a square, the modern letters are narrowed by a third or thereabout; but while this gain of space very much hampers the possibility of beauty of design, it is not a real gain, for the modern printer throws the gain away by putting inordinately wide spaces between his lines, which, probably, the lateral compression of his letters renders necessary. commercialism again compels the use of type too small in size to be comfortable reading: the size known as "long primer" ought to be the smallest size used in a book meant to be read. here, again, if the practice of "leading" were retrenched larger type could be used without enhancing the price of a book. one very important matter in "setting up" for fine printing is the "spacing," that is, the lateral distance of words from one another. in good printing the spaces between the words should be as near as possible equal (it is impossible that they should be quite equal except in lines of poetry); modern printers understand this, but it is only practised in the very best establishments. but another point which they should attend to they almost always disregard; this is the tendency to the formation of ugly meandering white lines or "rivers" in the page, a blemish which can be nearly, though not wholly, avoided by care and forethought, the desirable thing being "the breaking of the line" as in bonding masonry or brickwork, thus: ==== ==== ==== ==== the general _solidity_ of a page is much to be sought for: modern printers generally overdo the "whites" in the spacing, a defect probably forced on them by the characterless quality of the letters. for where these are boldly and carefully designed, and each letter is thoroughly individual in form, the words may be set much closer together, without loss of clearness. no definite rules, however, except the avoidance of "rivers" and excess of white, can be given for the spacing, which requires the constant exercise of judgment and taste on the part of the printer. the position of the page on the paper should be considered if the book is to have a satisfactory look. here once more the almost invariable modern practice is in opposition to a natural sense of proportion. from the time when books first took their present shape till the end of the sixteenth century, or indeed later, the page so lay on the paper that there was more space allowed to the bottom and fore margin than to the top and back of the paper, thus: +---------+---------+ | xxxxx | xxxxx | | xxxxx | xxxxx | | xxxxx | xxxxx | | xxxxx | xxxxx | | xxxxx | xxxxx | | xxxxx | xxxxx | | | | +---------+---------+ the unit of the book being looked on as the two pages forming an opening. the modern printer, in the teeth of the evidence given by his own eyes, considers the single page as the unit, and prints the page in the middle of his paper--only nominally so, however, in many cases, since when he uses a headline he counts that in, the result as measured by the eye being that the lower margin is less than the top one, and that the whole opening has an upside-down look vertically, and that laterally the page looks as if it were being driven off the paper. the paper on which the printing is to be done is a necessary part of our subject: of this it may be said that though there is some good paper made now, it is never used except for very expensive books, although it would not materially increase the cost in all but the very cheapest. the paper that is used for ordinary books is exceedingly bad even in this country, but is beaten in the race for vileness by that made in america, which is the worst conceivable. there seems to be no reason why ordinary paper should not be better made, even allowing the necessity for a very low price; but any improvement must be based on showing openly that the cheap article _is_ cheap, _e.g._ the cheap paper should not sacrifice toughness and durability to a smooth and white surface, which should be indications of a delicacy of material and manufacture which would of necessity increase its cost. one fruitful source of badness in paper is the habit that publishers have of eking out a thin volume by printing it on thick paper almost of the substance of cardboard, a device which deceives nobody, and makes a book very unpleasant to read. on the whole, a small book should be printed on paper which is as thin as may be without being transparent. the paper used for printing the small highly ornamented french service-books about the beginning of the sixteenth century is a model in this respect, being thin, tough, and opaque. however, the fact must not be blinked that machine-made paper cannot in the nature of things be made of so good a texture as that made by hand. the ornamentation of printed books is too wide a subject to be dealt with fully here; but one thing must be said on it. the essential point to be remembered is that the ornament, whatever it is, whether picture or pattern-work, should form _part of the page_, should be a part of the whole scheme of the book. simple as this proposition is, it is necessary to be stated, because the modern practice is to disregard the relation between the printing and the ornament altogether, so that if the two are helpful to one another it is a mere matter of accident. the due relation of letter to pictures and other ornament was thoroughly understood by the old printers; so that even when the woodcuts are very rude indeed, the proportions of the page still give pleasure by the sense of richness that the cuts and letter together convey. when, as is most often the case, there is actual beauty in the cuts, the books so ornamented are amongst the most delightful works of art that have ever been produced. therefore, granted well-designed type, due spacing of the lines and words, and proper position of the page on the paper, all books might be at least comely and well-looking: and if to these good qualities were added really beautiful ornament and pictures, printed books might once again illustrate to the full the position of our society that a work of utility might be also a work of art, if we cared to make it so. william morris. emery walker. bookbinding modern bookbinding dates from the application of printing to literature, and in essentials has remained unchanged to the present day, though in those outward characteristics, which appeal to the touch and to the eye, and constitute binding in an artistic sense, it has gone through many changes for better and for worse, which, in the opinion of the writer, have resulted, in the main, in the exaggeration of technical skill and in the death of artistic fancy. * * * * * the first operation of the modern binder is to fold or refold the printed sheet into a section, and to gather the sections, numbered or lettered at the foot, in their proper order into a volume. the sections are then taken, one by one, placed face downwards in a frame, and sewn through the back by a continuous thread running backwards and forwards along the backs of the sections to upright strings fastened at regular intervals in the sewing frame. this process unites the sections to one another in series one after the other, and permits the perusal of the book by the simple turning of leaf after leaf upon the hinge formed by the thread and the back of the section. a volume, or series of sections, so treated, the ends of the string being properly secured, is essentially "bound"; all that is subsequently done is done for the protection or for the decoration of the volume or of its cover. the sides of a volume are protected by millboards, called shortly "boards." the boards themselves and the back are protected by a cover of leather, vellum, silk, linen, or paper, wholly or in part. the edges of the volume are protected by the projection of the boards beyond them at top, bottom, and fore-edge, and usually by being cut smooth and gilt. a volume so bound and protected may be decorated by tooling or otherwise upon all the exposed surfaces (upon the edges, the sides, and the back) and may be designated by lettering upon the back or the sides. the degree in which a bound book is protected and decorated will determine the class to which the binding will belong. ( ) in _cloth binding_, the cover, called a "case," is made apart from the book, and is attached as a whole after the book is sewn. ( ) in _half binding_, the cover is built up for and on each individual book, but the boards of which it is composed are only partly covered with the leather or other material which covers the back. ( ) in _whole binding_, the boards are wholly covered with leather or other durable material, which in half binding covers only a portion of them. ( ) in _extra binding_, whole binding is advanced a stage higher by decoration. of course in the various stages the details vary commensurately with the stage itself, being more or less elaborate as the stage is higher or lower in the scale. the process of _extra binding_ set out in more detail is as follows:-- ( ) first the sections are folded or refolded. ( ) then "end-papers"--sections of plain paper added at the beginning and end of the volume to protect the first and last, the most exposed, sections of printed matter constituting the volume proper--having been prepared and added, the sections are beaten, or rolled, or pressed, to make them "solid." the end-papers are usually added at a later stage, and are pasted on, and not sewn, but, in the opinion of the writer, it is better to add them at this stage, and to sew them and not to paste them. ( ) then the sections are sewn as already described. ( ) when sewn the volume passes into the hands of the "forwarder," who ( ) "makes" the back, beating it round, if the back is to be round, and "backing" it, or making it fan out from the centre to right and left and project at the edges, to form a kind of ridge to receive and to protect the edges of the boards which form the sides of the cover. ( ) the back having been made, the "boards" (made of millboard, and originally of wood) for the protection of the sides are made and cut to shape, and attached by lacing into them the ends of the strings upon which the book has been sewn. ( ) the boards having been attached, the edges of the book are now cut smooth and even at the top, bottom, and fore-edge, the edges of the boards being used as guides for the purpose. in some cases the order is reversed, and the edges are first cut and then the boards. ( ) the edges may now be coloured and gilt, and if it is proposed to "gauffer" or to decorate them with tooling, they are so treated at this stage. ( ) the head-band is next worked on at head and tail, and the back lined with paper or leather or other material to keep the head-band in its place and to strengthen the back itself. the book is now ready to be covered. ( ) if the book is covered with leather, the leather is carefully pared all round the edges and along the line of the back, to make the edges sharp and the joints free. ( ) the book having been covered, the depression on the inside of the boards caused by the overlap of the leather is filled in with paper, so that the entire inner surface may be smooth and even, and ready to receive the first and last leaves of the end-papers, which finally are cut to shape and pasted down, leaving the borders only uncovered. sometimes, however, the first and last leaves of the "end-papers" are of silk, and the "joint" of leather, in which case, of course, the end-papers are not pasted down, but the insides of the boards are independently treated, and are covered, sometimes with leather, sometimes with silk or other material. the book is now "forwarded," and passes into the hands of the "finisher" to be tooled or decorated, or "finished" as it is called. the decoration in gold on the surface of leather is wrought out, bit by bit, by means of small brass stamps called "tools." the steps of the process are shortly as follows:-- ( ) the pattern having been settled and worked out on paper, it is "transferred" to, or marked out on, the various surfaces to which it is to be applied. each surface is then prepared in succession, and, if large, bit by bit, to receive the gold. ( ) first the leather is washed with water or with vinegar. ( ) then the pattern is pencilled over with "glaire" (white of egg beaten up and drained off), or the surface is wholly washed with it. ( ) next it is smeared lightly with grease or oil. ( ) and, finally, the gold (gold leaf) is applied by a pad of cotton wool, or a flat thin brush called a "tip." ( ) the pattern, visible through the gold, is now reimpressed or worked with the tools heated to about the temperature of boiling water, and the unimpressed or waste gold is removed by an oiled rag, leaving the pattern in gold and the rest of the leather clear. * * * * * these several operations are, in england, usually distributed among five classes of persons. ( ) the _superintendent_ or person responsible for the whole work. ( ) the _sewer_, usually a woman, who folds, sews, and makes the head-bands. ( ) the _book-edge gilder_, who gilds the edges. usually a craft apart. ( ) the _forwarder_, who performs all the other operations leading up to the finishing. ( ) the _finisher_, who decorates and letters the volume after it is forwarded. in paris the work is still further distributed, a special workman (_couvreur_) being employed to prepare the leather for covering and to cover. in the opinion of the writer, the work, as a craft of beauty, suffers, as do the workmen, from the allocation of different operations to different workmen. the work should be conceived of as one, and be wholly executed by one person, or at most by two, and especially should there be no distinction between "finisher" and "forwarder," between "executant" and "artist." * * * * * the following technical names may serve to call attention to the principal features of a bound book. ( ) the _back_, the posterior edge of the volume upon which at the present time the title is usually placed. formerly it was placed on the fore-edge or side. the back may be (a) convex or concave or flat; (b) marked horizontally with bands, or smooth from head to tail; (c) tight, the leather or other covering adhering to the back itself, or hollow, the leather or other covering not so adhering; and (d) stiff or flexible. ( ) _edges_, the three other edges of the book,--the top, the bottom, and the fore-edge. ( ) _bands_, the cords upon which the book is sewn, and which, if not "let in" or embedded in the back, appear on it as parallel ridges. the ridges are, however, usually artificial, the real bands being "let in" to facilitate the sewing, and their places supplied by thin slips of leather cut to resemble them and glued on the back. this process also enables the forwarder to give great sharpness and finish to this part of his work, if he think it worth while. ( ) _between-bands_, the space between the bands. ( ) _head_ and _tail_, the top and bottom of the back. ( ) the _head-band_ and _head-cap_, the fillet of silk worked in buttonhole stitch at the head and tail, and the cap or cover of leather over it. the head-band had its origin probably in the desire to strengthen the back and to resist the strain when a book is pulled by head or tail from the shelf. ( ) _boards_, the sides of the cover, stiff or limp, thick or thin, in all degrees. ( ) _squares_, the projection of the boards beyond the edges of the book. these may be shallow or deep in all degrees, limited only by the purpose they have to fulfil and the danger they will themselves be exposed to if too deep. ( ) _borders_, the overlaps of leather on the insides of the boards. ( ) _proof_, the rough edges of leaves left uncut in cutting the edges to show where the original margin was, and to prove that the cutting has not been too severe. the life of bookbinding is in the dainty mutation of its mutable elements--back, bands, boards, squares, decoration. these elements admit of almost endless variation, singly and in combination, in kind and in degree. in fact, however, they are now almost always uniformly treated or worked up to one type or set of types. this is the death of bookbinding as a craft of beauty. the finish, moreover, or execution, has outrun invention, and is the great characteristic of modern bookbinding. this again, the inversion of the due order, is, in the opinion of the writer, but as the carving on the tomb of a dead art, and itself dead. a well-bound beautiful book is neither of one type, nor finished so that its highest praise is that "had it been made by a machine it could not have been made better." it is individual; it is instinct with the hand of him who made it; it is pleasant to feel, to handle, and to see; it is the original work of an original mind working in freedom simultaneously with hand and heart and brain to produce a thing of use, which all time shall agree ever more and more also to call "a thing of beauty." t. j. cobden-sanderson. of mural painting there seems no precise reason why the subject of this note should differ much from that of mr. crane's article on "decorative painting" (pp. - ). "mural painting" need not, as such, consist of any one sort of painting more than another. "decorative painting" does seem, on the other hand, to indicate a certain desire or undertaking to render the object painted more pleasant to the beholder's eye. from long habit, however, chiefly induced by the constant practice of the italians of modern times, "mural painting" has come to be looked upon as figure painting (in fact, the human figure exclusively) on walls--and no other sort of objects can sufficiently impart that dignity to a building which it seems to crave for. i can think of no valid reason why a set of rooms, or walls, should not be decorated with animals in lieu of "humans," as the late mr. trelawney used to call us: one wall to be devoted to monkeys, a second to be filled in with tigers, a third to be given up to horses, etc. etc. i know men in england, and, i believe, some artists, who would be delighted with the substitution. but i hope the general sense of the public would be set against such subjects, and the lowering effects of them on every one, and the kind of humiliation we should feel at knowing them to exist. i have been informed that in berlin the walls of the rooms where the antique statues are kept have been painted with mixed subjects representing antique buildings with antique greek views and landscapes, to back up, as it were, the statues. i must own it, that without having seen the decoration in question, i feel filled with extreme aversion for the plan. the more so when one considers the extreme unlikelihood of the same being made tolerable in colour at berlin. i have also been told that some painters in the north of england, bitten with a desire to decorate buildings, have painted one set of rooms with landscapes. this, without the least knowledge of the works in question, as landscapes, i must allow i regret. there is, it seems to me, an unbridgeable chasm, not to be passed, between landscape art and the decoration of walls; for the very essence of the landscape art is distance, whereas the very essence of the wall-picture is its solidity, or, at least, its not appearing to be a hole in the wall. on the matter of subjects fit for painting on walls i may have a few words to say farther on in this paper, but first i had better set down what little i have to advise with regard to the material and mode of executing. the old-fashioned italian or "buon fresco" i look upon as practically given up in this country, and every other european country that has not a climate to equal italy. if the climate of paris will not admit of this process, how much less is our damp, foggy, changeable atmosphere likely to put up with it for many years! it is true that the frescoes of william dyce have lasted for some thirty years without apparent damage; but also it is the case that the queen's robing rooms in the house of lords have been specially guarded against atmospheric changes of temperature. next to real fresco, there has been in repute for a time the waterglass process, in which daniel maclise's great paintings have been executed. i see no precise reason why these noble works should not last, and defy climate for many, many long years yet; though from want of experience he very much endangered this durability through the too lavish application of the medium. but in germany, the country of waterglass, the process is already in bad repute. the third alternative, "spirit fresco," or what we in england claim as the gambier-parry process, has, i understand, superseded it. i have myself painted in this system seven works on the walls of the manchester town hall, and have had no reason to complain of their behaviour. since beginning the series, however, a fresh change has come over the fortunes of mural art in the fact that, in france (what most strongly recommends itself to common sense), the mural painters have now taken to painting on canvas, which is afterwards cemented, or what the french call "maronflée," on to the wall. white-lead and oil, with a very small admixture of rosin melted in oil, are the ingredients used. it is laid on cold and plentifully on the wall and on the back of the picture, and the painting pressed down with a cloth or handkerchief: nothing further being required, saving to guard the edges of the canvas from curling up before the white-lead has had time to harden. the advantage of this process of cementing lies in the fact that with each succeeding year it must become harder and more like stone in its consistency. the canvases may be prepared as if for oil painting, and painted with common oil-colours flatted (or matted) afterwards by gum-elemi and spike-oil. or the canvas may be prepared with the gambier-parry colour and painted in that very _mat_ medium. the canvases should if possible be fine in texture, as better adapted for adhering to the wall. the advantage of this process is that, should at any time, through neglect, damp invade the wall, and the canvas show a tendency to get loose, it would be easy to replace it; or the canvas might be altogether detached from the wall and strained as a picture. i must now return to the choice of subject, a matter of much importance, but on which it is difficult to give advice. one thing, however, may be urged as a rule, and that is, that very dark or rembrandtesque subjects are particularly unsuited for mural paintings. i cannot go into the reasons for this, but a slight experiment ought to satisfy the painter, having once heard the principle enunciated: that is, if he belong to the class likely to succeed at such work. another _sine qua non_ as to subject is that the painter himself must be allowed to select it. it is true that certain limitations may be accorded--for instance, the artist may be required to select a subject with certain tendencies in it--but the actual invention of the subject and working out of it must be his. in fact, the painter himself is the only judge of what he is likely to carry out well and of the subjects that are paintable. then much depends on whom the works are for; if for the general public, and carried out with their money, care (it seems to me but fair) should be taken that the subjects are such as they can understand and take interest in. if, on the contrary, you are painting for highly-cultured people with a turn for greek myths, it is quite another thing; then, such a subject as "eros reproaching his brother anteros for his coldness" might be one offering opportunities for shades of sentiment suited to the givers of the commissions concerned. but for such as have not been trained to entertain these refinements, downright facts, either in history or in sociology, are calculated most to excite the imagination. it is not always necessary for the spectator to be exact in his conclusions. i remember once at manchester, the members of a young men's christian association had come to a meeting in the great hall. some of them were there too soon, and so were looking round the room. one observed: "what's this about?" his friend answered: "fallen off a ladder, the police are running him in!" well, this was not quite correct. a wounded young danish chieftain was being hurried out of manchester on his comrade's shoulders, with a view to save his life. the phrygian helmets of the danes indicated neither firemen nor policemen; but the idea was one of misfortune, and care bestowed on it--and did as well, and showed sympathy in a somewhat uncultivated, though well-intentioned, class of lancastrians. on the other hand, i have noticed that subjects that interest infallibly all classes, educated or illiterate, are religious subjects. it is not a question of piety--but comes from the simple breadth of poetry and humanity usually involved in this class of subject. that the amount of religiosity in either spectator or producer has nothing to do with the feeling is clear if we consider. the spaniards are one of the most religious peoples ever known, and yet their art is singularly deficient in this quality. were there ever two great painters as wanting in the sacred feeling as velasquez and murillo? and yet, in all probability, they were more religious than ourselves. it only remains for me to point to the fact that mural painting, when it has been practised jointly by those who were at the same time easel-painters, has invariably raised those painters to far higher flights and instances of style than they seem capable of in the smaller path. take the examples left us, say by raphael and michel angelo, or some of the earlier masters, such as the "fulminati" of signorelli, compared with his specimens in our national gallery; or the works left on walls by even less favoured artists, such as domenichino and andrea del sarto, or the french de la roche's "hémicycle," or our own great painters dyce and maclise's frescoes; the same rise in style, the same improvement, is everywhere to be noticed, both in drawing, in colour, and in flesh-painting. f. madox brown. of sgraffito work the italian words graffiato, sgraffiato, or sgraffito, mean "scratched," and scratched work is the oldest form of graphic expression and surface decoration used by man. the term sgraffito is, however, specially used to denote decoration scratched or incised upon plaster or potter's clay while still soft, and for beauty of effect depends either solely upon lines thus incised according to design, with the resulting contrast of surfaces, or partly upon such lines and contrast, and partly upon an under-coat of colour revealed by the incisions; while, again, the means at disposal may be increased by varying the colours of the under-coat in accordance with the design. of the potter's sgraffito i have no experience, but it is my present purpose briefly and practically to examine the method, special aptitudes, and limitations of polychrome sgraffito as applied to the plasterer's craft. first, then, as to method. given the wall intended to be treated: granted the completion of the scheme of decoration, the cartoons having been executed in several colours and the outlines firmly pricked, and further, all things being ready for beginning work. hack off any existing plaster from the wall: when bare, rake and sweep out the joints thoroughly: when clean, give the wall as much water as it will drink: lay the coarse coat, leaving the face rough in order to make a good key for the next coat: when sufficiently set, fix your cartoon in its destined position with slate nails: pounce through the pricked outlines: remove the cartoon: replace the nails in the register holes: mark in with a brush in white oil paint the spaces for the different colours as shown in the cartoon, and pounced in outline on the coarse coat, placing the letters b, r, y, etc., as the case may be, in order to show the plasterer where to lay the different colours--black, red, yellow, etc.: give the wall as much water as it will drink: lay the colour coat in accordance with the lettered spaces on the coarse coat, taking care not to displace the register nails, and leaving plenty of key for the final surface coat. in laying the colour coat, calculate how much of the colour surface it may be advisable to get on the wall, as the same duration of time should be maintained throughout the work between the laying of the colour coat and the following on with the final surface coat--for this reason, if the colour coat sets hard before the final coat is laid, it will not be possible to scrape up the colour to its full strength wherever it may be revealed by incision of the design. when sufficiently set, _i.e._ in about hours, follow on with the final surface coat, only laying as much as can be cut and cleaned up in a day: when this is sufficiently steady, fix up the cartoon in its registered position: pounce through the pricked outlines: remove the cartoon and cut the design in the surface coat before it sets: then, if your register is correct, you will cut through to different colours according to the design, and in the course of a few days the work should set as hard and homogeneous as stone, and as damp-proof as the nature of things permits. the three coats above referred to may be gauged as follows:-- _coarse coat._-- or of sharp clean sand to of portland, to be laid about / inch in thickness. this coat is to promote an even suction and to keep back damp. _colour coat._-- of colour to - / of old portland, to be laid about / inch in thickness. specially prepared distemper colours should be used, and amongst such may be mentioned golden ochre, turkey red, indian red, manganese black, lime blue, and umber. _final surface coat._--aberthaw lime and selenitic cement, both sifted through a fine sieve--the proportions of the gauge depend upon the heat of the lime: or, parian cement sifted as above--air-slaked for hours, and gauged with water coloured with ochre, so as to give a creamy tone when the plaster dries out: or, of selenitic cement to of silver sand, both sifted as above--this may be used for out-door work. individual taste and experience must decide as to the thickness of the final coat, but if laid between / and / inch, and the lines cut with slanting edges, a side light gives emphasis to the finished result, making the outlines tell alternately as they take the light or cast a shadow. plasterers' small tools of various kinds and knife-blades fixed in tool handles will be found suited to the simple craft of cutting and clearing off the final surface coat; but as to this a craftsman finds his own tools by experience, and indeed by the same acquired perception must be interpreted all the foregoing directions, and specially that ambiguous word, dear to the writers of recipes,--_sufficient_. thus far method. now, as to special aptitudes and limitations. sgraffito work may claim a special aptitude for design whose centre of aim is line. it has no beauty of material like glass, no mystery of surface like mosaic, no pre-eminence of subtly-woven tone and colour like tapestry; yet it gives freer play to line than any of these mentioned fields of design, and a cartoon for sgraffito can be executed in facsimile, undeviated by warp and woof, and unchecked by angular tesseræ or lead lines. true, hardness of design may easily result from this aptitude, indeed is to a certain extent inherent to the method under examination, but in overcoming this danger and in making the most of this aptitude is the artist discovered. sgraffito from its very nature "asserts the wall"; that is, preserves the solid appearance of the building which it is intended to decorate. the decoration is in the wall rather than on the wall. it seems to be organic. the inner surface of the actual wall changes colour in puzzling but orderly sequence, as the upper surface passes into expressive lines and spaces, delivers its simple message, and then relapses into silence; but whether incised with intricate design, or left in plain relieving spaces, the wall receives no further treatment, the marks of float, trowel, and scraper remain, and combine to make a natural surface. it compels the work to be executed _in situ_. the studio must be exchanged for the scaffold, and the result should justify the inconvenience. however carefully the scheme of decoration may be designed, slight yet important modifications and readjustments will probably be found necessary in the transfer from cartoon to wall; and though the ascent of the scaffold may seem an indignity to those who prefer to suffer vicariously in the execution of their works, and though we of the nineteenth know, as cennini of the fifteenth century knew, "that painting pictures is the proper employment of a gentleman, and with velvet on his back he may paint what he pleases," still the fact remains, that if decoration is to attain that inevitable fitness for its place which is the fulfilment of design, this "proper employment of a gentleman" must be postponed, and velvet exchanged for blouse. it compels a quick, sure manner of work; and this quickness of execution, due to the setting nature of the final coat, and to the consequent necessity of working against time, gives an appearance of strenuous ease to the firm incisions and spaces by which the design is expressed, and a living energy of line to the whole. again, the setting nature of the colour coat suggests, and naturally lends itself to, an occasional addition in the shape of mosaic to the means at disposal, and a little glitter here and there will be found to go a long way in giving points of emphasis and play to large surfaces. it compels the artist to adopt a limited colour scheme--a limitation, and yet one which may almost be welcomed as an aptitude, for of colours in decorative work multiplication may be said to be a vexation. finally, the limitations of sgraffito as a method of expression are the same as those of all incised or line work. by it you can express ideas and suggest life, but you cannot realise,--cannot imitate the natural objects on which your graphic language is founded. the means at disposal are too scanty. item: white lines and spaces relieved against and slightly raised on a coloured ground; coloured lines and spaces slightly sunk on a white surface; intricacy relieved by simplicity of line, and again either relieved by plain spaces of coloured ground or white surface. indeed they are simple means. yet line still remains the readiest manner of graphic expression; and if in the strength of limitation our past masters of the arts and crafts have had power to "free, arouse, dilate" by their simple record of hand and soul, we also should be able to bring forth new achievement from old method, and to suggest the life and express the ideas which sway the latter years of our own century. heywood sumner. of stucco and gesso few things are more disheartening to the pursuer of plastic art than finding that, when he has carried his own labour to a certain point, he has to entrust it to another in order to render it permanent and useful. if he models in clay and wishes it burnt into terra cotta, the shrinkage and risk in firing, and the danger in transport to the kiln, are a nightmare to him. if he wishes it cast in plaster, the distortion by waste-moulding, or the cost of piece-moulding, are serious grievances to him, considering that after all he has but a friable result; and though this latter objection is minimised by mrs. laxton clark's ingenious process of indurating plaster, yet i am persuaded that most modellers would prefer to complete their work in some permanent form with their own hands. having this desirable end in view, i wish to draw their attention to some disused processes which once largely prevailed, by which the artist is enabled to finish, and render durable and vendible, his work, without having to part with it or pay for another's aid. these old processes are modelling in stucco-duro and gesso. stucco-duro, although of very ancient practice, is now practically a lost art. the materials required are simply well-burnt and slacked lime, a little fine sand, and some finely-ground unburnt lime-stone or white marble dust. these are well tempered together with water and beaten up with sticks until a good workable paste results. in fact, the preparation of the materials is exactly the same as that described by vitruvius, who recommends that the fragments of marble be sifted into three degrees of fineness, using the coarser for the rough bossage, the medium for the general modelling, and the finest for the surface finish, after which it can be polished with chalk and powdered lime if necessary. indeed, to so fine a surface can this material be brought, and so highly can it be polished, that he mentions its use for mirrors. the only caution that it is needful to give is to avoid working too quickly; for, as sir henry wooton, king james's ambassador at venice, who greatly advocated the use of stucco-duro, observed, the stucco worker "makes his figures by addition and the carver by subtraction," and to avoid too great risk of the work cracking in drying, these additions must be made slowly where the relief is great. if the relief is very great, or if a figure of large dimensions is essayed, it may be needful even to delay the drying of the stucco, and the addition of a little stiff paste will insure this, so that the work may be consecutively worked upon for many days. from the remains of the stucco work of classic times left us, we can realise how perfectly workable this material was; and if you examine the plaster casts taken from some most delicate low-relief plaques in stucco exhumed some ten years ago near the villa farnesina at rome, or the rougher and readier fragments of stucco-duro itself from some italo-greek tombs, both of which are to be seen in the south kensington museum, you will at once be convinced of the great applicability of the process. with the decadence of classic art some portion of the process seems to have been lost, and the use of pounded travertine was substituted for white marble; but, as the _bassi-relievi_ of the early renaissance were mostly decorated with colour, this was not important. the ground colours seem generally to have been laid on whilst the stucco was wet, as in fresco, and the details heightened with tempera or encaustic colours, sometimes with accessories enriched in gilt "gesso" (of which hereafter). many remains of these exist, and in the nineteenth winter exhibition of the royal academy there were no less than twelve very interesting examples of it exhibited, and in the south kensington museum are some few moderately good illustrations of it. it was not, however, until the sixteenth century that the old means of producing the highly-finished white stucchi were rediscovered, and this revival of the art as an architectonic accessory is due to the exhumation of the baths of titus under leo x. raphael and giovanni da udine were then so struck with the beauty of the stucco work thus exposed to view that its re-use was at once determined upon, and the loggia of the vatican was the first result of many experiments, though the re-invented process seems to have been precisely that described by vitruvius. naturally, the art of modelling in stucco at once became popular: the patronage of it by the pope, and the practice of it by the artists who worked for him, gave it the highest sanction, and hardly a building of any architectural importance was erected in italy during the sixteenth century that did not bear evidence of the artistic craft of the stuccatori. there has just (autumn, ) arrived at the south kensington museum a model of the central hall of the villa madama in rome, thus decorated by giulio romano and giovanni da udine, which exemplifies the adaptability of the process; and in this model cav. mariani has employed stucco-duro for its execution, showing to how high a pitch of finish this material is capable of being carried. indeed, it was used by goldsmiths for the models for their craft, as being less liable to injury than wax, yet capable of receiving equally delicate treatment; and benvenuto cellini modelled the celebrated "button," with "that magnificent big diamond" in the middle, for the cope of pope clement, with all its intricate detail, in this material. how minute this work of some six inches diameter was may be inferred from cellini's own description of it. above the diamond, in the centre of the piece, was shown god the father seated, in the act of giving the benediction; below were three children, who, with their arms upraised, were supporting the jewel. one of them, in the middle, was in full relief, the other two in half-relief. "all round i set a crowd of cherubs in divers attitudes. a mantle undulated to the wind around the figure of the father, from the folds of which cherubs peeped out; and there were many other ornaments besides, which," adds he, and for once we may believe him, "made a very beautiful effect." at the same time, figures larger than life, indeed colossal figures, were executed in it, and in our own country the italian artists brought over by our henry viii. worked in that style for his vanished palace of nonsuch. gradually, stucco-duro fell into disuse, and coarse pargetry and modelled plaster ceilings became in later years its sole and degenerate descendants. gesso is really a painter's art rather than a sculptor's, and consists in impasto painting with a mixture of plaster of paris or whiting in glue (the composition with which the ground of his pictures is laid) after roughly modelling the higher forms with tow or some fibrous material incorporated with the gesso; but it is questionable if gesso is the best vehicle for any but the lowest relief. by it the most subtle and delicate variation of surface can be obtained, and the finest lines pencilled, analogous, in fact, to the fine _pâte sur pâte_ work in porcelain. its chief use in early times was in the accessories of painting, as the nimbi, attributes, and jewellery of the personage represented, and it was almost entirely used as a ground-work for gilding upon. abundant illustration of this usage will be found in the pictures by the early italian masters in the national gallery. the retables of altars were largely decorated in this material, a notable example being that still existing in westminster abbey. many of the gorgeous accessories to the panoply of war in mediæval times, such as decorative shields and the lighter military accoutrements, were thus ornamented in low relief, and on the high-cruppered and high-peaked saddles it was abundantly displayed. in the sixteenth-century work of germany it seems to have received an admixture of finely-pounded lithographic stone, or hone stone, by which it became of such hardness as to be taken for sculpture in these materials. its chief use, however, was for the decoration of the caskets and ornamental objects which make up the refinement of domestic life, and the base representative of it which figures on our picture-frames claims a noble ancestry. its tenacity, when well prepared, is exceedingly great, and i have used it on glass, on polished marble, on porcelain, and such like non-absorbent surfaces, from which it can scarcely be separated without destruction of its base. indeed, for miniature art, gesso possesses innumerable advantages not presented by any other medium, but it is hardly available for larger works. time and space will not permit my entering more fully into these two forms of plastic art; but seeing that we are annually receiving such large accessions to the numbers of our modellers, and as, of course, it is not possible for all these to achieve success in, or find a means of living by, the art of sculpture in marble, i have sought to indicate a home-art means by which, at very moderate cost, they can bring their labours in useful form before the world, and at the same time learn and live. g. t. robinson. of cast iron cast iron is nearly our humblest material, and with associations less than all artistic, for it has been almost hopelessly vulgarised in the present century, so much so that mr. ruskin, with his fearless use of paradox to shock one into thought, has laid it down that cast iron is an artistic solecism, impossible for architectural service now, or at any time. and yet, although we can never claim for iron the beauty of bronze, it is in some degree a parallel material, and has been used with appreciation in many ways up to the beginning of this century. iron was already known in sussex at the coming of the romans. throughout this county and kent, in out-of-the-way farm-houses, iron fire-backs to open hearths, fine specimens of the founder's art, are still in daily use as they have been for three hundred years or more. some have gothic diapers and meanders of vine with heraldic badges and initials, and are evidently cast from models made in the fifteenth century, patterns that remained in stock and were cast from again and again. others, of the following centuries, have coat-arms and supporters, salamanders in the flames, figures, a triton or centaur, or even a scene, the judgment of solomon, or marriage of alexander, or, more appropriately, mere pattern-work, vases of flowers and the like. however crude they may be, and some are absurdly inadequate as sculpture, the sense of treatment and relief suitable to the material never fails to give them a fit interest. with these backs cast-iron fire-dogs are often found, of which some gothic examples also remain, simple in form with soft dull modelling; later, these were often a mere obelisk on a base surmounted by a ball or a bird, or rude terminal figures; sometimes a more delicate full figure, the limbs well together, so that nothing projects from the general post-like form; and within their limitations they are not without grace and character. in frant church, near tunbridge, are several cast-iron grave slabs about six feet long by half that width, perfectly flat, one with a single shield of arms and some letters, others with several; they are quite successful, natural, and not in the least vulgar. iron railings are the most usual form of cast iron as an accessory to architecture; the earlier examples of these in london are thoroughly fit for their purpose and their material; sturdily simple forms of gently swelling curves, or with slightly rounded reliefs. the original railing at st. paul's, of lamberhurst iron, is the finest of these, a large portion of which around the west front was removed in . another example encloses the portico of st. martin's-in-the-fields. the railing of the central area of berkeley square is beautifully designed, and there are instances here, as in grosvenor square, where cast iron is used together with wrought, a difficult combination. balcony railings and staircase balustrades are quite general to houses of the late eighteenth century. refined and thoroughly good of their kind, they never fail to please, and never, of course, imitate wrought iron. the design is always direct, unpretentious and effortless, in a manner that became at this time quite a tradition. the verandahs also, of which there are so many in piccadilly or mayfair, with posts reeded and of delicate profiles, are of the same kind, confessedly cast iron, and never without the characterising dulness of the forms, so that they have no jutting members to be broken off, to expose a repulsive jagged fracture. the opposite of all these qualities may be found in the "expensive"-looking railing on the embankment enclosing the gardens, whose tiny fretted and fretful forms invite an experiment often successful. it must be understood that cast iron should be merely a flat lattice-like design, obviously cast _in panels_, or plain post and rail construction with cast uprights and terminal knops tenoned into rails, so that there is no doubt of straightforward unaffected fitting. the british museum screen may be taken to instance how ample ability will not redeem false principles of design: the construction is not clear, nor are the forms sufficiently simple, the result being only a high order of commonplace grandeur. even the lamp-posts set up in the beginning of the century for oil lights, a few of which have not yet been improved away from back streets, show the same care for appropriate form. some of the pall mall clubs, again, have well-designed candelabra of a more pretentious kind; also london and waterloo bridges. the fire-grates, both with hobs and close fronts, that came into use about the middle of the last century, are decorated all over the field with tiny flutings, beads, and leaf mouldings, sometimes even with little figure medallions, and carry delicacy to its limit. the better examples are entirely successful, both in form and in the ornamentation, which, adapted to this new purpose, does no more than gracefully acknowledge its debt to the past, just as the best ornament at all times is neither original nor copied: it must recognise tradition, and add something which shall be the tradition of the future. the method followed is to keep the general form quite simple and the areas flat, while the decoration, just an embroidery of the surface, is of one substance and in the slightest possible relief. other larger grates there were with plain surfaces simply framed with mouldings. even the sculptor has not refused iron. pliny says there were two statues in rhodes, one of iron and copper, and the other, a hercules, entirely of iron. in the palace at prague there is a st. george horsed and armed, the work of the fourteenth century. the qualities natural to iron which it has to offer for sculpture may best be appreciated by seeing the examples at the museum of geology, in jermyn street. on the staircase there are two large dogs, two ornamental candelabra, and two figures; the dogs, although not fine as sculpture, are well treated, in mass and surface, for the metal. in the same museum there is a smaller statue still better for surface and finish, a french work signed and dated , and, therefore, half an antique. but for ordinary foundry-work without surface finish--probably the most appropriate, certainly the most available, method--the little lions on the outer rail at the british museum are proof of how sufficient feeling for design will dignify any material for any object; they are by the late alfred stevens, and are thoroughly iron beasts, so slightly modelled that they would be only blocked out for bronze. in the geological museum are also specimens of berlin and ilsenburg manufacture; they serve to point the moral that ingenuity is not art, nor tenuity refinement. the question of rust is a difficult one, the oxide not being an added beauty like the patina acquired by bronze, yet the decay of cast iron is much less than is generally thought, especially on large smooth surfaces, if the casting has been once treated by an oil bath or a coating of hot tar: the celebrated iron pillar of delhi, some twenty feet high, has stood for fourteen centuries, and shows, it is said, little evidence of decay. it would be interesting to see how cast spheres of good iron would be affected in our climate, if occasionally coated with a lacquer. in painting, the range of tints best approved is black through gray to white: the simple negative gray gives a pleasant unobtrusiveness to the well-designed iron-work of the northern station in paris, whereas our almost universal indian red is a very bad choice--a hot coarse colour, you must see it, and be irritated, and it is surely the only colour that gets worse as it bleaches in the sun. gilding is suitable to a certain extent; but for internal work the homely black-leading cannot be bettered. to put together the results obtained in our examination of examples. ( ) the metal must be both good and carefully manipulated. ( ) the design must be thought out through the material and its traditional methods. ( ) the pattern must have the ornament modelled, not carved, as is almost universally the case now, carving in wood being entirely unfit to give the soft suggestive relief required both by the nature of the sand-mould into which it is impressed, and the crystalline structure of the metal when cast. ( ) flat surfaces like grate fronts may be decorated with some intricacy if the relief is delicate. but the relief must be less than the basis of attachment, so that the moulding may be easily practicable, and no portions invite one to test how easily they might be detached. ( ) objects in the round must have a simple and substantial bounding form with but little ornament, and that only suggested. this applies equally to figures. in them homogeneous structure is of the first importance. ( ) when possible, the surface should be finished and left as a metal casting. it may, however, be entirely gilt. if painted, the colour must be neutral and gray. casting in iron has been so abased and abused that it is almost difficult to believe that the metal has anything to offer to the arts. at no other time and in no other country would a national staple commodity have been so degraded. yet in its strength under pressure, but fragility to a blow, in certain qualities of texture and of required manipulation, it invites a specially characterised treatment in the design, and it offers one of the few materials naturally black available in the colour arrangement of interiors. w. r. lethaby. of dyeing as an art dyeing is a very ancient art; from the earliest times of the ancient civilisations till within about forty years ago there had been no essential change in it, and not much change of any kind. up to the time of the discovery of the process of prussian-blue dyeing in about (it was known as a pigment thirty or forty years earlier), the only changes in the art were the result of the introduction of the american insect dye (cochineal), which gradually superseded the european one (kermes), and the american wood-dyes now known as logwood and brazil-wood: the latter differs little from the asiatic and african red saunders, and other red dye-woods; the former has cheapened and worsened black-dyeing, in so far as it has taken the place of the indigo-vat as a basis. the american quercitron bark gives us also a useful additional yellow dye. these changes, and one or two others, however, did little towards revolutionising the art; that revolution was left for our own days, and resulted from the discovery of what are known as the aniline dyes, deduced by a long process from the plants of the coal-measures. of these dyes it must be enough to say that their discovery, while conferring the greatest honour on the abstract science of chemistry, and while doing great service to capitalists in their hunt after profits, has terribly injured the art of dyeing, and for the general public has nearly destroyed it as an art. henceforward there is an absolute divorce between the _commercial process_ and the _art_ of dyeing. anyone wanting to produce dyed textiles with any artistic quality in them must entirely forgo the modern and commercial methods in favour of those which are at least as old as pliny, who speaks of them as being old in his time. now, in order to dye textiles in patterns or otherwise, we need four colours to start with--to wit, blue, red, yellow, and brown; green, purple, black, and all intermediate shades can be made from a mixture of these colours. blue is given us by indigo and woad, which do not differ in colour in the least, their chemical product being the same. woad may be called northern indigo; and indigo tropical or sub-tropical woad. note that until the introduction of prussian blue about there was _no_ other blue dye except this indigotine that could be called a dye; the other blue dyes were mere stains which would not bear the sun for more than a few days. red is yielded by the insect dyes kermes, lac-dye, and cochineal, and by the vegetable dye madder. of these, kermes is the king; brighter than madder and at once more permanent and more beautiful than cochineal: the latter on an aluminous basis gives a rather cold crimson, and on a tin basis a rather hot scarlet (_e.g._ the dress-coat of a line officer). madder yields on wool a deep-toned blood-red, somewhat bricky and tending to scarlet. on cotton and linen, all imaginable shades of red according to the process. it is not of much use in dyeing silk, which it is apt to "blind"; _i.e._ it takes off the gloss. lac-dye gives a hot and not pleasant scarlet, as may be noted in a private militiaman's coat. the french liners' trousers, by the way, are, or were, dyed with madder, so that their countrymen sometimes call them the "madder-wearers"; but their cloth is somewhat too cheaply dyed to do credit to the drysaltery. besides these permanent red dyes there are others produced from woods, called in the middle ages by the general name of "brazil"; whence the name of the american country, because the conquerors found so much dyeing-wood growing there. some of these wood-dyes are very beautiful in colour; but unluckily they are none of them permanent, as you may see by examining the beautiful stuffs of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries at the south kensington museum, in which you will scarcely find any red, but plenty of fawn-colour, which is in fact the wood-red of years ago thus faded. if you turn from them to the gothic tapestries, and note the reds in them, you will have the measure of the relative permanence of kermes and "brazil," the tapestry reds being all dyed with kermes, and still retaining the greater part of their colour. the mediæval dyers must be partly excused, however, because "brazil" is especially a silk dye, kermes sharing somewhat in the ill qualities of madder for silk; though i have dyed silk in kermes and got very beautiful and powerful colours by means of it. yellow dyes are chiefly given us by weld (sometimes called wild mignonette), quercitron bark (above mentioned), and old fustic, an american dye-wood. of these weld is much the prettiest, and is the yellow silk dye _par excellence_, though it dyes wool well enough. but yellow dyes are the commonest to be met with in nature, and our fields and hedgerows bear plenty of greening-weeds, as our forefathers called them, since they used them chiefly for greening blue woollen cloth; for, as you may well believe, they, being good colourists, had no great taste for yellow woollen stuff. dyers'-broom, saw-wort, the twigs of the poplar, the osier, and the birch, heather, broom, flowers and twigs, will all of them give yellows of more or less permanence. of these i have tried poplar and osier twigs, which both gave a strong yellow, but the former not a very permanent one. speaking generally, yellow dyes are the least permanent of all, as once more you may see by looking at an old tapestry, in which the greens have always faded more than the reds or blues; the best yellow dyes, however, lose only their brighter shade, the "lemon" colour, and leave a residuum of brownish yellow, which still makes a kind of a green over the blue. brown is best got from the roots of the walnut tree, or in their default from the green husks of the nuts. this material is especially best for "saddening," as the old dyers used to call it. the best and most enduring blacks also were done with this simple dye-stuff, the goods being first dyed in the indigo or woad-vat till they were a very dark blue and then browned into black by means of the walnut-root. catechu, the inspissated juice of a plant or plants, which comes to us from india, also gives rich and useful permanent browns of various shades. green is obtained by dyeing a blue of the required shade in the indigo-vat, and then greening it with a good yellow dye, adding what else may be necessary (as, _e.g._, madder) to modify the colour according to taste. purple is got by blueing in the indigo-vat, and afterwards by a bath of cochineal, or kermes, or madder; all intermediate shades of claret and murrey and russet can be got by these drugs helped out by "saddening." black, as aforesaid, is best made by dyeing dark blue wool with brown; and walnut is better than iron for the brown part, because the iron-brown is apt to rot the fibre; as once more you will see in some pieces of old tapestry or old persian carpets, where the black is quite perished, or at least in the case of the carpet gone down to the knots. all intermediate shades can, as aforesaid, be got by the blending of these prime colours, or by using weak baths of them. for instance, all shades of flesh colour can be got by means of weak baths of madder and walnut "saddening"; madder or cochineal mixed with weld gives us orange, and with saddening all imaginable shades between yellow and red, including the ambers, maize-colour, etc. the crimsons in gothic tapestries must have been got by dyeing kermes over pale shades of blue, since the crimson red-dye, cochineal, had not yet come to europe. a word or two (entirely unscientific) about the processes of this old-fashioned or artistic dyeing. in the first place, all _dyes_ must be soluble colours, differing in this respect from _pigments_; most of which are insoluble, and are only very finely divided, as, _e.g._, ultramarine, umber, terre-verte. next, dyes may be divided into those which need a mordant and those which do not; or, as the old chemist bancroft very conveniently expresses it, into _adjective_ and _substantive_ dyes. indigo is the great substantive dye: the indigo has to be de-oxidised and thereby made soluble, in which state it loses its blue colour in proportion as the solution is complete; the goods are plunged into this solution and worked in it "between two waters," as the phrase goes, and when exposed to the air the indigo they have got on them is swiftly oxidised, and once more becomes insoluble. this process is repeated till the required shade is got. all shades of blue can be got by this means, from the pale "watchet," as our forefathers called it, up to the blue which the eighteenth-century french dyers called "bleu d'enfer." navy blue is the politer name for it to-day in england. i must add that, though this seems an easy process, the setting of the blue-vat is a ticklish job, and requires, i should say, more experience than any other dyeing process. the brown dyes, walnut and catechu, need no mordant, and are substantive dyes; some of the yellows also can be dyed without mordant, but are much improved by it. the red dyes, kermes and madder, and the yellow dye weld, are especially mordant or adjective dyes: they are all dyed on an aluminous basis. to put the matter plainly, the goods are worked in a solution of alum (usually with a little acid added), and after an interval of a day or two (ageing) are dyed in a bath of the dissolved dye-stuff. a lake is thus formed on the fibre which is in most cases very durable. the effect of this "mordanting" of the fibre is clearest seen in the maddering of printed cotton goods, which are first printed with aluminous mordants of various degrees of strength (or with iron if black is needed, or a mixture of iron with alumina for purple), and then dyed wholesale in the madder-beck: the result being that the parts which have been mordanted come out various shades of red, etc., according to the strength or composition of the mordant, while the unmordanted parts remain a dirty pink, which has to be "cleared" into white by soaping and exposure to the sun and air; which process both brightens and fixes the dyed parts. pliny saw this going on in egypt, and it puzzled him very much, that a cloth dyed in one colour should come out coloured diversely. that reminds me to say a word on the fish-dye of the ancients: it was a substantive dye and behaved somewhat as indigo. it was very permanent. the colour was a real purple in the modern sense of the word, _i.e._ a colour or shades of a colour between red and blue. the real byzantine books which are written on purple vellum give you some, at least, of its shades. the ancients, you must remember, used words for colours in a way that seems vague to us, because they were generally thinking of the tone rather than the _tint_. when they wanted to _specify_ a red dye they would not use the word purpureus, but coccineus, _i.e._ scarlet of kermes. the art of dyeing, i am bound to say, is a difficult one, needing for its practice a good craftsman, with plenty of experience. matching a colour by means of it is an agreeable but somewhat anxious game to play. as to the artistic value of these dye-stuffs, most of which, together with the necessary mordant alumina, the world discovered in early times (i mean early _historical_ times), i must tell you that they all make in their simplest forms beautiful colours; they need no muddling into artistic usefulness, when you need your colours bright (as i hope you usually do), and they can be modified and toned without dirtying, as the foul blotches of the capitalist dyer cannot be. like all dyes, they are not eternal; the sun in lighting them and beautifying them consumes them; yet gradually, and for the most part kindly, as (to use my example for the last time in this paper) you will see if you look at the gothic tapestries in the drawing-room at hampton court. these colours in fading still remain beautiful, and never, even after long wear, pass into nothingness, through that stage of livid ugliness which distinguishes the commercial dyes as nuisances, even more than their short and by no means merry life. i may also note that no textiles dyed blue or green, otherwise than by indigo, keep an agreeable colour by candle-light: many quite bright greens turning into sheer drab. a fashionable blue which simulates indigo turns into a slaty purple by candle-light; and prussian blues are also much damaged by it. i except from this condemnation a commercial green known as gas-green, which is as abominable as its name, both by daylight and gaslight, and indeed one would almost expect it to make unlighted midnight hideous. william morris. of embroidery the technicalities of embroidery are very simple and its tools few--practically consisting of a needle, and nothing else. the work can be wrought loose in the hand, or stretched in a frame, which latter mode is often advisable, always when smooth and minute work is aimed at. there are no mysteries of method beyond a few elementary rules that can be quickly learnt; no way to perfection except that of care and patience and love of the work itself. this being so, the more is demanded from design and execution: we look for complete triumph over the limitations of process and material, and, what is equally important, a certain judgment and self-restraint; and, in short, those mental qualities that distinguish mechanical from intelligent work. the latitude allowed to the worker; the lavishness and ingenuity displayed in the stitches employed; in short, the vivid expression of the worker's individuality, form a great part of the success of needlework. the varieties of stitch are too many to be closely described without diagrams, but the chief are as follows:-- chain-stitch consists of loops simulating the links of a simple chain. some of the most famous work of the middle ages was worked in this stitch, which is enduring, and of its nature necessitates careful execution. we are more familiar with it in the dainty work of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in the airy brightness and simplicity of which lies a peculiar charm, contrasted with the more pompous and pretentious work of the same period. this stitch is also wrought with a hook on any loose material stretched in a tambour frame. tapestry-stitch consists of a building-up of stitches laid one beside another, and gives a surface slightly resembling that of tapestry. i give the name as it is so often used, but it is vague, and leads to the confusion that exists in people's minds between loom-tapestry and embroidery. the stitch is worked in a frame, and is particularly suitable for the drapery of figures and anything that requires skilful blending of several colours, or a certain amount of shading. this facility of "painting" with the needle is in itself a danger, for it tempts some people to produce a highly shaded imitation of a picture, an attempt which must be a failure both as a decorative and as a pictorial achievement. it cannot be said too often that the essential qualities of all good needlework are a broad surface, bold lines and pure, brilliant and, as a rule, simple colouring; all of which being qualities attainable through, and prescribed by, the limitations of this art. appliqué has been, and is still, a favourite method of work, which vasari tells us botticelli praised as being very suitable to processional banners and hangings used in the open air, as it is solid and enduring, also bold and effective in style. it is more accurately described as a _method_ of work in which various stitches are made use of, for it consists of designs embroidered on a stout ground and then cut out and laid on silk or velvet, and edged round with lines of gold or silk, and sometimes with pearls. it requires considerable deftness and judgment in applying, as the work could well be spoilt by clumsy and heavy finishing. it is now looked upon as solely ecclesiastical, i believe, and is associated in our minds with garish red, gold and white, and with dull geometric ornament, though there is absolutely no reason why church embroidery of to-day should be limited to ungraceful forms and staring colours. a certain period of work, thick and solid, but not very interesting, either as to method or design, has been stereotyped into what is known as ecclesiastical embroidery, the mechanical characteristics of the style being, of course, emphasised and exaggerated in the process. church work will never be of the finest while these characteristics are insisted on; the more pity, as it is seemly that the richest and noblest work should be devoted to churches, and to all buildings that belong to and are an expression of the communal life of the people. another and simpler form of applied work is to cut out the desired forms in one material and lay upon another, securing the appliqué with stitches round the outline, which are hidden by an edging cord. the work may be further enriched by light ornament of lines and flourishes laid directly on the ground material. couching is an effective method of work, in which broad masses of silk or gold thread are laid down and secured by a network or diaper of crossing threads, through which the under surface shines very prettily. it is often used in conjunction with appliqué. there are as many varieties of couching stitches as the worker has invention for; in some the threads are laid simply and flatly on the form to be covered, while in others a slight relief is obtained by layers of soft linen thread which form a kind of moulding or stuffing, and which are covered by the silk threads or whatever is to be the final decorative surface. the ingenious patchwork coverlets of our grandmothers, formed of scraps of old gowns pieced together in certain symmetrical forms, constitute the romance of family history, but this method has an older origin than would be imagined. queen isis-em-kheb's embalmed body went down the nile to its burial-place under a canopy that was lately discovered, and is preserved in the boulak museum. it consists of many squares of gazelle-hide of different colours sewn together and ornamented with various devices. under the name of patchwork, or mosaic-like piecing together of different coloured stuffs, comes also the persian work made at resht. bits of fine cloth are cut out for leaves, flowers, and so forth, and neatly stitched together with great accuracy. this done, the work is further carried out and enriched by chain and other stitches. the result is perfectly smooth flat work, no easy feat when done on a large scale, as it often is. darning and running need little explanation. the former stitch is familiar to us in the well-known cretan and turkish cloths: the stitch here is used mechanically in parallel lines, and simulates weaving, so that these handsome borders in a deep rich red might as well have come from the loom as from the needle. another method of darning is looser and coarser, and suitable only for cloths and hangings not subject to much wear and rubbing; the stitches follow the curves of the design, which the needle paints, as it were, shading and blending the colours. it is necessary to use this facility for shading temperately, however, or the flatness essential to decorative work is lost. the foregoing is a rough list of stitches which could be copiously supplemented, but that i am obliged to pass on to another important point, that of design. if needlework is to be looked upon seriously, it is necessary to secure appropriate and practicable designs. where the worker does not invent for herself, she should at least interpret her designer, just as the designer interprets and does not attempt to imitate nature. it follows from this, that it is better to avoid using designs of artists who know nothing of the capacities of needlework, and design beautiful and intricate forms without reference to the execution, the result being unsatisfactory and incomplete. regarding the design itself, broad bold lines should be chosen, and broad harmonious colour (which should be roughly planned before setting to work), with as much minute work, and stitches introducing play of colour, as befits the purpose of the work and humour of the worker; there should be no scratching, no indefiniteness of form or colour, no vagueness that allows the eye to puzzle over the design--beyond that indefinable sense of mystery which arrests the attention and withholds the full charm of the work for a moment, to unfold it to those who stop to give it more than a glance. but there are so many different stitches and so many different modes of setting to work, that it will soon be seen that these few hints do not apply to all of them. one method, for instance, consists of trusting entirely to design, and leaves colour out of account: white work on white linen, white on dark ground, or black or dark blue upon white. again, some work depends more on magnificence of colour than on form, as, for example, the handsome italian hangings of the seventeenth century, worked in floss-silk, on linen sometimes, and sometimes on a dusky open canvas which makes the silks gleam and glow like precious stones. in thus slightly describing the methods chiefly used in embroidery, i do so principally from old examples, as modern embroidery, being a dilettante pastime, has little distinct character, and is, in its best points, usually imitative. eastern work still retains the old professional skill, but beauty of colour is rapidly disappearing, and little attention is paid to durability of the dyes used. in speaking rather slightingly of modern needlework, i must add that its non-success is often due more to the use of poor materials than to want of skill in working. it is surely folly to waste time over work that looks shabby in a month. the worker should use judgment and thought to procure materials, not necessarily rich, but each good and genuine of its kind. lastly, she should not be sparing of her own handiwork, for, while a slightly executed piece of work depends wholly on design, in one where the actual stitchery is more elaborate, but the design less masterly, the patience and thought lavished on it render it in a different way equally pleasing, and bring it more within the scope of the amateur. may morris. of lace lace is a term freely used at the present time to describe various sorts of open ornament in thread work, the successful effect of which depends very much upon the contrasting of more or less closely-textured forms with grounds or intervening spaces filled in with meshes of equal size or with cross-ties, bars, etc. whence it has come to pass that fabrics having an appearance of this description, such as embroideries upon nets, cut linen works, drawn thread works, and machine-woven counterfeits of lace-like fabrics, are frequently called laces. but they differ in make from those productions of certain specialised handicrafts to which from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries lace owes its fame. these specialised handicrafts are divisible into two branches. the one branch involves the employment of a needle to loop a continuous thread into varieties of shapes and devices; the other is in the nature of making corresponding or similar ornament by twisting and plaiting together a number of separate threads, the loose ends of which have to be fastened in a row on a cushion or pillow, the supply of the threads being wound around the heads of lengthened bobbins, so shaped for convenience in handling. the first-named branch is needlepoint lace-making; the second, bobbin or pillow lace-making. needlepoint lace-making may be regarded as a species of embroidery, whilst bobbin or pillow lace-making is closely allied to the twisting and knotting together of threads for fringes. embroidery, however, postulates a foundation of material to be enriched with needlework, whereas needlepoint and pillow lace are wrought independently of any corresponding foundation of material. the production of slender needles and small metal pins is an important incident in the history of lace-making by hand. broadly speaking, the manufacture for a widespread consumption of such metal pins and needles does not date earlier than the fourteenth century. without small implements of this character delicate lace-making is not possible. it is therefore fair to assume that although historic nations like the egyptian, assyrian, hebrew, greek, and roman, made use of fringes and knotted cords upon their hangings, cloaks, and tunics, lace was unknown to them. their bone, wooden, or metal pins and needles were suited to certain classes of embroidery and to the making of nets, looped cords, etc., but not to such lace-making as we know it from the early days of the sixteenth century. about the end of the fifteenth century, with the development in europe of fine linen for underclothing, collars and cuffs just visible beyond the outer garments came into vogue, and a taste was speedily manifested for trimming linen undershirts, collars and cuffs, with insertions and borders of kindred material. this taste seems to have been first displayed in a marked manner by venetian and flemish women; for the earliest known books of engraved patterns for linen ornamental borders and insertions are those which were published during the commencement of the sixteenth century at venice and antwerp. but such patterns were designed in the first place for various sorts of embroidery upon a material, such as darning upon canvas (_punto fa su la rete a maglia quadra_), drawn thread work of reticulated patterns (_punto tirato_ or _punto a reticella_), and cut work (_punto tagliato_). patterns for quite other sorts of work, such as point in the air (_punto in aere_) and thread work twisted and plaited by means of little leaden weights or bobbins (_merletti a piombini_), were about thirty years later in publication. these two last-named classes of work are respectively identifiable (_punto in aere_) with needlepoint and (_merletti a piombini_) with bobbin lace-making; and they seem to date from about . the sixteenth-century and earliest known needlepoint laces (_punto in aere_) are of narrow lengths or bands, the patterns of which are composed principally of repeated open squares filled in with circular, star, and other geometric shapes, set upon diagonal and cross lines which radiate from the centre of each square to its corners and sides. when the bands were to serve as borders they would have a dentated edging added to them; this edging might be made of either needlepoint or bobbin lace. as time went on the dimensions of both lace bands and lace vandykes increased so that, whilst these served as trimmings to linen, lace of considerable width and various shapes came to be made, and ruffs, collars, and cuffs were wholly made of it. such lace was thin and wiry in appearance. the leading lines of the patterns formed squares and geometrical figures, amongst which were disposed small wheel and seed forms, little triangles, and such like. a few years later the details of these geometrically planned patterns became more varied, tiny human figures, fruits, vases and flowers, being used as ornamental details. but a more distinct change in character of pattern was effected when flowing scrolls with leaf and blossom devices, held together by means of little ties or bars, were adopted. different portions of the scrolls and blossoms with their connecting links or bars would often be enriched with little loops or _picots_, with stitched reliefs, and varieties of close and open work. then came a taste for arranging the bars or ties into trellis grounds, or grounds of hexagons, over which small ornamental devices would be scattered in balanced groups. at the same time, the bobbin or pillow lace-workers produced grounds of small equal-size meshes in plaited threads. this inventiveness on the part of the bobbin or pillow workers reacted upon the needlepoint workers, who in their turn produced still more delicate grounds with meshes of single and double twisted threads. lace, passing from stage to stage, thus became a filmy tissue or fabric, and its original use as a somewhat stiff, wiry-looking trimming to linen consequently changed. larger articles than borders, collars, and cuffs were made of the new filmy material, and lace flounces, veils, loose sleeves, curtains, and bed-covers were produced. this transition may be traced through the first hundred and twenty years of lace-making. it culminated during the succeeding ninety years in a development of fanciful pattern-making, in which realistic representation of flowers, trees, cupids, warriors, sportsmen, animals of the chase, emblems of all sorts, rococo and architectural ornament, is typical. whilst the eighteenth century may perhaps be regarded as a period of questionable propriety in the employment of ornament hardly appropriate to the twisting, plaiting, and looping together of threads, it is nevertheless notable for _tours de force_ in lace-making achieved without regard to cost or trouble. from this stage, the climax of which may be placed about , the designing of lace patterns declined; and from the end of the eighteenth to the first twenty years or so of the nineteenth centuries, laces, although still made with the needle and bobbins, became little more than finely-meshed nets powdered over with dots or leaves, or single blossoms, or tiny sprays. within the limits of a brief note like the present, it is not possible to discuss local peculiarities in methods of work and styles of design which established the characters of the various venetian and other italian points, of the french points of alençon and argentan, of the cloudy valenciennes, mechlin, and brussels laces. neither can one touch upon the nurturing of the industry by nuns in convents, by workers subsidised by state grants, and so forth. it would require more space than is available to fairly discuss what styles of ornament are least or most suited to lace-making; or whether lace is less rightly employed as a tissue for the making of entire articles of costume or of household use, than as an ornamental accessory or trimming to costume. whilst very much lace is a fantastic adjunct to costume, serving a purpose sometimes like that of _appoggiature_ and _fioriture_ in music, other lace, such as the carved-ivory-looking scrolls of venetian raised points, which are principally associated with the _jabots_ and ruffles of kings, ministers, and marshals, and with the ornamentation of priests' vestments, is certainly more dignified in character. the loops, twists, and plaits of threads are more noticeable in laces of comparatively small dimensions than they are in laces of great size. size rather tempts the lace-worker to strive for ready effect, and to sacrifice the minuteness and finish of hand work, which give quality of preciousness to lace. the _via media_ to this quality lies between two extremes; namely, applying dainty threads to the interpretation of badly shaped and ill-grouped forms on the one hand, and on the other hand adopting a style of ornament which depends upon largeness of detail and massiveness in grouping, and is therefore unsuited to lace. without finish of handicraft, producing beautiful ornament suited to the material in which it is expressed, lace worthy the name cannot be made. the industry is still pursued in france, belgium, venice, austria, bohemia, and ireland. honiton has acquired a notoriety for its pillow laces, many of which some hundred years ago were as varied and well executed as brussels pillow laces. other english towns in the midland counties followed the lead chiefly of mechlin, valenciennes, lille, and arras, but were rarely as successful as their leaders. saxony, russia, and the auvergne produce quantities of pillow laces, having little pretence to design, though capable of pretty effects when artistically worn. there is no question that the want of a sustained intelligence in appreciating ingenious hand-made laces has told severely upon the industry; and as with other artistic handicrafts, so with lace-making, machinery has very considerably supplanted the hand. there is at present a limited revival in the demand for hand-made laces, and efforts are made at certain centres to give new life to the industry by infusing into it artistic feeling derived from a study of work done during the periods when the art flourished. alan s. cole. of book illustration and book decoration book illustration is supposed to have made a great advance in the last few years. no doubt it has, but this advance has not been made on any definite principle, but, as it were, in and out of a network of cross-purposes. no attempt has been made to classify illustration in relation to the purpose it has to fulfil. broadly speaking, this purpose is threefold. it is either utilitarian, or partly utilitarian partly artistic, or purely artistic. the first may be dismissed at once. such drawings as technical diagrams must be clear and accurate, but by their very nature they are non-artistic, and in regard to art it is a case of "hands off" to the draughtsman. illustration as an art, that is, book decoration, begins with the second class. from this standpoint an illustration involves something more than mere drawing. in the first place, the drawing must illustrate the subject, but as the drawing will not be set in a plain mount, but surrounded or bordered by printed type, there is the further problem of the relation of the drawing to the printed type. the relative importance attached to the printed type or the drawing is the crucial point for the illustrator. if all his thoughts are concentrated on his own drawing, one line to him will be much as another; but if he considers his illustration as going with the type to form one homogeneous design, each line becomes a matter of deliberate intention. now, in the early days of printing, when both type and illustration were printed off a single block, the latter standpoint was adopted as a matter of course, and as the art developed and men of genuine ability applied themselves to design, this intimate relation between printer and designer produced results of inimitable beauty. each page of a fine aldine is a work of art in itself. the eye can run over page after page for the simple pleasure of its decoration. no black blots in a sea of ignoble type break the quiet dignity of the page; each part of it works together with the rest for one premeditated harmony. but gradually, with the severance of the arts, the printer lost sight of the artist, and the latter cared only for himself; and there came the inevitable result which has followed this selfishness in all the other arts of design. printing ceased to be an art at all, and the art of book decoration died of neglect; the illustrator made his drawing without thought of the type, and left it to the printer to pitch it into the text, and reproduce it as best he could. the low-water mark in artistic illustration was reached perhaps in the early part of this century, and the greatest offender was turner himself. the illustrations which turner made for rogers's poems show no sort of modification of his habitual practice in painting. they may have been beautiful in themselves, but it evidently never entered into turner's head that the method, which was admirable in a picture aided by all the resources of colour, was beside the mark when applied to the printed page with all the limitations of black and white and the simple line. one looks in vain in turner's illustrations for any evidence that he was conscious of the existence of the rest of the page at all. something more than a landscape painter's knowledge of drawing is necessary. the custom of getting illustrations from painters who have little knowledge of decorative design has led to the invention of all sorts of mechanical processes in order to transfer easel-work direct to the printed page. the effect of this upon book decoration has been deadly. process-work of this sort has gone far to kill wood-engraving; and as to its result, instead of a uniform texture of line woven as it were over the entire page, the eye is arrested by harsh patches of black or gray which show a disregard of the printed type which is little less than brutal. leaving recent work out of account, one exception only can be made, and that is in the case of william blake. the inherent conditions of book decoration point to the line drawn by hand, and reproduced, either by wood-engraving or by direct facsimile process, as its proper method. indeed, the ideal of paginal beauty would be reached by leaving both the text and the illustrative design to hand, if not to one hand. this, however, is out of the question; the cost alone is prohibitive. the point for the book-decorator to consider is, what sort of line will range best with the type. in the case of the second division of our classification, which, in default of a better name, may be called "record work," it is impossible to apply to the line the amount of abstraction and selection which would be necessary in pure design. to do so, for instance, in the case of an architectural illustration, would destroy the "vraisemblance" which is of the essence of such a drawing. even in this case, however, the line ought to be very carefully considered. it is important to recollect that the type establishes a sort of scale of its own, and, taking ordinary lettering, this would exclude very minute work where the lines are close together and there is much cross-hatching; and also simple outline work such as retsch used to labour at, for the latter errs on the side of tenuity and meagreness as much as process-reproduction of brush-work sins in the opposite extreme. the line used in architectural illustration should be free, accurate, and unfaltering, drawn with sufficient technical knowledge of architecture to enable the draughtsman to know where he can stop without injury to his subject. the line should not be obstinate, but so light and subtle as to reflect without effort each thought that flits across the artist's mind. vierge has shown how much can be done in this way. with a few free lines and the contrast of some dark piece of shading in exactly the right place, he will often tell you more of a subject than will the most elaborately finished picture. this is the method to aim at in architectural illustration. the poetry of architecture and its highest qualities of dignity of mass and outline are smothered by that laborious accuracy which covers every part of the drawing with a vain repetition of unfeeling lines. where, however, the illustration is purely imaginative, the decorative standpoint should be kept steadily in view, and the process of selection and abstraction carried very much farther. here, at length, the illustrator can so order his design that the drawing and the printed type form a single piece of decoration, not disregarding the type, but using it as in itself a means of obtaining texture and scale and distributed effect. the type is, as it were, the technical datum of the design, which determines the scale of the line to be used with it. with a wiry type no doubt a wiry drawing is desirable, but the types of the great periods of printing are firm in outline and large and ample in distribution. assuming, then, that one of these types can be used, the line of the accompanying design should be strongly drawn, and designed from end to end with full allowance for the white paper. no better model can be followed than dürer's woodcuts. the amount of work which dürer would get out of a single line is something extraordinary, and perhaps to us impossible; for in view of our complex modern ideas and total absence of tradition, probably no modern designer can hope to attain to the great german's magnificent directness and tremendous intensity of expression. deliberate selection, both in subject and treatment, becomes therefore a matter of the first importance. the designer should reject subjects which do not admit of a decorative treatment. his business is not with science, or morals, but with art for its own sake; he should, therefore, select his subject with a single eye to its artistic possibilities. as to the line itself, it is impossible to offer any suggestion, for the line used is as much a part of the designer's idea as the words of a poem are of a poet's poetry; and the invention of these must come of itself. but once in consciousness, the line must be put under rigid control as simply a means of expression. there is an insidious danger in the line. designers sometimes seem to be inebriated with their own cunning; they go on drawing line after line, apparently for the simple pleasure of deftly placing them side by side, or at best to produce some spurious imitation of texture. as soon as the line is made an end in itself, it becomes a wearisome thing. the use of the line and the imitation of texture should be absolutely subordinated to the decorative purposes of the design, and the neglect of this rule is as bad art as if a musician, from perverse delight in the intricacies of a fugue, were to lose his theme in a chaos of counterpoint. if, then, to conclude, we are to return to the best traditions of book decoration, the artist must abandon the selfish isolation in which he has hitherto worked. he must regard the printed type not as a necessary evil, but as a valuable material for the decoration of the page, and the type and the illustration should be considered in strict relation to each other. this will involve a self-restraint far more rigid than any required in etching, because the point to be aimed at is not so much the direct suggestion of nature, as the best decorative treatment of the line in relation to the entire page. thus, to the skill of the draughtsman must be added the far-seeing imagination of the designer, which, instead of being content with a hole-and-corner success, involving disgrace to the rest of the page, embraces in its consciousness all the materials available for the beautification of the page as a whole. it is only by this severe intellectual effort, by this self-abnegation, by this ready acceptance of the union of the arts, that the art of book illustration can again attain to a permanent value. reginald blomfield. of designs and working drawings the drawings which most deeply interest the workman are working drawings--just the last to be appreciated by the public, because they are the last to be understood. the most admired of show drawings are to us craftsmen comparatively without interest. we recognise the "competition" drawing at once; we see how it was made in order to secure the commission, not with a view to its effect in execution (which is the true and only end of a design), and we do not wonder at the failure of competitions in general. for the man who cares least, if even he knows at all, how a design will appear in execution is the most likely to perpetrate a prettiness which may gain the favour of the inexpert, with whom the selection is likely to rest. the general public, and all in fact who are technically ignorant on the subject, need to be warned that the most attractive and what are called "taking" drawings are just those which are least likely to be designs--still less _bonâ fide_ working drawings. the real workman has not the time, even if he had the inclination, to "finish up" his drawings to the point that is generally considered pleasing; the inventive spirit has not the patience. we have each of us the failings complementary to our faculties, and _vice versâ_; and you will usually find--certainly it is my experience--that the makers of very elaborately finished drawings seldom do anything but what we have often seen before; and that men of any individuality, actual designers that is to say, have a way of considering a drawing finished as soon as ever it expresses what they mean. you may take it, then, as a general rule that highly finished and elaborate drawings are got up for show, "finished for exhibition" as they say (in compliance with the supposed requirements of an exhibition rather than with a view to practical purposes), and that drawings completed only so far as is necessary, precise in their details, disfigured by notes in writing, sections, and so on, are at least genuine workaday designs. if you ask what a design should be like--well, like a design. it is altogether a different thing from a picture; it is almost the reverse of it. practically no man has, as i said, the leisure, even if he had the ability, to make an effective finished picture of a thing yet to be carried out--perhaps _not_ to be carried out. this last is a most serious consideration for him, and may have a sad effect upon his work. the artist who could afford thus to give himself away gratis would certainly not do so; the man who might be willing to do it could not; for if he has "got no work to do"--that is at least presumptive evidence that he is not precisely a master of his craft. the design that looks like a picture is likely to be at best a reminiscence of something done before; and the more often it has been done the more likely it is to be pictorially successful--and by so much the less is it, strictly speaking, a design. this applies especially to designs on a small scale, such as are usually submitted to catch the rare commission. to imitate in a full-sized cartoon the texture of material, the casualty of reflected light, and other such accidents of effect, is sheer nonsense, and no practical workman would think of such a thing. a painter put to the uncongenial task of decorative design might be excused for attempting to make his productions pass muster by workmanship excellent in itself, although not in the least to the point: one does what one can, or what one must; and if a man has a faculty he needs must show it. only, the perfection of painting will not, for all that, make design. in the first small sketch-design, everything need not of course be expressed; but it should be indicated--for the purpose is simply to explain the scheme proposed: so much of pictorial representation as may be necessary to that is desirable, and no more. it should be in the nature of a diagram, specific enough to illustrate the idea and how it is to be worked out. it ought by strict rights to commit one definitely to a certain method of execution, as a written specification would; and may often with advantage be helped out by written notes, which explain more definitely than any pictorial rendering just how this is to be wrought, that cast, the other chased, and so on, as the case may be. whatever the method of expression the artist may adopt, he should be perfectly clear in his own mind how his design is to be worked out; and he ought to make it clear also to any one with sufficient technical knowledge to understand a drawing. in the first sketch for a window, for example, he need not show every lead and every piece of glass; but there should be no possible mistake as to how it is to be glazed, or which is "painted" glass and which is "mosaic." to omit the necessary bars in a sketch for glass seems to me a weak concession to the prejudice of the public. one _may_ have to concede such points sometimes; but the concession is due less to necessity than to the--what shall we call it?--not perhaps exactly the cowardice, but at all events the timidity, of the artist. in a full-sized working drawing or cartoon everything material to the design should be expressed, and that as definitely as possible. in a cartoon for glass (to take again the same example) every lead-line should be shown, as well as the saddle bars; to omit them is about as excusable as it would be to leave out the sections from a design for cabinet work. it is contended sometimes that such details are not necessary, that the artist can bear all that in mind. doubtless he can, more or less; but i am inclined to believe more strongly in the _less_. at any rate he will much more certainly have them in view whilst he keeps them visibly before his eyes. one thing that deters him is the fear of offending the client, who will not believe, when he sees leads and bars in a drawing, how little they are likely to assert themselves in the glass. very much the same thing applies to designs and working drawings generally. a thorough craftsman never suggests a form or colour without realising in his own mind how he will be able to get such form or colour in the actual work; and in his working drawing he explains that fully, making allowance even for some not impossible dulness of apprehension on the part of the executant. thus, if a pattern is to be woven he indicates the cards to be employed, he arranges what parts are "single," what "double," as the weavers call it, what changes in the shuttle are proposed, and by the crossing of which threads certain intermediate tints are to be obtained. or again, if the design is for wall-paper printing, he arranges not only for the blocks, but the order in which they shall be printed; and provides for possible printing in "flock," or for the printing of one transparent colour over another, so as to get more colours than there are blocks used, and so on. in either case, too, he shows quite plainly the limits of each colour, not so much seeking the softness of effect which is his ultimate aim, as the precision which will enable the block or card cutter to see at a glance what he means,--even at the risk of a certain hardness in his drawing; for the drawing is in itself of no account; it is only the means to an end; and his end is the stuff, the paper, or whatever it may be, in execution. a workman intent on his design will sacrifice his drawing to it--harden it, as i said, for the sake of emphasis, annotate it, patch it, cut it up into pieces to prove it, if need be do anything to make his meaning clear to the workman who comes after him. it is as a rule only the dilettante who is dainty about preserving his drawings. to an artist very much in repute there may be some temptation to be careful of his designs, and to elaborate them (himself, or by the hands of his assistants), because, so finished, they have a commercial value as drawings--but this is at best pot-boiling; and the only men who are subject to this temptation are just those who might be proof against it. men of such rank that even their working drawings are in demand have no very urgent need to work for the pot; and the working drawings of men to whom pounds and shillings must needs be a real consideration are not sought after. in the case of very smart and highly finished drawings by comparatively unknown designers--of ninety-nine out of a hundred, that is to say, or nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand perhaps--elaboration implies either that, having little to say, a man fills up his time in saying it at unnecessary length, or that he is working for exhibition. and why not work for exhibition? it may be asked. there is a simple answer to that: the exhibition pitch is in much too high a key, and in the long run it will ruin the faculty of the workman who adopts it. it is only fair to admit that an exhibition of fragmentary and unfinished drawings, soiled, tattered, and torn, as they almost invariably come from the workshop or factory, would make a very poor show--which may be an argument against exhibiting them at all. certainly it is a reason for mending, cleaning, and mounting them, and putting them in some sort of frame (for what is not worth the pains of making presentable is not worth showing), but that is a very different thing from working designs up to picture pitch. when all is said, designs, if exhibited, appeal primarily to designers. _we_ all want to see each other's work, and especially each other's way of working; but it should not be altogether uninteresting to the intelligent amateur to see what working drawings are, and to compare them with the kind of specious competition drawings by which he is so apt to be misled. lewis f. day. furniture and the room the art of furnishing runs on two wheels--the room and the furniture. as in the bicycle, the inordinate development of one wheel at the expense of its colleague has been not without some great feats, yet too often has provoked catastrophe; so furnishing makes safest progression when, with a juster proportion, its two wheels are kept to moderate and uniform diameters. the room should be for the furniture just as much as the furniture for the room. of late it has not been so; we have been indulging in the "disproportionately wheeled" type, and the result has been to crowd our rooms, and reduce them to insignificance. even locomotion in them is often embarrassing, especially when the upholsterer has been allowed _carte blanche_. but, apart from this, there is a sense of repletion in these masses of chattel--miscellanies brought together with no subordination to each other, or to the effect of the room as a whole. taken in the single piece, our furniture is sometimes not without its merit, but it is rarely exempt from self-assertion, or, to use a slang term, "fussiness." and an aggregation of "fussinesses" becomes fatiguing. one is betrayed into uncivilised longings for the workhouse, or even the convict's cell, the simplicity of bare boards and tables! but we must not use our dictum for aggressive purposes merely, faulty as modern systems may be. in the distinction of the two sides of the problem of furnishing--the room for the furniture, and the furniture for the room--there is some historical significance. under these titles might be written respectively the first and last chapters in the history of this art--its rise and its decadence. furniture in the embryonic state of chests, which held the possessions of early times, and served, as they moved from place to place, for tables, chairs, and wardrobes, may have been in existence while the tents and sheds which accommodated them were of less value. but furnishing began with settled architecture, when the room grew first into importance, and overshadowed its contents. the art of the builder had soared far beyond the ambitions of the furnisher. later, the two constituents of our art came to be produced simultaneously, and under one impulse of design. the room, whether church or hall, had now its specific furniture. in the former this was adapted for ritual, in the latter for feasting; but in both the contents formed in idea an integral part of the interior in which they stood. and while these conditions endured, the art was in its palmy state. later, furniture came to be considered apart from its position. it grew fanciful and fortuitous. the problem of fitting it to the room was no problem at all while both sprang from a common conception: it became so when its independent design, at first a foible of luxury, grew to be a necessity of production. as long, however, as architecture remained dominant, and painting and sculpture were its acknowledged vassals, furniture retained its legitimate position and shared in their triumphs. but when these the elder sisters shook off their allegiance, furniture followed suit. it developed the self-assertion of which we have spoken, and, in the belief that it could stand alone, divorced itself from that support which was the final cause of its existence. there have been doubtless many slackenings and tightenings of the chain which links the arts of design together; but it is to be noted how with each slackening furniture grew gorgeous and artificial, failed to sympathise with common needs, and sank slowly but surely into feebleness and insipidity. we had passed through some such cycle by the middle of this century. with the dissolution of old ties the majority of the decorative arts had perished. painting remained to us, arrogating to herself the rôle which hitherto the whole company had combined to make successful. in her struggle to fill the giant's robe, she has run unresistingly in the ruts of the age. she has crowded her portable canvases, side by side, into exhibitions and galleries, and claimed the title of art for literary rather than æsthetic suggestions. the minor coquetries of craftsmanship, from which once was nourished the burly strength of art, have felt out of place in such illustrious company. so we have the forced art of public display, but it has ceased to be the habit in which our common rooms and homely walls could be dressed. the attendant symptom has been the loss from our houses of all that architectural amalgam, which in former times blended the structure with its contents, the screens and panellings, which, half room, half furniture, cemented the one to the other. the eighteenth century carried on the tradition to a great extent with plinth and dado, cornice and encrusted ceiling; but by the middle of the nineteenth we had our interiors handed over to us by the architect almost completely void of architectural feature. we are asked to take as a substitute, what is naïvely called "decoration," two coats of paint, and a veneer of machine-printed wall-papers. in this progress of obliteration an important factor has been the increasing brevity of our tenures. three or four times in twenty years the outgoing tenant will make good his dilapidations, and the house-agent will put the premises into tenantable repair--as these things are settled for us by lawyers and surveyors. after a series of such processes, what can remain of internal architecture? can there be left even a room worth furnishing, in the true sense of the term? the first step to render it so must usually be the obliteration of as much as possible of the maimed and distorted construction, which our leasehold house offers. what wonder, then, if furniture, beginning again to account herself an art, should have transgressed her limits and invaded the room? ceilings, walls and floors, chimneypieces, grates, doors and windows, all nowadays come into the hands of the artistic furnisher, and are at the mercy of upholsterers and cabinetmakers to begin with, and of the antiquity-collector to follow. then we bring in our gardens, and finish off our drawing-room as a mixture of a conservatory and a bric-à-brac shop. the fashion for archæological mimicry has been another pitfall. the attempt to bring back art by complete reproductions of old-day furnishings has been much the vogue abroad. the parisians distinguish many styles and affect to carry them out in every detail. the americans have copied paris, and we have done a little ourselves. but the weak element in all this is, that the occupier of these mediæval or classic apartments remains still the nineteenth-century embodiment, which we meet in railway carriage and omnibus. we cannot be cultured epicureans in a drawing-room of the roman empire, and by the opening of a door walk as flemish burgomasters into our libraries. the heart of the age will mould its productions irrespective of fashion or archæology, and such miserable shams fail to reach it. if we, who live in this century, can at all ourselves appraise the position, its most essential characteristic in its bearing upon art has been the commercial tendency. thereby an indelible stamp is set upon our furniture. the making of it under the supreme condition of profitable sale has affected it in both its functions. on the side of utility our furniture has been shaped to the uses of the million, not of the individual. hence its monotonously average character, its failure to become part of ourselves, its lack of personal and local charm. how should a "stock" article possess either? but the blight has fallen more cruelly on that other function, which is a necessity of human craftsmanship--the effort to express itself and please the eye by the expression. art being the monopoly of "painting," and having nothing to do with such vulgar matters as furniture, commercialism has been able to advance a standard of beauty of its own, with one canon, that of speedy profits. furniture has become a mere ware in the market of fashion. bought to-day as the rage, it is discarded to-morrow, and some new fancy purchased. the tradesman has a new margin of profit, but the customer is just where he was. it may be granted that a genuine necessity of sale is the stimulus to which all serious effort in the arts must look for progress, and without which they would become faddism and conceit. but it is a different thing altogether when this passes from stimulus into motive--the exclusive motive of profit to the producer. the worth of the article is impaired as much as the well-being of the craftsman, and furniture is degraded to the position of a pawn in the game of the sweater. we must, i fear, be content at present to put up with exhibitions and unarchitectural rooms. but while making the best of these conditions, we need not acquiesce in them or maintain their permanence. at any rate we may fight a good fight with commercialism. the evils of heartless and unloving production, under the grind of an unnecessary greed, are patent enough to lead us to reflect that we have after all in these matters a choice. we need not spend our money on that which is not bread. we can go for our furniture to the individual craftsman and not the commercial firm. the penalty for so doing is no longer prohibitive. in closing our remarks we cannot do better than repeat our initial axiom--the art of furnishing lies with the room as much as with the furniture. the old ways are still the only ways. when we care for art sufficiently to summon her from her state prison-house of exhibitions and galleries, to live again a free life among us in our homes, she will appear as a controlling force, using not only painting and sculpture, but all the decorative arts to shape room and furniture under one purpose of design. whether we shall then give her the time-honoured title of architecture, or call her by another name, is of no moment. edward s. prior. of the room and furniture the transient tenure that most of us have in our dwellings, and the absorbing nature of the struggle that most of us have to make to win the necessary provisions of life, prevent our encouraging the manufacture of well-wrought furniture. we mean to outgrow our houses--our lease expires after so many years and then we shall want an entirely different class of furniture; consequently we purchase articles that have only sufficient life in them to last the brief period of our occupation, and are content to abide by the want of appropriateness or beauty, in the clear intention of some day surrounding ourselves with objects that shall be joys to us for the remainder of our life. another deterrent condition to making a serious outlay in furniture is the instability of fashion: each decade sees a new style, and the furniture that we have acquired in the exercise of our experienced taste will in all probability be discarded by the impetuous purism of the succeeding generation. at present we are suffering from such a catholicity of taste as sees good in everything, and has an indifferent and tepid appreciation of all and sundry, especially if consecrated by age. this is mainly a reaction against the austerity of those moralists who preached the logic of construction, and who required outward proof of the principles on which and by which each piece was designed. another cause prejudicial to the growth of modern furniture is the canonisation of old. that tables and chairs should have lasted one hundred years is indeed proof that they were originally well made: that the conditions of the moment of their make were better than they are now is possible, and such aureole as is their due let us hasten to offer. but, to take advantage of their survival and to increase their number by facsimile reproduction is to paralyse all healthy growth of manufacture. as an answer to the needs and habits of our ancestors of one hundred years ago--both in construction and design--let them serve us as models showing the attitude of mind in which we should meet the problems of our day--and so far as the needs and habits of the present time are unchanged, as models of form, not to be incorporated with our vernacular, but which we should recognise as successful form, and discover the plastic secrets of its shape. with this possession we may borrow what forms we will--shapes of the ind and far cathay--the whole wide world is open to us--of past imaginations and of the dreams of our own. but without this master-key the copying is slavish, and the bondage of the task is both cruel and destructive. cruel, because mindless, work can be reproduced more rapidly than thoughtful work can be invented, and the rate of production affects the price of other articles of similar kind, so that the one dictates what the other shall receive; and destructive, because it treats the craftsman as a mere machine, whose only standard can be mechanical excellence. now, all furniture that has any permanent value has been designed and wrought to meet the ends it had to serve, and the careful elaboration of it gave its maker scope for his pleasure and occasion for his pride. if a man really likes what he has got to do, he will make great shifts to express and realise his pleasure; he will choose carefully his materials, and either in playfulness of fancy, or in grave renunciation of the garniture of his art, will put the stamp of his individuality on his work. an example of living art in modern furniture is a costermonger's barrow. affectionately put together, carved and painted, it expresses almost in words the pride and taste of its owner. as long as we are incapable of recognising and sympathising with the delight of the workman in the realisation of his art, our admiration of his work is a pretence, and our encouragement of it blind--and this blindness makes us insensitive as to whether the delight is really there or no; consequently our patronage will most often be disastrous rather than helpful. the value of furniture depends on the directness of its response to the requirements that called it into being, and to the nature of the conditions that evoked it. to obtain good furniture we must contrive that the conditions of its service are worthy conditions, and not merely the dictates of our fancy or our sloth. at the present moment modern furniture may be roughly divided into two classes: furniture for service, and furniture for display. most of us, however, have to confine ourselves to the possession of serviceable furniture only; and a more frank recognition of this limitation would assist us greatly in our selection. if only we kept our real needs steadily before us, how much more beauty we could import into our homes! owing to lack of observation, and of experienced canons of taste, our fancies are caught by some chance object that pleases--one of that huge collection of ephemeral articles which "have been created to supply a want" that hitherto has never been felt--and as the cost of these fictions is (by the nature of the case) so low as to be of no great moment to us, the thing is purchased and helps henceforth to swell the museum of incongruous accumulation that goes by the name of a "furnished drawing-room." a fancy, so caught, is soon outworn, but the precept of economy forbids the discharge of the superfluous purchase, and so it adds its unit to the sum of daily labour spent on its preservation and its appearance. this burden of unnecessary toil is the index of the needlessness and cruelty with which we spend the labour of those whom need has put under our service. and the sum of money spent on these ill-considered acquisitions which have gone to swell the general total of distress, an ever-widening ring of bitter ripple, might, concentrated, have purchased some one thing, both beautiful and useful, whose fashioning had been a pleasure to the artificer, and whose presence was an increasing delight to the owner and an added unit to this world's real wealth. such indiscriminate collection defeats its own aim. compare the way giovanni bellini fits up st. jerome's study for him in the national gallery. there is no stint of money evidently; the saint gets all that he can properly want, and he gets over and above--the addition born of his denial--the look of peace and calm in his room, that can so seldom be found with us. another reason why our rooms are so glaringly over-furnished is, that many of us aim at a standard of profusion, in forgetfulness of the circumstances which created that standard. families, whose descent has been historic, and whose home has been their pride, accumulate, in the lapse of time, heirlooms of many kinds--pictures, furniture, trinkets, etc.--and as these increase in numbers, the rooms in which they are contained become filled and crowded beyond what beauty or comfort permits, and such sacrifice is justly made for the demands of filial pride. this emotion is so conspicuously an honourable one that we are all eager to possess and give scope to our own, and so long as the scope is honest there is nothing more laudable. but the temptation is to add to our uninherited display in this particular by substitutes, and to surround ourselves with immemorable articles, the justification of whose presence really should be that they form part of the history of our lives in more important respects than the mere occasions of their purchase. it is this unreasoning ambition that leads to the rivalling of princely houses by the acquisition of "family portraits purchased in wardour street"--the rivalling of historic libraries by the purchase of thousands of books to form our yesterday's libraries of undisturbed volumes--the rivalling of memorable chairs and tables, by recently bought articles of our own, crowded in imitation of our model with innumerable trifles, to the infinite tax of our space, our patience, and our purse. our want of care and restraint in the selection of our furniture affects both its design and manufacture. constantly articles are bought for temporary use--we postponing the responsibility of wise purchase until we have more time, or else we buy what is not precisely what we want but which must do, since we cannot wait to have the exact things made, and have not the time to search elsewhere for them. furniture, in response to this demand, must be made either so striking as to arrest the eye, or so variedly serviceable as to meet some considerable proportion of the conflicting requirements made on it by the chance intending purchaser, or else it must fall back on the impregnable basis of antiquity and silence all argument with the canon that what the late mr. chippendale did was bound to be "good taste." "there should be a place for everything, and everything in its place." very true. but in the exercise of our orderliness we require the hearty co-operation of the "place" itself. 'tis a wonderful aid when the place fits the object it is intended to contain. take the common male chest of drawers as a case in point. its function is to hold a man's shirts and his clothes, articles of a known and constant size. why are the drawers not made proportionate for their duty? why are they so few and so deep that when filled--as they needs must be--they are uneasy to draw out, and to obtain the particular article of which we are in quest, and which of course is at the bottom, we must burrow into the heavy super-incumbent mass of clothes in our search, and--that successful--spend a weary while in contriving to repack the ill-disposed space. it can hardly be economy of labour and material that dictates this, for--if so--why is the usual hanging wardrobe made so preposterously too tall? does the idiot maker suppose that a woman's dress is hung all in one piece, body and skirt, from the nape of the neck, to trail its extremest length? the art of buying furniture, or having it made for us, is to be acquired only by study and pains, and we must either pursue the necessary education, or depute the furnishing of our rooms to competent hands: and the responsibility does not end here, for there is the duty of discovering who are competent, and this must be done indirectly since direct inquiry only elicits the one criterion, omnipotent, omnipresent, of cost. the object to be gained in furnishing a room is to supply the just requirements of the occupants, to accentuate or further the character of the room, and to indicate the individual habits and tastes of the owner. each piece should be beautiful in itself, and, still more important, should minister to and increase the beauty of the others. collective beauty is to be aimed at; not so much individual. proportion is another essential. not that the proportions of furniture should vary with the size of the rooms: the dimensions of chairs, height of tables, sizes of doors, have long been all fixed and, having direct reference to the human body, are immutable. substantially, the size of man's body is the same and has been the same from the dawn of history until now, and will be the same whether in a cottage parlour or the albert hall. but there is a proportion in the relations of the spaces of a room to its furniture which must be secured. if this is not done, no individual beauty of the objects in the room will repair the lost harmony or be compensation for the picture that might have been. a museum of beautiful objects has its educational value, but no one pretends that it claims to be more than a storehouse of beauty. the painter who crowds his canvas with the innumerable spots of colour that can be squeezed out of every tube of beautiful paint that the colourman sells, is no nearer his goal than he who fills his rooms with a heterogeneous miscellany of articles swept together from every clime and of every age. halsey ricardo. the english tradition the sense of a consecutive tradition has so completely faded out of english art that it has become difficult to realise the meaning of tradition, or the possibility of its ever again reviving; and this state of things is not improved by the fact that it is due to uncertainty of purpose, and not to any burning fever of individualism. tradition in art is a matter of environment, of intellectual atmosphere. as the result of many generations of work along one continuous line, there has accumulated a certain amount of ability in design and manual dexterity, certain ideas are in the air, certain ways of doing things come to be recognised as the right ways. to all this endowment an artist born in any of the living ages of art succeeded as a matter of course, and it is the absence of this inherited knowledge that places the modern craftsman under exceptional disabilities. there is evidence to prove the existence in england of hereditary crafts in which the son succeeded the father for generations, and to show that the guilds were rather the guardians of high traditional skill than mere trades unions; but there is surer proof of a common thread of tradition in certain qualities all along the line, which gave to english work a character peculiar to itself. instances of genuine gothic furniture are rare; in england at any rate it was usually simple and solid, sufficient to answer the needs of an age without any highly developed sense of the luxuries of life. it is not till the renaissance that much material can be found for a history of english furniture. much of the _motif_ of this work came from italy and the netherlands; indeed cabinet work was imported largely from the latter country. it was just here, however, that tradition stepped in, and gave to our sixteenth and seventeenth century furniture a distinctly national character. the delicate mouldings, the skilful turnings, the quiet inlays of ebony, ivory, cherry wood, and walnut, above all the breadth and sobriety of its design, point to a tradition of craftsmanship strong enough to assimilate all the ideas which it borrowed from other ages and other countries. contrast, for instance, a piece of tottenham court road marquetry with the mother-of-pearl and ebony inlay on an english cabinet at south kensington. so far as mere skill in cutting goes there may be no great difference between the two, but the latter is charming, and the former tedious in the last degree; and the reason is that in the seventeenth century the craftsman loved his work, and was master of it. he started with an idea in his head, and used his material with meaning, and so his inlay is as fanciful as the seaweed, and yet entirely subordinated to the harmony of the whole design. perhaps some of the best furniture work ever done in england was done between and . i refer, of course, to the good examples, to work which depended for its effect on refined design and delicate detail, not to the bulbous legs and coarse carving of ordinary elizabethan, though even this had a _naïveté_ and spontaneity entirely lacking in modern reproductions. after the restoration, signs of french influence appear in english furniture, but the tradition of structural fitness and dignity of design was preserved through the great architectural age of wren and gibbs, and lasted till the latter half of the eighteenth century. if that century was not particularly inspired, it at least understood consummate workmanship. the average of technical skill in the handicrafts was far in advance of the ordinary trade work of the present day. some curious evidences of the activity prevailing in what are called the minor arts may be found in _the laboratory and school of arts_, a small octavo volume published in . the work of this period furnishes a standing instance of the value of tradition. by the beginning of the eighteenth century a school of carvers had grown up in england who could carve, with absolute precision and without mechanical aids, all such ornament as egg and tongue work, or the acanthus, and other conventional foliage used for the decoration of the mouldings of doors, mantelpieces, and the like. grinling gibbons is usually named as the founder of this school, but gibbons was himself trained by such men as wren and gibbs, and for the source from which this work derives the real stamp of style one must go back to the austere genius of inigo jones. the importance of the architect, in influencing craftsmen in all such matters as this, cannot be overrated. he has, or ought to have, sufficient knowledge of the crafts to settle for the craftsman the all-important points of scale and proportion to the rest of the design; and this is just one of those points in which contemporary architecture, both as regards the education of the architect and current practice, is exceedingly apt to fail. sir william chambers and the brothers adam were the last of the architects before the cataclysm of the nineteenth century who made designs for furniture with any degree of skill. in the latter half of the eighteenth century occur the familiar names of chippendale, heppelwhite, and sheraton, and if these excellent cabinetmakers did a tenth of the work with which the dealers credit them, they must each have had the hundred hands of gyas. the rosewood furniture inlaid with arabesques in thin flat brass, and made by gillow at the end of the last century, is perhaps the last genuine effort in english furniture, though the tradition of good work and simple design died very hard in old-fashioned country places. the mischief began with the ridiculous mediævalism of horace walpole, which substituted amateur fancy for craftsmanship, and led in the following century to the complete extinction of any tradition whatever. the heavy attempts at furniture in the greek style which accompanied the architecture of wilkins and soane were as artificial as this literary gothic, and the two resulted in the chaos of art which found its expression in the great exhibition of . three great qualities stamped the english tradition in furniture so long as it was a living force--steadfastness of purpose, reserve in design, and thorough workmanship. take any good period of english furniture, and one finds certain well-recognised types consistently adhered to throughout the country. there is no difficulty in grasping their general characteristics, whereas the very genius of classification could furnish no clue to the labyrinth of nineteenth-century design. the men of these earlier times made no laborious search for quaintness, no disordered attempt to combine the peculiarities of a dozen different ages. one general type was adhered to because it was the legacy of generations, and there was no reason for departing from such an excellent model. the designers and the workmen had only to perfect what was already good; they made no experiments in ornament, but used it with nice judgment, and full knowledge of its effect. the result was that, instead of being forced and unreasonable, their work was thoroughly happy; one cannot think of it as better done than it is. the quality of reserve and sobriety is even more important. as compared with the later developments of the renaissance on the continent, english furniture was always distinguished by its simplicity and self-restraint. yet it is this very quality which is most conspicuously absent from modern work. as a people we rather pride ourselves on the resolute suppression of any florid display of feeling, but art in this country is so completely divorced from everyday existence, that it never seems to occur to an englishman to import some of this fine insular quality into his daily surroundings. it has been reserved for this generation to part company with the tradition of finished workmanship. good work of course can be done, but it is exceedingly difficult to find the workman, and the average is bad. we have nothing to take the place of the admirable craftsmanship of the last century, which included not only great manual skill, but also an assured knowledge of the purpose of any given piece of furniture, of the form best suited for it, and the exact strength of material necessary, a knowledge which came of long familiarity with the difficulties of design and execution, which never hesitated in its technique, which attained a rightness of method so complete as to seem inevitable. craftsmanship of this order hardly exists nowadays. it is the result of tradition, of the labour of many generations of cunning workmen. lastly, as the complement of these lapses on the part of the craftsman, there has been a gradual decadence in the taste of the public. science and mechanical ingenuity have gone far to destroy the art of the handicrafts. art is a matter of the imagination, and of the skill of one's hands--but the pace nowadays is too much for it. certainly from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century a well-educated english gentleman had some knowledge of the arts, and especially of architecture; the earl of burlington even designed important buildings, though not with remarkable success; but at any rate educated people had some insight into the arts, whether inherited or acquired. nowadays good education and breeding are no guarantee for anything of the sort, unless it is some miscellaneous knowledge of pictures. few people, outside the artists, and not too many of them, give any serious attention to architecture and sculpture, and consequently an art such as furniture, which is based almost entirely upon these, is hardly recognised by the public as an art at all. how much the artist and his public react upon each other is shown by the plain fact that up to the last few years they have steadily marched down hill together, and it is not very certain that they have yet begun to turn the corner. that our english tradition was once a living thing is shown by the beautiful furniture, purely english in design and execution, still to be seen in great houses and museums, but it is not likely that such a tradition will spring up again till the artists try to make the unity of the arts a real thing, and the craftsman grows callous to fashion and archæology, and the public resolutely turns its back on what is tawdry and silly. reginald blomfield. carpenters' furniture it requires a far search to gather up examples of furniture really representative in this kind, and thus to gain a point of view for a prospect into the more ideal where furniture no longer is bought to look expensively useless in a boudoir, but serves everyday and commonplace need, such as must always be the wont, where most men work, and exchange in some sort life for life. the best present-day example is the deal table in those last places to be vulgarised, farm-house or cottage kitchen. but in the middle ages things as simply made as a kitchen table, mere carpenters' framings, were decorated to the utmost stretch of the imagination by means simple and rude as their construction. design, indeed, really fresh and penetrating, co-exists it seems only with simplest conditions. simple, serviceable movables fall into few kinds: the box, cupboard, and table, the stool, bench, and chair. the box was once the most frequent, useful, and beautiful of all these; now it is never made as furniture. often it was seat, coffer, and table in one, with chequers inlaid on the top for chess. there are a great number of chests in england as early as the thirteenth century. one type of construction, perhaps the earliest, is to clamp the wood-work together and beautifully decorate it by branching scrolls of iron-work. another kind was ornamented by a sort of butter-print patterning, cut into the wood in ingenious fillings to squares and circles, which you can imitate by drawing the intersecting lines the compasses seem to make of their own will in a circle, and cutting down each space to a shallow v. this simple carpenter's decoration is especially identified with chests. the same kind of work is still done in iceland and norway, the separate compartments often brightly painted into a mosaic of colour; or patterns of simple scroll-work are made out in incised line and space. in italy this charming art of incising was carried much farther in the _cassoni_, the fronts of which, broad planks of cypress wood, are often romantic with quite a tapestry of kings and ladies, beasts, birds, and foliage, cut in outline with a knife and punched with dots, the cavities being filled with a coloured mastic like sealing-wax. panelling, rough inlaying in the solid, carving and painting, and casing with repoussé or pierced metal, or covering with leather incised into designs, and making out patterns with nail-heads, were all methods of decoration used by the maker of boxes: other examples, and those not the least stately, had no other ornament than the purfling at the edges formed by ingeniously elaborate dovetails fitting together like a puzzle and showing a pattern like an inlay. when people work naturally, it is as wearisome and unnecessary often to repeat the same design as to continually paint the same picture. design comes by designing. on the one hand tradition carefully and continuously shapes the object to fill its use, on the other spontaneous and eager excursions are made into the limitless fields of beautiful device. where construction and form are thus the result of a long tradition undisturbed by fashion, they are always absolutely right as to use and distinctive as to beauty, the construction being not only visible, but one with the decoration. take a present-day survival, the large country cart, the body shaped like the waist of a sailing ship, and every rail and upright unalterably logical, and then decorated by quaint chamferings, the facets of which are made out in brightest paint. or look at an old table, always with stretching rails at the bottom and framed together with strong tenons and cross pins into turned posts, but so thoughtfully done that every one is original and all beautiful. turning, a delightful old art, half for convenience, half for beauty, itself comes down to us from long before the conquest. the great charm in furniture of the simplest structure may best be seen in old illuminated manuscripts, where a chest, a bench, and against the wall a cupboard, the top rising in steps where are set out tall "venice glasses," or a "garnish" of plate under a tester of some bright stuff, make up a whole of fairy beauty in the frank simplicity of the forms and the innocent gaiety of bright colour. take the st. jerome in his study of dürer or bellini, and compare the dignity of serene and satisfying order with the most beautifully furnished room you know: how vulgar our _good taste_ appears and how foreign to the end of culture--peace. from records, and what remains to us, we know that the room, the hangings, and the furniture were patterned all over with scattered flowers and inscriptions--violets and the words "_bonne pensée_"; or vases of lilies and "pax," angels and incense pots, ciphers and initials, badges and devices, or whatever there be of suggestion and mystery. the panelling and furniture were "green like a curtain," as the old accounts have it; or vermilion and white, like some painted chairs at knole; or even decorated with paintings and gilt gesso patterns like the norfolk screens. fancy a bed with the underside of the canopy having an annunciation or spreading trellis of roses, and the chamber carved like one in thirteenth-century romance:-- "n'a el monde beste n'oisel qui n'i soit ovré à cisel." if we would know how far we are from the soul of art, we have but to remember that all this, the romance element in design, the joy in life, nature, and colour, which in one past development we call gothic, and which is ever the well of beauty undefiled, is not now so much impossible of attainment as entirely out of range with our spirit and life, a felt anachronism and affectation. all art is sentiment embodied in form. to find beauty we must consider what really gives us pleasure--pleasure, not pride--and show our unashamed delight in it; "and so, when we have leisure to be happy and strength to be simple we shall find art again"--the art of the workman. w. r. lethaby. of decorated furniture decorated or "sumptuous" furniture is not merely furniture that is expensive to buy, but that which has been elaborated with much thought, knowledge, and skill. such furniture cannot be cheap, certainly, but the real cost of it is sometimes borne by the artist who produces rather than by the man who may happen to buy it. furniture on which valuable labour is bestowed may consist of-- . large standing objects which, though actually movable, are practically fixtures, such as cabinets, presses, sideboards of various kinds; monumental objects. . chairs, tables of convenient shapes, stands for lights and other purposes, coffers, caskets, mirror and picture frames. . numberless small convenient utensils. here we can but notice class , the large standing objects which most absorb the energies of artists of every degree and order in their construction or decoration. cabinets seem to have been so named as being little strongholds--"offices" of men of business for stowing papers and documents in orderly receptacles. they are secured with the best locks procurable. they often contain secret drawers and cavities, hidden from all eyes but those of the owner. nor are instances wanting of owners leaving no information on these matters to their heirs, so that casual buyers sometimes come in for a windfall, or such a catastrophe as befell the owner of richard the third's bed. it is not to be expected that elaborate systems of secret drawers and hiding-places should be contrived in cabinets of our time. money and jewels are considered safer when deposited in banks. but, ingenuity of construction in a complicated piece of furniture must certainly be counted as one of its perfections. sound and accurate joinery with well-seasoned woods, properly understood as to shrinkage and as to the relations between one kind of timber and another in these respects, is no small merit. some old english cabinets are to be met with in the construction of which wood only is used, the morticing admirable, the boards, used to hold ends and divisions together from end to end, strained and secured by wedges that turn on pivots, etc. furniture of this kind can be taken to pieces and set up, resuming proper rigidity _toties quoties_. to look at the subject historically, it seems that the cabinet, dresser, or sideboard is a chest set on legs, and that the "press," or cupboard (closet, not proper _cup_-board), takes the place of the panelled recess closed by doors, generally contrived, and sometimes ingeniously hidden, in the construction of a panelled room. the front of the elevated chest is hinged, and flaps down, while the lid is a fixture; the interior is more complicated than that of the chest, as its subdivisions are more conveniently reached. before leaving this part of the subject, it is worth notice that the architectural, or rather architectonic, character seems to have deeply impressed the makers of cabinets when the chest-type had gradually been lost. italian, german, english, and other cabinets are often found representing a church front or a house front, with columns, doors, sometimes ebony and ivory pavements, etc. next as to methods of decorating cabinets, etc. the kind which deserves our first attention is that of sculpture. here, undoubtedly, we must look to the italians as our masters, and to that admirable school of wood-carving which maintained itself so long in flanders, with an italian grace grafted on the ingenuity, vigour, and playfulness of a northern race. our english carvers, admirable craftsmen during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, seem to have been closely allied with the contemporary flemings. fronts of cabinets, dressers, chimneypieces, etc., were imported from belgium and were made up by english joiners with panelling, supplemented with carving where required, for our great houses. but the best italian carving remains on chests and chest fronts which were made in great numbers in the sixteenth century. some of these chests are toilet chests; some have formed wall-seats, laid along the sides of halls and galleries to hold hangings, etc., when the house was empty, and have served as seats or as "monumental" pieces when company was received. as the chest grew into the cabinet, or bureau, or dresser, great attention was paid to the supports. it need hardly be pointed out that, for the support of seats, tables, etc., animals, typical of strength or other qualities--the lion or the sphinx, the horse, sometimes the slave--have been employed by long traditional usage. and carvers of wood have not failed to give full attention to the use and decoration of conventional supports to the furniture now under discussion. they are made to unite the central mass to a shallow base, leaving the remaining space open. next to sculptured decoration comes incrusted. the most costly kinds of material, precious stones, such as lapis lazuli, agate, rare marbles, etc., have been employed on furniture surfaces. but such work is rather that of the lapidary than of the cabinetmaker. it is very costly, and seems to have been confined, in fact, to the factories kept up in italy, russia, and other states, at government expense. we do not produce them in this country; and the number of such objects is probably limited wherever we look for them. incrustation of precious woods is a more natural system of wood-decoration. veneered wood, which is laid on a roughened surface with thin glue at immense pressure, if well made, is very long-lived. the woods used give a coloured surface, and are polished so as to bring the colour fully out, _and_ to protect the material from damp. in fine examples the veneers form little pictures, or patterns, either by the arrangement of the grain of the pieces used, so as to make pictorial lines by means of the grain itself, or by using woods of various colours. a very fine surface decoration was invented, or carried to perfection, by andré charles boule, for louis xiv. it is a veneer of tortoise-shell and brass, with occasional white metal. an important element in boule decoration is noticeable in the chiselled angle mounts, lines of moulding, claws, feet, etc., all of which are imposed, though they have the general character of metal angle supports. in fact, the tortoise-shell is held by glue, and the metal by fine nails of the same material, the heads of which are filed down. incrustation, or _marquetry_, of this kind is costly, and most of it is due to the labours of artists and craftsmen employed by the kings of france at the expense of the government. a considerable quantity of it is still made in that country. now as to the way in which sculptors, or incrusters, should dispose of their decoration, and the fidelity to nature which is to be expected of them, whether in sculpture or wood mosaic, _i.e._ wood painting. first, we may suppose they will concentrate their more important details in recognisable divisions of their pieces, or in such ways that a proportion and rhythm shall be expressed by their dispositions of masses and fine details; placing their figures in central panels, on angles, or on dividing members; leaving some plain surface to set off their decorative detail; and taking care that the contours of running mouldings shall not be lost sight of by the carver. but how far is absolute natural truth, even absolute obedience to the laws of his art in every particular of his details, to be expected from the artist? we cannot doubt that such absolute obedience is sometimes departed from intentionally and with success. all greek sculpture is not always absolutely true to nature nor as beautiful as the sculptor, if free, could have made it. statues are conventionalised, decorative scrolls exaggerated, figures turned into columns for good reasons, and in the result successfully. in furniture, as in architecture, carved work or incrustation is not _free_, but is in _service_; and compromises with verisimilitude to nature, even violence, may sometimes be required on details in the interests of the entire structure. next let a word or two be reserved for painted furniture. painting has been employed on furniture of all kinds at many periods. the ancients made theirs of bronze, or of ivory, carved or inlaid. in the middle ages wood-carving and many kinds of furniture were painted. the coronation chair at westminster was so decorated. the chest fronts of delli and other painters are often pictures of great intrinsic merit, and very generally these family chest fronts are valuable records of costumes and fashions of their day. in this country the practice of painting pianoforte cases, chair-backs, table-tops, panels of all sorts, has been much resorted to. distinguished painters, angelica kauffmann and her contemporaries, and a whole race of coach-painters have left monuments of their skill in this line. it must suffice here to recall certain modern examples, _e.g._ a small dresser, now in the national collections, with doors painted by mr. poynter, with spirited figures representing the _beers_ and the _wines_; the fine piano case painted by mr. burne-jones; another by mr. alma tadema; lastly, a tall clock-case by mr. stanhope, which, as well as other promising examples, have been exhibited by the arts and crafts society. j. h. pollen. of carving it is not uncommon to see an elaborate piece of furniture, in decorating which it is evident that the carver has had opportunity for the exercise of all his skill, and which, indeed, bears evidence of the most skilful woodcutting on almost every square inch of its surface, from the contemplation of which neither an artist nor an educated craftsman can derive any pleasure or satisfaction. this would seem to point to the designer of the ornament as the cause of failure, and the writer of this believes that in such cases it will generally be found that the designer, though he may know everything that he ought to know about the production of designs which shall look well on paper or on a flat surface, has had no experience, by actually working at the material, of its difficulties, special capabilities, or limitations. if at the same time he has had but a limited experience of the difference in treatment necessary for carving which is to be seen at various altitudes, his failure may be taken as sufficiently accounted for. an idea now prevalent that it is not advisable to make models for wood-carving is not by any means borne out by the experience of the writer of this paper. models are certainly not necessary for ordinary work, such as mouldings, or even for work in panels when the surfaces are intended to be almost wholly on one plane, but the carved decoration of a panel, which pretends to be in any degree a work of art, often depends for its effect quite as much on the masterly treatment of surface planes, and the relative projection from the surface of the more prominent parts, as upon the outline. now, there are many men who, though able to carve wood exquisitely, have never given themselves the trouble, or perhaps have scarcely had the opportunity, to learn how to read an ordinary drawing. the practice obtains in many carving shops for one or two leading men to rough out (_viz._ shape out roughly) all the work so far as that is practicable, and the others take it up after them and finish it. the followers are not necessarily less skilful carvers or cutters than the leaders, but have, presumably, less knowledge of form. if, then, one wishes to avail oneself of the skill of these men for carrying out really important work, it is much the simpler way to make a model (however rough) which shall accurately express everything one wishes to see in the finished work; and, assuming the designer to be fairly dexterous in the use of clay or other plastic material, a sketch model will not occupy any more of his time than a drawing would. to put it plainly, no designer can ever know what he ought to expect from a worker in any material if he has not worked in that material himself. if he has carved marble, for instance, he knows the extreme care required in under-cutting the projecting parts of the design, and the cost entailed by the processes necessary to be employed for that purpose. he therefore so arranges the various parts of his design that wherever it is possible these projecting portions shall be supported by other forms, so avoiding the labour and cost of relieving (or under-cutting) them; and if he be skilful his skill will appear in the fact that his motive in this will be apparent only to experts, while to others the whole will appear to grow naturally out of the design. moreover, he knows that he must depend for the success of this thing on an effect of breadth and dignity. he is not afraid of a somewhat elaborate surface treatment, being aware that nearly any variety of surface which he can readily produce in clay may be rendered in marble with a reasonable amount of trouble. in designing for the wood-carver he is on altogether different ground. he may safely lay aside some portion of his late dignity, and depend almost entirely on vigour of line; the ease with which under-cutting is done in this material enabling him to obtain contrast by the use of delicately relieved forms. here, however, he must not allow the effect in his model to depend in any degree on surface treatment. care in that respect will prevent disappointment in the finished work. the most noticeable feature in modern carved surface decoration is the almost universal tendency to overcrowding. it appears seldom to have occurred to the craftsman or designer that decorating a panel, for instance, is not at all the same thing as covering it with decoration. still less does he seem to have felt that occasionally some portions of the ground are much more valuable in the design than anything which he can put on them. indeed, the thoughtful designer who understands its use and appreciates its value, frequently has more trouble with his ground than with anything else in the panel. also, if he have the true decorative spirit, his mind is constantly on the general scheme surrounding his work, and he is always ready to subordinate himself and his work in order that it may enhance and not disturb this general scheme. we will suppose, for example, that he has to decorate a column with raised ornament. he feels at once that the outlines of that column are of infinitely more importance than anything which he can put on it, however ingenious or beautiful his design may be. he therefore keeps his necessary projecting parts as small and low as possible, leaving as much of the column as he can showing between the lines of his pattern. by this means the idea of strength and support is not interfered with, and the _tout ensemble_ is not destroyed. this may seem somewhat elementary to many who will read it. my excuse must be that one sees many columns in which every vestige of the outline is so covered by the carving which has been built round them, that the idea of their supporting anything other than their ornament appears preposterous. there has been no opportunity to do more than glance at such a subject as this in a space so limited; but the purposes of this paper will have been served if it has supplied a useful hint to any craftsman, or if by its means any designer shall have been induced to make a more thorough study of the materials within his reach. stephen webb. intarsia and inlaid wood-work although decoration by inlaying woods of different colours must naturally have suggested itself in very early times, as soon indeed as there were workmen of skill sufficient for it, the history of this branch of art practically begins in the fifteenth century. it is eminently an italian art, which according to vasari had its origin in the days of brunelleschi and paolo uccello; and it had its birth in a land which has a greater variety of mild close-grained woods with a greater variety of colour than northern europe. by the italians it was regarded as a lower form of painting. like all mosaic, of which art it is properly a branch, it has its limitations; and it is only so long as it confines itself to these that it is a legitimate form of decoration. tarsia is at the best one of the minor decorative arts, but when well employed it is one that gives an immense deal of pleasure, and one to which it cannot be denied that the buildings of italy owe much of their splendour. their polished and inlaid furniture harmonises with the rare delicacy of their marble and mosaic, and goes far towards producing that air of rich refinement and elaborate culture which is to the severer styles and simpler materials of the north what the velvet-robed senator of st. mark was to the mail-clad feudal chief from beyond the alps. as to its durability, the experience of four centuries since vasari's time has proved that with ordinary care, or perhaps with nothing worse than mere neglect, intarsia will last as long as painting. its only real enemy is damp, as will be readily understood from the nature of the materials and the mode of putting them together. for though in a few instances, when the art was in its infancy, the inlaid pattern may have been cut of a substantial thickness and sunk into a solid ground ploughed out to receive it, this method was obviously very laborious, and admitted only of very simple design, for it is very difficult in this way to keep the lines of the drawing accurately. the recognised way of making intarsia was, and is, to form both pattern and ground in thin veneers about / of an inch thick, which are glued down upon a solid panel. at first sight this method may appear too slight and unsubstantial for work intended to last for centuries, but it has, in fact, stood the test of time extremely well, when the work has been kept in the dry even temperature of churches and great houses, where there is neither damp to melt the glue and swell the veneer, nor excessive heat to make the wood shrink and start asunder. when these conditions were not observed, of course the work was soon ruined, and vasari tells an amusing story of the humiliation which befell benedetto da majano, who began his career as an _intarsiatore_, in the matter of two splendid chests which he had made for matthias corvinus, from which the veneers, loosened by the damp of a sea voyage, fell off in the royal presence. the veneers being so thin, it is of course easy to cut through several layers of them at once, and this suggested, or at all events lent itself admirably to the design of the earlier examples, which are generally arabesques symmetrically disposed right and left of a central line. if two dark and two light veneers are put together, the whole of one panel, both ground and pattern, can be cut at one operation with a thin fret saw; the ornamental pattern drops into the space cut out of the ground, which it, of course, fits exactly except for the thickness of the saw-cut, and the two half-patterns thus filled in are "handed" right and left, and so complete the symmetrical design. the line given by the thickness of the saw is then filled in with glue and black colour so as to define the outline, and additional saw-cuts are made or lines are engraved, and in either case filled in with the same stopping, wherever additional lines are wanted for the design. it only remains to glue the whole down to a solid panel, and to polish and varnish the surface, and it is then ready to be framed into its place as the back of a church stall, or the lining of a courtly hall, library, or cabinet. it was thus that the simpler italian intarsia was done, such as that in the dado surrounding perugino's sala del cambio in his native city, where the design consists of light arabesques in box or some similar wood on a walnut ground, defined by black lines just as i have described. but like all true artists the intarsiatore did not stand still. having successfully accomplished simple outline and accurate drawing, he was dissatisfied until he could carry his art farther by introducing the refinement of shading. this was done at different times and by different artists in a variety of ways; either by inlaying the shadow in different kinds of woods, by scorching it with fire, or by staining it with chemical solutions. in the book desks of the choir at the certosa or charterhouse of pavia, the effect of shading is got in a direct but somewhat imperfect way by laying strips of different coloured woods side by side. each flower or leaf was probably built up of tolerably thick pieces of wood glued together in position, so that they could be sliced off in veneers and yield several flowers or leaves from the same block, much in the way of tunbridge wells ware, though the italian specimens are, i believe, always cut _with_ the grain and not across it. the designs thus produced are very effective at a short distance, but the method is, of course, suitable only to bold and simple conventional patterns. the panels of the high screen or back to the stalls at the same church afford an instance of a more elaborate method. these splendid panels, which go all round the choir, contain each a three-quarter-length figure of a saint. lanzi deservedly praises them as the largest and most perfect figures of _tarsia_ which he had seen. they date from , and were executed by an istrian artist, bartolommeo da pola, perhaps from the designs of borgognone. the method by which their highly pictorial effect is produced is a mixed one, the shading being partly inlaid with woods of different colours, and partly obtained by scorching the wood with fire or hot sand in the manner generally in use for marqueterie at the present day. the inexhaustible patience as well as the fertility of resource displayed by messer bartolommeo is astonishing. where the saw-cut did not give him a strong enough line he has inlaid a firm line of black wood, the high lights of the draperies are inlaid in white, the folds shaded by burning, and the flowing lines of the curling hair are all inlaid, each several tress being shaded by three narrow strips of gradated colour following the curved lines of the lock to which they belong. when it is remembered that there are some forty or more of these panels, each differing from the rest, the splendour as well as the laborious nature of the decoration of this unrivalled choir will be better understood. of all the examples of pictorial intarsia the most elaborate are perhaps those in the choir stalls of sta. maria maggiore in bergamo. they are attributed to gianfrancesco capo di ferro, who worked from the designs of lotto, and was either a rival or pupil of fra damiano di bergamo, a famous master of the art. they consist of figure subjects and landscapes on a small scale, shaded with all the delicacy and roundness attainable in a tinted drawing, and certainly show how near intarsia can approach to painting. their drawing is excellent and their execution marvellous; but at the same time one feels that, however one may admire them as a _tour de force_, the limitations of good sense and proper use of the material have been reached and overstepped. when the delicacy of the work is so great that it requires to be covered up or kept under glass, it obviously quits the province of decorative art; furniture is meant to be used, and when it is too precious to be usable on account of the over-delicate ornament bestowed upon it, it must be admitted that the ornament is out of place, and, therefore, bad art. the later italian intarsia was betrayed into extravagance by the dexterity of the craftsman. the temptation before which he fell was that of rivalling the painter, and as he advanced in facility of technique, and found wider resources at his command, he threw aside not only those restraints which necessity had hitherto imposed, but also those which good taste and judgment still called him to obey. in the plain unshaded arabesques of the sala del cambio, and even in the figure panels of the certosa, the treatment is purely decorative; the idea of a plane surface is rightly observed, and there is no attempt to represent distance or to produce illusory effects of relief. above all, the work is solid and simple enough to bear handling; the stalls may be sat in, the desks may be used for books, the doors may be opened and shut, without fear of injury to their decoration. working within these limits, the art was safe; but they came in time to be disregarded, and in this, as in other branches of art, the style was ruined by the over-ingenuity of the artists. conscious of their own dexterity, they attempted things never done before, with means quite unsuited to the purpose, and with the sole result that they did imperfectly and laboriously with their wooden veneers, their glue-pot, and their chemicals, what the painter did with crayon and brush perfectly and easily. their greatest triumphs after they began to run riot in this way, however interesting as miracles of dexterity, have no value as works of art in the eyes of those who know the true principles of decorative design; while nothing can be much duller than the elaborate playfulness of the intarsiatore who loved to cover his panelling with sham book-cases, birds in cages, guitars, and military instruments in elaborate perspective. it would take too long to say much about the art in its application to furniture, such as tables, chairs, cabinets, and other movables, which are decorated with inlay that generally goes by the french name of marqueterie. marqueterie and intarsia are the same thing, though from habit the french title is generally used when speaking of work on a smaller scale. and as the methods and materials are the same, whether used on a grand or a small scale, so the same rules and restraints apply to both classes of design, and can no more be infringed with impunity on the door of a tall clock-case than on the doors of a palatial hall of audience. nothing can be a prettier or more practical and durable mode of decorating furniture than marqueterie in simple brown, black, yellow, and white; and when used with judgment there is nothing to forbid the employment of dyed woods; while the smallness of the scale puts at our disposal ivory, mother-of-pearl, and tortoise-shell, materials which in larger works are naturally out of the question. nothing, on the other hand, is more offensive to good taste than some of the overdone marqueterie of the french school of the last century, with its picture panels, and naturalesque figures, flowers, and foliage, straggling all over the surface, as if the article of furniture were merely a vehicle for the cleverness of the marqueterie cutter. still worse is the modern work of the kind, whether english or foreign, of which so much that is hopelessly pretentious and vulgar is turned out nowadays, in which the aim of the designer seems to have been to cover the surface as thickly as he could with flowers and festoons of all conceivable colours, without any regard for the form of the thing he was decorating, the nature of the material he was using, or the graceful disposition and economy of the ornament he was contriving. t. g. jackson. woods and other materials the woods in ordinary use by cabinetmakers may be divided broadly into two classes, viz. those which by their strength, toughness, and other qualities are suitable for construction, and those which by reason of the beauty of their texture or grain, their rarity, or their costliness, have come to be used chiefly for decorative purposes--veneering or inlaying. there are certainly several woods which combine the qualities necessary for either purpose, as will be noticed later on. at present the above classification is sufficiently accurate for the purposes of this paper. the woods chiefly used in the construction of cabinet work and furniture are oak, walnut, mahogany, rosewood, satin-wood, cedar, plane, sycamore. the oak has been made the standard by which to measure all other woods for the qualities of strength, toughness, and durability. there are said to be nearly fifty species of oak known, but the common english oak possesses these qualities in a far greater degree than any other wood. it is, however, very cross-grained and difficult to manage where delicate details are required, and its qualities recommend it to the carpenter rather than to the furniture-maker, who prefers the softer and straight-grained oak from turkey or wainscot from holland, which, in addition to being more easily worked and taking a higher finish, is not so liable to warp or split. there is also a species called white oak, which is imported into this country from america, and is largely used for interior fittings and cabinet-making. it is not equal to the british oak in strength or durability, and it is inferior to the wainscot in the beauty of its markings. the better the quality of this oak, the more it shrinks in drying. walnut is a favourite wood with the furniture-maker, as well as the carver, on account of its even texture and straight grain. the english variety is of a light grayish-brown colour, which colour improves much by age under polish. that from italy has more gray in it, and though it looks extremely well when carved is less liked by carvers on account of its brittleness. it is but little liable to the attacks of worms. in the english kind, the older (and therefore, generally speaking, the better) wood may be recognised by its darker colour. of mahogany there are two kinds, viz. those which are grown in the islands of cuba and jamaica, and in honduras. the cuba or spanish mahogany is much the harder and more durable, and is, in the opinion of the writer, the very best wood for all the purposes of the cabinet or furniture maker known to us. it is beautifully figured, takes a fine polish, is not difficult to work, when its extreme hardness is taken into account, and is less subject to twisting and warping than any other kind of wood. it has become so costly of late years, however, that it is mostly cut into veneers, and used for the decoration of furniture surfaces. honduras mahogany, or, as cabinetmakers call it, "bay wood," is that which is now in most frequent demand for the construction of the best kinds of furniture and cabinet work. it is fairly strong (though it cannot compare in that respect with cuba or rosewood), works easily, does not shrink, resists changes of temperature without alteration, and holds glue well, all of which qualities specially recommend it for the purposes of construction where veneers are to be used. many cabinetmakers prefer to use this wood for drawers, even in an oak job. rosewood is one of those woods used indifferently for construction or for the decoration of other woods. though beautiful specimens of grain and figure are often seen, its colour does not compare with good specimens of cuba veneer. its purple tone (whatever stains are used) is not so agreeable as the rich, deep, mellow browns of the mahogany; nor does it harmonise so readily with its surroundings in an ordinary room. it has great strength and durability, and is not difficult to work. probably the best way to use it constructively is in the making of small cabinets, chairs, etc.--that is, if one wishes for an appearance of lightness with real strength. the writer does not here offer any opinion as to whether a piece of furniture, or indeed anything else, should or should not look strong when it really is so. satin-wood, most of which comes from the west india islands, is well known for its fine lustre and grain, as also for its warm colour, which is usually deepened by yellow stain. it is much used for painted furniture, and the plain variety is liked by the carver. cedar is too well known to need any description here. it is commonly believed that no worm will touch it, and it is therefore greatly in demand for the interior fitting of cabinets, drawers, etc. it is a straight-grained wood and fairly easy to work, though liable to split. it is impossible in a short paper like the present to do more than glance at a few of the numerous other woods in common use. ebony has always been greatly liked for small or elaborate caskets or cabinets, its extreme closeness of grain and hardness enabling the carver to bring up the smallest details with all the sharpness of metal work. sycamore, beech, and holly are frequently stained to imitate walnut, rosewood, or other materials; of these the first two are used constructively, but the latter, which takes the stain best, is nearly all cut into veneer, and, in addition to its use for covering large surfaces, forms an important element in the modern marquetry decorations. bass wood, on account of its softness and the facility with which it can be stained to any requisite shade, is extensively used to imitate other woods in modern furniture of the cheaper sort. it should, however, never be used for furniture at all, as it has (as a cabinetmaker would say) no "nature" in it, and in the result there is no wear in it. other woods, coming under the second category, as amboyna, coromandel, snake-wood, orange-wood, thuyer, are all woods of a beautiful figure, which may be varied indefinitely by cutting the veneers at different angles to the grain of the wood, and the tone may also be varied by the introduction of colour into the polish which is used on them. coromandel wood is one of the most beautiful of these, but it is not so available as it would otherwise be on account of its resistance to glue. orange-wood, when not stained, is very wasteful in use, as the natural colour is confined to the heart of the tree. silver, white metal, brass, etc., are cut into a veneer of tortoise-shell or mother-of-pearl, producing a decorative effect which, in the opinion of the writer, is more accurately described as "gorgeous" than "beautiful." there are many processes and materials used to alter or modify the colour of woods and to "convert" one wood into another. oak is made dark by being subjected to the fumes of liquid ammonia, which penetrate it to almost any depth. ordinary oak is made into brown oak by being treated with a solution of chromate of potash (which is also used to convert various light woods into mahogany, etc.). pearlash is used for the same purpose, though not commonly. for converting pear-tree, sycamore, etc., into ebony, two or more applications of logwood chips, with an after application of vinegar and steel filings, are used. a good deal of bedroom and other furniture is enamelled, and here the ground is prepared with size and whiting, and this is worked over with flake white, transparent polish, and bismuth. but by far the most beautiful surface treatment in this kind are the lacquers, composed of spirit and various gums, or of shellac and spirit into which colour is introduced. stephen webb. of modern embroidery if we wish to arrive at a true estimate of the value of modern embroidery, we must examine the work being sold in the fancy-work shops, illustrated in ladies' newspapers or embroidered in the drawing-rooms of to-day, and consider in what respect it differs from the old work such as that exhibited in the south kensington museum. the old embroidery and the modern differ widely--in design, in colour, and in material; nor would any one deny that a very large proportion of modern work is greatly inferior to that of past times. what, then, are the special characteristics of the design of the present day? modern design is frequently very naturalistic, and seems rather to seek after a life-like rendering of the object to be embroidered than the decoration of the material to be ornamented. then again it may be noted that modern designs are often ill adapted to the requirements of embroidery. this is probably because many of the people who design for embroidery do not understand it. very often a design that has been made for this purpose would have been better suited to a wall paper, a panel of tiles, or a woven pattern. the designer should either be also an embroiderer or have studied the subject so thoroughly as to be able to direct the worker, for the design should be drawn in relation to the colours and stitches in which it is to be carried out. the more, indeed, people will study the fine designs of the past, and compare with them the designs of the art-needlework of the present, the more they will realise that, where the former is rich, dignified, and restrained, obedient to law in every curve and line, the latter is florid, careless, weak, and ignores law. and how finished that old embroidery was, and how full! no grudging of the time or the labour spent either on design or needlework; no scamping; no mere outlining. border within border we often see, and all the space within covered up to the edges and into the corners. contrast with this very much of our modern work. let us take as an example one piece that was on view this summer at a well-known place in london where embroidery is sold. it is merely a type of many others in many other places. this was a threefold screen made of dark red-brown velveteen. all over it ran diagonal crossing lines coarsely worked in light silk, to imitate a wire trellis, with occasional upright supports worked in brown wool, imitating knotty sticks. up one side of this trellis climbed a scrambling mass of white clematis; one spray wandering along the top fell a little way down the other side. thus a good part of the screen was bare of embroidery, except for the trellis. naturalism could not go much farther, design is almost absent, and the result is feeble and devoid of beauty. if we turn now to material, we shall find that embroidery, like some other arts, depends much for its excellence on the minor crafts which provide it with material; and these crafts supplied it with better material in former times than they do now. a stuff to be used as a ground for embroidery should have endless capacities for wear. this was a quality eminently possessed by hand-spun and hand-woven linen, which, with its rounded and separate thread, and the creamy tint of its partial bleaching, made an ideal ground for embroidery. or if silk were preferred, the silks of past centuries were at once thick, firm, soft and pure, quite free from the dress or artificial thickening, by whose aid a silk nowadays tries to look rich when it is not. the oatmeal cloth, diagonal cloth, cotton-backed satin, velveteen and plush, so much used now, are very inferior materials as grounds for needlework to the hand-loom linens and silks on which so large a part of the old embroidery remaining to us was worked. and so very much of the beauty of the embroidery depends on the appropriateness of the material.[ ] cloth, serge, and plush are not appropriate; embroidery never looks half so well on them as on silk and linen. it is equally important that the thread, whether of silk, wool, flax, or metal, should be pure and as well made as it can be, and, if dyed, dyed with colours that will stand light and washing. most of the silk, wool, and flax thread sold for embroidery is not as good as it should be. the filoselles and crewels very soon get worn away from the surface of the material they are worked on. the crewels are made of too soft a wool, and are not twisted tight enough, and the filoselles, not being made of pure silk, should never be used at all, pretty and soft though their effect undoubtedly is while fresh. though every imaginable shade of colour can be produced by modern dyers, the craft seems to have been better understood by the dyers of times not very long past, who, though they may not have been able to produce so many shades, could dye colours which would wash and did not quickly fade, or when they faded merely lost some colour, instead of changing colour, as so many modern dyes do. the old embroidery is worked with purer and fewer colours; now all kinds of dull intermediate tints are used of gold, brown, olive, and the like, which generally fade rapidly and will not wash. many people, admiring old embroidery and desiring to make their new work look like it at least in colour, will use tints as faint and delicate as the faded old colours, forgetting that in a few years their work will be almost colourless. it is wiser to use strong good colours, for a little fading does not spoil but really improves them. so we see that many things combine to render embroidery as fine as that of the past difficult of production, and there is nothing more against it than machinery, which floods the market with its cheap imitations, so that an embroidered dress is no longer the choice and rare production it once was; the machine-made imitation is so common and so cheap that a refined taste, sick of the vulgarity of the imitation, cares little even for the reality, and seeks refuge in an unornamented plainness. the hand-worked embroidery glorified and gave value to the material it was worked on. the machine-work cannot lift it above the commonplace. when will people understand that the more ornament is slow and difficult of production, the more we appreciate it when we have got it; that it is because we know that the thought of a human brain and the skill of a human hand went into every stroke of a chisel, every touch of a brush, or every stitch placed by the needle, that we admire, enjoy, and wonder at the statue, the picture, or the needlework that is the result of that patience and that skill; and that we do not care about the ornament at all, and that it becomes lifeless always, and often vulgar, when it has been made at little or no cost by a machine which is ready at any moment to produce any quantity more of the same thing? all ornament and pattern was once produced by hand only, therefore it was always rare and costly and was valued accordingly. fashions did not change quickly. it was worth while to embroider a garment beautifully, for it would be worn for years, for a lifetime perhaps; and the elaborately worked counterpane would cover the bed in the guest-chamber for more than one generation. these remarks must be understood to apply to the ordinary fancy-work and so-called "art-needlework" of the present day. twenty years ago there would have been no ray of light in the depths to which the art of embroidery had fallen. now for some years steady and successful efforts have been made by a few people to produce once more works worthy of the past glories of the art. they have proved to us that designers can design and that women can execute fine embroidery, but their productions are but as a drop in the ocean of inferior and valueless work. mary e. turner. footnotes: [ ] but cf. "of materials," p. . of materials almost every fabric that is good of its kind is suitable for a ground for needlework, and any thread of silk, linen, cotton, or wool, is suitable for laying on a web, with the purpose of decorating it. yet these materials should not be wedded indiscriminately, every surface requiring its peculiar treatment; a loose woollen fabric, for example, being best covered with wool-work rather than with silk. not that it is necessary to work in linen thread on linen ground, in silk on silk ground, and so forth; silk upon linen, silk on canvas, wool on linen, are legitimate, because suitable combinations; it being scarcely necessary to note that linen or wool threads should not be used on silk surface, as to place the poorer on the richer material would be an error in taste. gold thread and precious stones will of course be reserved for the richer grounds, and the more elaborate kinds of work. a plain or a figured (damask) silk can be employed as a ground for needlework, the broken surface of a good damask sometimes enriching and helping out the design. if work is to be laid directly on silk ground, it should be rather open and light in character; if closer stitches are wanted, the principal forms are usually done on a canvas or linen backing, which is then cut out and "applied" to the final silk ground, the design being carried on and completed by lighter work of lines and curves, and by the enrichment of gold thread, and sometimes even precious stones. these two methods are a serious and dignified form of embroidery, and were often used by the great mediæval embroiderers on a rich figured or damask silk, and sometimes on plain silk, and sometimes on a silky velvet. it is not easy to procure absolutely pure "undressed" silk now, and pliable silk velvet of a suitable nature is still more difficult to obtain. satin is, to my thinking, almost too shiny a surface for a ground, but it may, occasionally, be useful for small work. a sort of imitation called "roman satin" is sometimes employed on account of its cheapness and effectiveness, i suppose, as it cannot be for its beauty; the texture, when much handled, being woolly and unpleasant. no one taking trouble to procure choice materials will think of making use of it. floss silk lends itself particularly to the kind of needlework we are speaking of; there is no twist on it, the silk is pure and untouched, if properly dyed has a soft gloss, and a yielding surface that renders it quite the foremost of embroidery silks, though its delicate texture requires skilful handling. but avoid silks that profess to be floss with the difficulty in handling removed. if the old workers could use a pure untwisted floss, surely we can take the trouble to conquer this difficulty and do the same. twisted silk, if used on a silk ground, should, i think, be rather fine; if thick and much twisted, it stands out in relief against the ground and gives a hard and ropy appearance. i am, in fact, assuming that work on so costly a material as pure thick silk is to be rather fine than coarse. gold and silver thread is much used with silk, but it is almost impossible to keep the silver from tarnishing. ordinary "gold passing," which consists of a gilt silver thread wound round silk, is also apt to tarnish, and should always be lacquered before using--a rather troublesome process to do at home, as the gold has to be unwound and brushed over with the lacquer, and should be dried in a warm room free from damp, or on a hot sunny day. japanese paper-gold is useful, for the reason that it does not tarnish, though in some ways it is more troublesome to manage than the gold that can be threaded in a needle and passed through the material. it consists, like much of the ancient gold thread, of a gilded strip of paper wound round silk, the old gold being gilded vellum, when not the flat gold beaten out thin (as, by the bye, in many of the eastern towels made to-day where the flat tinsel is very cleverly used). for needlework for more ordinary uses, linen is by far the most pleasing and enduring web. unlike silk on the one side, and wool on the other, it has scarcely any limitations in treatment, or in material suitable to be used on it. for hangings it can be chosen of a loose large texture, and covered with bold work executed in silk, linen thread, or wool, or it can be chosen of the finest thread, and covered with minute delicate stitches; it can be worked equally well in the hand, or in a frame, and usually the more it is handled the better it looks. a thick twisted silk is excellent for big and coarse work on linen, the stitches used being on the same scale, big and bold, and finer silk used sparingly if needed. white linen thread is often the material employed for linen altar cloths, coverlets, etc., and some extremely choice examples of such work are to be seen in our museums, some worked roughly with a large linen thread and big stitches, some with patient minuteness. it is hardly necessary to say how important the design of such work is. different qualities of this material will be suggested to the embroideress by her needs; but, before passing to other things, i should not omit mention of the charming linen woven at langdale. for some purposes it is very useful, as good linen for embroidering on is not easy to obtain. we have, however, yet to find a web which will resemble the rougher and coarser linens used for old embroideries, rather loosely woven, with a thick glossy thread, and of a heavy yet yielding substance, quite unlike the hard paper-like surfaces of machine-made linens. the langdale linen is, of course, hand-spun and hand-made, and the flat silky thread gives a very pleasant surface; but, owing to its price and fine texture, it is not always suitable for the purposes of large hangings. many fine examples of persian work, such as quilts and so forth, are executed on a white cotton ground, neither very fine nor very coarse, entirely in floss silk, a variety of stitches being used, and the brightest possible colours chosen. the cool silky surface of linen, however, commends itself more to us than cotton, each country rightly choosing the materials nearest to hand, in this as in other decorative arts. both linen and cotton are good grounds for wool-work, of which the most satisfactory kind is that done on a large scale, with a variety of close and curious stitches within bold curves and outlines. canvas and net are open textures of linen or cotton, and can be used either as a ground-work covered entirely with some stitch like the old-fashioned cross-stitch or tent-stitch, or some kindred mechanical stitch, or it can stand as the ground, to be decorated with bright silks. the texture of canvas being coarse, the design for it should be chosen on a large scale, and thick silk used; floss preferably as the glossiest, but a thick twisted silk is almost equally effective, and rather easier to handle. this canvas is used frequently in seventeenth-century italian room-hangings, either in the natural brownish colour, or dyed blue or green, the dye on it giving a dusky neutral colour which well shows up the richness of the silk. of woollen materials, cloth is the king; though as a ground for needle-decoration it has its limitations. it forms a good basis for appliqué, the groups of ornament being worked separately, and laid on the cloth with threads and cords of silk, gold, or wool, according to the treatment decided on. rough serge gives a good surface for large open wool-work. such work is quickly done, and could be made a very pleasing decoration for walls. see the delightful inventories of the worldly goods of sir john fastolf in the notes to the paston letters, where the description of green and blue worsted hangings, and "bankers" worked over with roses and boughs, and hunting scenes, make one long to emulate the rich fancies of forgotten arts, and try to plan out similar work, much of which was quite unambitious and simple, both in design and execution. "slack," a slightly twisted wool, worsted and crewel are usually the forms of work used; of these slack wool is the pleasantest for large work, worsted being too harsh; crewel is very fine and much twisted,[ ] often met with in old work of a fine kind. the advantage of wool over silk in cost is obvious, and renders it suitable for the commoner uses of life, where lavishness would be out of place. may morris. footnotes: [ ] crewel, crull, curly:-- "his locks were crull as they were laid in press," says chaucer of the squire in _the canterbury tales_. colour it is not unusual to hear said of textiles and embroideries, "i like soft quiet colouring; such and such is too bright." this assertion is both right and wrong; it shows an instinctive pleasure in harmony combined with ignorance of technique. to begin with, colour cannot be too bright in itself; if it appears so, it is the skill of the craftsman that is at fault. it will be noted in a fine piece of work that far from blazing with colour in a way to disturb the eye, its general effect is that of a subdued glow; and yet, on considering the different shades of the colours used, they are found to be in themselves of the brightest the dyer can produce. thus i have seen in an old persian rug light and dark blue flowers and orange leaves outlined with turquoise blue on a strong red ground, a combination that sounds daring, and yet nothing could be more peaceful in tone than the beautiful and complicated groups of colours here displayed. harmony, then, produces this repose, which is demanded instinctively, purity and crispness being further obtained by the quality of the colours used. thus in blues, use the shades that are only obtained satisfactorily by indigo dye, with such modifications as slightly "greening" with yellow when a green-blue is wanted, and so forth. the pure blue of indigo,[ ] neither slaty nor too hot and red on the one hand, nor tending to a coarse "peacock" green-blue on the other, is perfect in all its tones, and of all colours the safest to use in masses. its modifications to purple on one side and green-blue on the other are also useful, though to be employed with moderation. there are endless varieties of useful reds, from pink, salmon, orange, and scarlet, to blood-red and deep purple-red, obtained by different dyes and by different processes of dyeing. kermes, an insect dye, gives a very beautiful and permanent colour, rather scarlet. cochineal, also an insect dye, gives a red, rather inferior, but useful for mixed shades, and much used on silk, of which madder and kermes are apt to destroy the gloss, the former a good deal, the latter slightly. madder, a vegetable dye, "yields on wool a deep-toned blood-red, somewhat bricky and tending to scarlet. on cotton and linen all imaginable shades of red, according to the process."[ ] of the shades into which red enters, avoid over-abundant use of warm orange or scarlet, which are the more valuable (especially the latter) the more sparingly used; there is a dusky orange and a faint clear bricky scarlet, sometimes met with in old work, that do not need this reservation, being quiet colours of impure yet beautiful tone. clear, full yellow, fine in itself, also loses its value if too plentifully used, or lacking due relief by other colours. the pure colour is neither reddish and hot in tone, nor greenish and sickly. it is very abundant, for example, in persian silk embroidery, also in chinese, and again in spanish and italian work of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. the best and most permanent yellow dye, especially valuable on silk, is weld or "wild mignonette." next to blue, green seems the most natural colour to live with, and the most restful to the eye and brain; yet it is curious to those not familiar with the ins and outs of dyeing that it should be so difficult to obtain through ordinary commercial channels a full, rich, permanent green, neither muddy yellow nor coarse bluish. a dyer who employed old-fashioned dye-stuffs and methods would, however, tell us that the greens of commerce are obtained by _messes_, and not by dyes, the only method for obtaining good shades being that of dyeing a blue of the depth required in the indigo-vat, and afterwards "greening" it with yellow, with whatever modifications are needed. three sets of greens will be found useful for needlework, full yellow-greens of two or three shades, grayish-greens, and blue-greens. of these, the shades tending to grayish-green are the most manageable in large masses. there is also an olive-green that is good, if not too dark and brown, when it becomes a nondescript, and as such to be condemned. walnut (the roots or the husks or the nut) and catechu (the juice of a plant) are the most reliable brown dye-stuffs, giving good rich colour. the best black, by the bye, formerly used, consisted of the darkest indigo shade the material would take, dipped afterwards in the walnut root dye. this hasty enumeration of dye-stuffs gives an idea of those principally used until this century, but now very rarely, since the reign of aniline. yet they give the only really pure and permanent colours known, not losing their value by artificial light, and very little and gradually fading through centuries of exposure to sunlight. it would be pleasant if in purchasing silk or cloth one had not to pause and consider "will it fade?" meaning not "will it fade in a hundred, or ten, or three years?" but "will it fade and be an unsightly rag this time next month?" i cannot see that aniline has done more for us than this. colour can be treated in several different ways: by distinctly light shades, whether few or many, on a dark ground, which treatment lends itself to great variety and effect; or by dark on a light ground, not so rich or satisfying in effect; or again, by colour placed on colour of equal tone, as it were a mosaic or piecing together of colours united, or "jointed," by outlining round the various members of the design. black on white, or white on white, a mere drawing of a design on the material, scarcely comes under the head of colour, though, as aforesaid, some very beautiful work has been done in this way. as regards method of colouring, it is not very possible to give much indication of what to use and what to avoid, it being greatly a matter of practice, and somewhat of instinct, how to unite colour into beautiful and complex groups. a few hints for and against certain combinations may perhaps be given: for instance, avoid placing a blue immediately against a green of nearly the same tone; an outline of a different colour disposes of this difficulty, but even so, blue and green for equally leading colours should be avoided. again, red and yellow, if both of a vivid tone, will need a softening outline; also, i think, red and green if at all strong; avoid cold green in contact with misty blue-green, which in itself is rather a pretty colour: the warning seems futile, but i have seen these colours used persistently together, and do not like the resulting undecided gray tone. a cold strong green renders service sometimes, notably for placing against a clear brilliant yellow, which is apt to deaden certain softer greens. brown, when used, should be chosen carefully, warm in tint, but not _hot_; avoid the mixture of brown and yellow, often seen in "art depôts," but not in nature, an unfortunate groping after the picturesque, as brown wants cooling down, and to marry it to a flaming yellow is not the way to do it. black should be used very sparingly indeed, though by no means banished from the palette. blue and pink, blue and red, with a little tender green for relief, are perfectly safe combinations for the leading colours in a piece of work; again, yellow and green, or yellow, pink, and green, make a delightfully fresh and joyous show. there is a large coverlet to be seen at the south kensington museum (in the persian gallery) which is worked in these colours, all very much the same bright tone, the centre being green and yellow and pink, and the several borders the same, with the order and proportion altered to make a variety. in recalling bright colouring like this, one is reminded of chaucer and his unfailing delight in gay colours, which he constantly brings before us in describing garden, woodland, or beflowered gown. as-- "everich tree well from his fellow grewe with branches broad laden with leaves newe that sprongen out against the sonne sheene some golden red and some a glad bright grene." or, again, the squire's dress in the prologue to _the canterbury tales_-- "embrouded was he, as it were a mede alle ful of freshe floures, white and rede." may morris. footnotes: [ ] for notes on the dyer's art and the nature of dye stuffs, see william morris's essay on "dyeing as an art," p. . [ ] william morris, "dyeing as an art." stitches and mechanism as a guiding classification of methods of embroidery considered from the technical point of view, i have set down the following heads:-- (a) embroidery of materials in frames. (b) embroidery of materials held in the hand. (c) positions of the needle in making stitches. (d) varieties of stitches. (e) effects of stitches in relation to materials into which they are worked. (f) methods of stitching different materials together. (g) embroidery in relief. (h) embroidery on open grounds like net, etc. (i) drawn thread work; needlepoint lace. (j) embroidery allied to tapestry weaving. in the first place, i define embroidery as the ornamental enrichment by needlework of a given material. such material is usually a closely-woven stuff; but skins of animals, leather, etc., also serve as foundations for embroidery, and so do nets. (a) materials to be embroidered may be either stretched out in a frame, or held loosely (b) in the hand. experience decides when either way is the better. for embroidery upon nets, frames are indispensable. the use of frames is also necessary when a particular aim of the embroiderer is to secure an even tension of stitch throughout his work. there are various frames, some large and standing on trestles; in these many feet of material can be stretched out. then there are small handy frames in which a square foot or two of material is stretched; and again there are smaller frames, usually circular, in which a few inches of materials of delicate texture, like muslin and cambric, may be stretched. oriental embroiderers, like those of china, japan, persia, and india, are great users of frames for their work. (c) stitches having peculiar or individual characteristics are comparatively few. almost all are in use for plain needlework. it is through the employment of them to render or express ornament or pattern that they become embroidery stitches. some embroiderers and some schools of embroidery contend that the number of embroidery stitches is almost infinite. this, however, is probably one of the myths of the craft. to begin with, there are barely more than two different positions in which the needle is held for making a stitch--one when the needle is passed more or less horizontally through the material, the other when the needle is worked more or less vertically. in respect of the first-named way, the point of the needle enters the material usually in two places, and one pull takes the embroidery thread into the material more or less horizontally, or along or behind its surface (fig. ). in the second, the needle is passed upwards from beneath the material, pulled right through it, and then returned downwards, so that there are two pulls instead of one to complete a single stitch. [illustration: fig. .--stem stitch--a peculiar use of short stitches.] a hooked or crochet needle with a handle is held more or less vertically for working a chain stitch upon the surface of a material stretched in a frame, but this is a method of embroidery involving the use of an implement distinct from that done with the ordinary and freely-plied needle. still, including this last-named method, which comes into the class of embroidery done with the needle in a more or less vertical position, we do not get more than two distinctive positions for holding the embroidery needle. [illustration: fig. .--chain stitch.] (d) varieties of stitches may be classified under two sections: one of stitches in which the thread is looped, as in chain stitch, knotted stitches, and button-hole stitch; the other of stitches in which the thread is not looped, but lies flatly, as in short and long stitches--crewel or feather stitches as they are sometimes called,--darning stitches, tent and cross stitches, and satin stitch. [illustration: fig. .--satin stitch.] almost all of these stitches produce different sorts of surface or texture in the embroidery done with them. chain stitches, for instance, give a broken or granular-looking surface (fig. ). this effect in surface is more strongly marked when knotted stitches are used. satin stitches give a flat surface (fig. ), and are generally used for embroidery or details which are to be of an even tint of colour. crewel or long and short stitches combined (fig. ) give a slightly less even texture than satin stitches. crewel stitch is specially adapted to the rendering of coloured surfaces of work in which different tints are to modulate into one another. [illustration: fig. .--feather or crewel stitch--a mixture of long and short stitches.] (e) the effects of stitches in relation to the materials into which they are worked can be considered under two broadly-marked divisions. the one is in regard to embroidery which is to produce an effect on one side only of a material; the other to embroidery which shall produce similar effects equally on both the back and front of the material. a darning and a satin stitch may be worked so that the embroidery has almost the same effect on both sides of the material. chain stitch and crewel stitch can only be used with regard to effect on one side of a material. (f) but these suggestions for a simple classification of embroidery do not by any means apply to many methods of so-called embroidery, the effects of which depend upon something more than stitches. in these other methods cutting materials into shapes, stitching materials together, or on to one another, and drawing certain threads out of a woven material and then working over the undrawn threads, are involved. applied or appliqué work is generally used in connection with ornament of bold forms. the larger and principal forms are cut out of one material and then stitched down to another--the junctures of the edges of the cut-out forms being usually concealed and the shapes of the forms emphasised by cord stitched along them. patchwork depends for successful effect upon skill in cutting out the several pieces which are to be stitched together. patchwork is a sort of mosaic work in textile materials; and, far beyond the homely patchwork quilt of country cottages, patchwork lends itself to the production of ingenious counterchanges of form and colour in complex patterns. these methods of appliqué and patchwork are peculiarly adapted to ornamental needlework which is to lie, or hang, stretched out flatly, and are not suited therefore to work in which is involved a calculated beauty of effect from folds. (g) there are two or three classes of embroidery in relief which are not well adapted to embroideries on lissome materials in which folds are to be considered. quilting is one of these classes. it may be artistically employed for rendering low-relief ornament, by means of a stout cord or padding placed between two bits of stuff, which are then ornamentally stitched together so that the cord or padding may fill out and give slight relief to the ornamental portions defined by and enclosed between the lines of stitching. there is also padded embroidery or work consisting of a number of details separately wrought in relief over padding of hanks of thread, wadding, and such like. effects of high relief are obtainable by this method. another class, but of lower relief embroidery, is couching (fig. ), in which cords and gimps are laid side by side, in groups, upon the face of a material, and then stitched down to it. various effects can be obtained in this method. the colour of the thread used to stitch the cords or gimp down may be different from that of the cords or gimp, and the stitches may of course be so taken as to produce small powdered or diaper patterns over the face of the groups of cords or gimp. gold cords are often used in this class of work, which is peculiarly identified with ecclesiastical embroideries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as also with japanese work of later date. [illustration: fig. .--a form of embroidery in relief, called "couching."] (h) the embroidery and work hitherto alluded to has been such as requires a foundation of a closely woven nature, like linen, cloth, silk, and velvet. but there are varieties of embroidery done upon netted or meshed grounds. and on to these open grounds, embroidery in darning and chain stitches can be wrought. for the most part the embroideries upon open or meshed grounds have a lace-like appearance. in lace, the contrast between close work and open, or partially open, spaces about it plays an important part. the methods of making lace by the needle, or by bobbins on a cushion, are totally distinct from the methods of making lace-like embroideries upon net. (i) akin to lace and embroideries upon net is embroidery in which much of its special effect is obtained by the withdrawal of threads from the material, and then either whipping or overcasting in button-hole stitches the undrawn threads. the persians and embroiderers in the grecian archipelago have excelled in such work, producing wondrously delicate textile grills of ingenious geometric patterns. in this drawn thread work, as it is called, we often meet with the employment of button-hole stitching, which is an important stitch in making needlepoint lace (fig. ). [illustration: fig. .--button-hole stitching, as used in needlepoint lace.] (j) we also meet with the use of a weaving stitch resembling in effect, on a small scale, willow weaving for hurdles. this weaving stitch, and the method of compacting together the threads made with it, are closely allied to that special method of weaving known as tapestry weaving. some of the earliest specimens of tapestry weaving consist of ornamental borders, bands, and panels, which were inwoven into tunics and cloaks worn by greeks and romans from the fourth century before christ, up to the eighth or ninth after christ. the scale of the work in these is so small, as compared with that of large tapestry wall-hangings of the fifteenth century, that the method may be regarded as being related more to drawn thread embroidery than to weaving into an extensive field of warp threads. a sketch of the different employments of the foregoing methods of embroidery is not to be included in this paper. the universality of embroidery from the earliest of historic times is attested by evidences of its practice amongst primitive tribes throughout the world. fragments of stitched materials or undoubted indications of them have been found in the remains of early american indians, and in the cave dwellings of men who lived thousands of years before the period of historic egyptians and assyrians. of greek short and long stitch, and chain stitch and appliqué embroidery, there are specimens of the third or fourth century b.c. preserved in the hermitage at st. petersburg. babylonians, egyptians, greeks, and romans were skilful in the use of tapestry weaving stitches. dainty embroidery, with delicate silken threads, was practised by the chinese long before similar work was done in the countries west of persia, or in countries which came within the byzantine empire. in the early days of that empire, the emperor theodosius i. framed rules respecting the importation of silk, and made regulations for the labour employed in the _gynæcea_, the public weaving and embroidering rooms of that period, the development and organisation of which are traceable to the apartments allotted in private houses to the sempstresses and embroideresses who formed part of the well-to-do households of early classic times. alan s. cole. design "_drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well._"--solomon. "_produce; produce; be it but the infinitesimallest product, produce._"--carlyle. for the last sixty years, ever since the gothic revival set in, we have done our best to resuscitate the art of embroidery. first the church and then the world took up the task, and much admirable work has been done by the "schools," the shops, and at home. and yet the verdict still must be "the old is better." considering all things, this lack of absolute success is perplexing and needs to be explained. for we have realised our ideals. never was a time when the art and science of needlework were so thoroughly understood as in england at the present moment. our designers can design in any style. every old method is at our fingers' ends. every ingenious stitch of old humanity has been mastered, and a descriptive name given to it of our own devising. every traditional pattern--wave, lotus, daisy, convolvulus, honeysuckle, "sacred horn" or tree of life; every animal form, or bird, fish or reptile, has been traced to its source, and its symbolism laid bare. every phase of the world's primal schools of design--egyptian, babylonian, indian, chinese, greek, byzantine, european--has been illustrated and made easy of imitation. we are archæologists: we are critics: we are artists. we are lovers of old work: we are learned in historical and æsthetic questions, in technical rules and principles of design. we are colourists, and can play with colour as musicians play with notes. what is more, we are in terrible earnestness about the whole business. the honour of the british nation, the credit of royalty, are, in a manner, staked upon the success of our "schools of needlework." and yet, in spite of all these favouring circumstances, we get no nearer to the old work that first mocked us to emulation in regard to power of initiative and human interest. truth and gallantry prompt me to add, it is not in stitchery but in design that we lag behind the old. fair english hands can copy every trick of ancient artistry: finger-skill was never defter, will was never more ardent to do fine things, than now. yet our work hangs fire. it fails in design. why? now, emerson has well said that all the arts have their origin in some enthusiasm. mark this, however: that whereas the design of old needlework is based upon enthusiasm for birds, flowers, and animal life,[ ] the design of modern needlework has its origin in enthusiasm for antique art. nature is, of course, the groundwork of all art, even of ours; but it is not to nature at first-hand that we go. the flowers we embroider were not plucked from field and garden, but from the camphor-scented preserves at kensington. our needlework conveys no pretty message of "the life that breathes, the life that lives," it savours only of the now stiff and stark device of dead hands. our art holds no mirror up to nature as we see her, it only reflects the reflection of dead periods. nay, not content with merely rifling the _motifs_ of moth-fretted rags, we must needs turn for novelty to an old persian tile which, well magnified, makes a capital design for a quilt that one might perchance sleep under in spite of what is outside! or we are not ashamed to ask our best embroideresses to copy the barbaric wriggles and childlike crudities of a seventh-century "book of kells," a task which cramps her style and robs celtic art of all its wonder. we have, i said, realised our ideals. we can do splendidly what we set ourselves to do--namely, to mimic old masterpieces. the question is, what next? shall we continue to hunt old trails, and die, not leaving the world richer than we found it? or shall we for art and honour's sake boldly adventure something--drop this wearisome translation of old styles and translate nature instead? think of the gain to the "schools," and to the designers themselves, if we elect to take another starting-point! no more museum-inspired work! no more scruples about styles! no more dry-as-dust stock patterns! no more loathly persian-tile quilts! no more awful "zoomorphic" table-cloths! no more cast-iron-looking altar cloths, or syon cope angels, or stumpy norfolk-screen saints! no more tudor roses and pumped-out christian imagery suggesting that christianity is dead and buried! but, instead, we shall have design _by_ living men _for_ living men--something that expresses fresh realisations of sacred facts, personal broodings, skill, joy in nature--in grace of form and gladness of colour; design that shall recall shakespeare's maid who "... with her neeld composes nature's own shape, of bud, bird, branch, or berry, that even art sisters the natural roses." for, after all, modern design should be as the old--living thought, artfully expressed: fancy that has taken fair shapes. and needlework is still a pictorial art that requires a real artist to direct the design, a real artist to ply the needle. given these, and our needlework can be as full of story as the bayeux tapestry, as full of imagery as the syon cope, and better drawn. the charm of old embroidery lies in this, that it clothes current thought in current shapes. it meant something to the workers, and to the man in the street for whom it was done. and for our work to gain the same sensibility, the same range of appeal, the same human interest, we must employ the same means. we must clothe modern ideas in modern dress; adorn our design with living fancy, and rise to the height of our knowledge and capacities. doubtless there is danger to the untrained designer in direct resort to nature. for the tendency in his or her case is to copy outright, to give us pure crude fact and not to _design_ at all. still there is hope in honest error: none in the icy perfections of the mere stylist. for the unskilled designer there is no training like drawing from an old herbal; for in all old drawing of nature there is a large element of design. besides which, the very limitations of the materials used in realising a design in needlework, be it ever so naturally coloured, hinders a too definite presentation of the real. for the professional stylist, the confirmed conventionalist, an hour in his garden, a stroll in the embroidered meadows, a dip into an old herbal, a few carefully-drawn cribs from curtis's _botanical magazine_, or even--for lack of something better--sutton's last illustrated catalogue, is wholesome exercise, and will do more to revive the original instincts of a true designer than a month of sixpenny days at a stuffy museum. the old masters are dead, but "the flowers," as victor hugo says, "the flowers last always." john d. sedding. footnotes: [ ] a strip of sixteenth-century needlework in my possession ( ft. by ft. in.) figures thirty different specimens of plants, six animals, and four birds, besides ornamental sprays of foliage. on designing for the art of embroidery in every form of art the thing which is of primary importance is the question of design. by design i understand the inventive arrangement of lines and masses, for their own sake, in such a relation to one another, that they form a fine, harmonious whole: a whole, that is, towards which each part contributes, and is in such a combination with every other part that the result is a unity of effect, so completely satisfying us that we have no sense of demanding in it more or less. after this statement and definition let me proceed to touch briefly upon four points in relation to the matter, as it concerns itself with the art of embroidery; and the first of these four points shall be this. before you commence your design, consider carefully the conditions under which the finished work is to be seen. there is a tendency in embroidery to be too uniformly delicate and minute. to be too delicate, or even minute, in something which is always to be seen close under one's eyes is, it may be, impossible; but in an altar-cloth, a banner, a wall-hanging, this delicacy and minuteness are not merely thrown away, but they tend to make the thing ineffective. for such objects as these i have mentioned, the main lines and masses of the design should, it would seem in the nature of the case, be well emphasised; if they are well emphasised, and of course fine in their character and arrangement, there is produced a sense of largeness and dignity which is of the highest value, and for the absence of which no amount of curious workmanship will atone. in making your design, let these main lines and masses be the first things you attend to, and secure. stand away at a distance, and see if they tell out satisfactorily, before you go on to put in a single touch of detail. for the second point: remember that embroidery deals with its objects as if they were all on the same plane. it has been sometimes described as the art of painting with the needle; but it necessarily and essentially differs from the art of painting in this, that it, properly, represents all things as being equally near to you, as laid out before you on the same plane. it would seem, therefore, to be a sound rule to fill the spaces, left for you by the arrangement of your main lines and masses, with such forms as shall occupy these spaces, one by one, completely; with such patterns, i mean, as shall appear to have their natural and full development within the limits of each space: avoid the appearance of one thing being behind the other, with portions of it cut off and obscured by what comes in front of it. but in this, as in so much else, an immense deal must be left to the instinct of the artist. thirdly: aim at simplicity in the elements or motives of your design; do not crowd it with a score of different elements, which produce a sense of confusion and irritation, and, in reality, prove only a poverty of invention. a real richness of invention, as well as a richness of effect, lies in using one or two, perhaps at most three, elements, with variety in the treatment of them. make yourself thoroughly master of the essential points, in whatever elements you choose as the basis of your design, before you set pencil to paper; and you will find in almost any natural form you fix upon more than enough to give you all the variety and richness you require, if you have sufficient natural fancy to play with it. lastly: return again and again, and for evermore, to nature. the value of studying specimens of old embroidery is immense; it makes you familiar with the principles and methods, which experience has found to be true and useful; it puts you into possession of the traditions of the art. he that has no reverence for the traditions of his art seals his own doom; he that is careless about them, or treats them with superciliousness, or will not give the time and pains necessary to understand them, but thinks to start off afresh along clean new lines of his own, stamps himself as an upstart--makes himself perhaps, if he is clever, a nine days' curiosity--but loses himself, by and by, in extravagances, and brings no fruit to perfection. the study of old work, then, is of the highest importance, is essential; the patient and humble study of it. but for what end? to learn principles and methods, to secure a sound foundation for oneself; not to slavishly imitate results, and live on bound hand and foot in the swaddling clothes of precedent. learn your business in the schools, but go out to nature for your inspirations. see nature through your own eyes, and be a persistent and curious observer of her infinite wonders. yet to see nature in herself is not everything, it is but half the matter; the other half is to know how to use her for the purposes of fine art, to know how to translate her into the language of art. and this knowledge we acquire by a sound acquaintance with the essential conditions of whatever art we practise, a frank acceptance of these conditions, and a reverential appreciation of the teaching and examples of past workmen. timidity and impudence are both alike fatal to an artist: timidity, which makes it impossible for him to see with his own eyes, and find his own methods; and impudence, which makes him imagine that his own eyes, and his own methods, are the best that ever were. selwyn image. * * * * * _printed by r. & r. clark, edinburgh_ * * * * * a selection from the recent publications of messrs. percival _king street, covent garden_ _london_ * * * * * king street, covent garden, london, w.c. _april ._ * * * * * _crown vo. with illustrations. s._ =recollections of dr. john brown= author of 'rab and his friends.' with selections from correspondence. by alexander peddie, m.d., f.r.c.p.e., f.r.s.e., etc. * * * * * _demy mo. s._ =my book of songs and sonnets= by maude egerton king. * * * * * _crown vo. s._ =outlines of british colonisation= by the rev. william parr greswell, m.a. author of 'our south african empire,' 'a history of the dominion of canada,' and 'geography of africa south of the zambesi,' etc. with an introduction by lord brassey. contents.--the west indies--the leeward islands--newfoundland--the dominion of canada--the west african settlements--the south african colonies--the australian colonies--tasmania--south australia--new zealand--the islands of the pacific and fiji--ceylon and the maldive archipelago--mauritius--hong kong--appendices of facts and figures. * * * * * _demy vo. with maps and a plan. s._ =venice= =an historical sketch of the republic= by horatio f. brown, author of 'life on the lagoons.' the author's endeavour in this work is to view venice as a personality; to trace, as it were, in brief her biography; attempting to show what made her; how she grew; what mistakes she committed, and how she paid for them; and this attempt seemed the more reasonable in this case, because throughout the history of venice the personality of the states is always more prominent than the personality of individual venetians. 'although, in general terms, this work may be described as a history of venice, it has been carried out on so original a plan as to deserve a distinct and prominent place amongst the many volumes which have been devoted to a record of the rise, development, and decline of the venetian republic.'--=glasgow herald.= 'mr. brown has imprisoned the atmosphere of venice into his pages, has for the most part made her heroes live again, and has brought out fully the poetry and pathos of her wonderful career. he is already known as a sympathetic writer on venetian subjects, but he has done nothing so good as this account of 'the city that looks as though she were putting out to sea.'--=westminster gazette.= 'mr. brown has performed his task with skill and taste; and a picture is presented of the process by which venice was built up and fell from its high estate, which is at once brilliant and accurate.'--=scotsman.= 'mr. brown's learned and yet thoroughly readable book is published in a fortunate hour, both for author and reader. when he writes about venice we feel that his sympathy with his subject has given him the power both of comprehending things venetian and of extending that comprehension to his readers.'--=manchester guardian.= 'this is in truth a chronicle which follows out with industry and accuracy the maze of venetian history.... as an historical sketch it is admirable.'--=times.= 'a valuable and fascinating work, evidently the result of research and study.... every visitor to the beautiful shrine of st. mark should be possessed of this handsome volume.'--=daily telegraph.= * * * * * _demy vo. s._ =a history of the theories of production and distribution in english political economy, from to = by edwin cannan, m.a., balliol college, oxford. contents.--the wealth of a nation--the idea of the production of wealth--the first 'requisite of production,' labour--the second 'requisite of production,' capital--the third 'requisite of production,' land--the idea of the distribution of wealth--pseudo distribution (causes which affect ( ) the absolute amount of wages per head; ( ) the rate of profits; and ( ) the absolute amount of rent)--distribution proper (causes which affect the proportions in which a given produce is divided between different classes and individuals)--politics and economics. * * * * * _in two volumes, sold separately. crown vo, s. each._ =the victorian age of english literature= by mrs. oliphant and f. r. oliphant, b.a. contents. vol. i.--the state of literature at the queen's accession, and of those whose work was already done--men who had made their name, especially john gibson lockhart, walter savage landor, leigh hunt--thomas carlyle and john stuart mill, and other essayists and critics--macaulay and the other historians and biographers in the early part of the reign--the greater poets--dickens, thackeray, and the older novelists--index. vol. ii.--writers on religious and theological subjects--scientific writers--philosophical writers--the younger poets--the younger novelists--writers on art--later historians, biographers, essayists, etc., and the present condition of literature--journalists--index. * * * * * _demy vo. s. net._ =the hygiene, diseases, and mortality of occupations= by j. t. arlidge, m.d., a.b. (lond.), f.r.c.p. (lond.); consulting physician to the north staffordshire infirmary; late milroy lecturer at the royal college of physicians, etc. etc. 'dr. arlidge's work should be welcomed by legislators and philanthropists as well as by the members of the medical profession, whose duty it is to be specially acquainted with those causes which affect the health of the different sections of the industrial community.... it only remains for us to say that, having gone carefully through the book, we can confidently recommend it as a valuable work of reference to all who are interested in the welfare of the industrial classes.'--=lancet.= 'a novel and important work dealing with a subject of great public as well as medical interest.'--=times.= 'we have already briefly noticed dr. arlidge's interesting work; but the importance of the questions with which it deals is sufficient to justify a more complete account of the conclusions at which the author has arrived, and of the principal _data_ upon which these conclusions have been founded.'--=times.= 'from what we have quoted it will be seen that the researches undertaken by dr. arlidge, for his milroy lectures, and embodied in the volume before us, are, from a practical as well as a scientific point of view, of the most suggestive character to all who are concerned that wealth shall not increase while men decay.'--=standard.= 'will be considered the standard authority on the subject for many years to come.'--=glasgow herald.= 'this masterly work.... dr. arlidge in the preparation of this work has rendered a signal public service.'--=aberdeen journal.= 'this invaluable work.'--=daily telegraph.= 'few, if any, british men have a better right than dr. arlidge to be heard on this particular subject.... (the volume is) crammed from cover to cover with most interesting and important information, given with a plainness of speech and a freedom from technical pretence that make it delightful reading for those without a smattering of medicine.'--=national observer.= * * * * * _crown vo. with numerous illustrations. s. d._ =the evolution of decorative art= an essay upon its origin and development as illustrated by the art of modern races of mankind. by henry balfour, m.a., f.z.s., curator of the ethnographical department (pitt-rivers collection), university museum, oxford. * * * * * _crown vo. in may._ =technical essays= by members of the arts and crafts exhibition society. edited with a preface by william morris. contents. the revival of design and handicraft: with notes on the work of the arts and crafts exhibition society, walter crane.--textiles, william morris.--decorative painting and design, walter crane.--wall papers, walter crane.--fictiles, g. t. robinson.--metal work, w. a. s. benson.--stone and wood carving, somers clarke.--furniture, stephen webb.--stained glass, somers clarke.--table glass, somers clarke.--printing, william morris and emery walker.--bookbinding, t. j. cobden sanderson.--mural painting, f. madox-brown.--sgraffito work, heywood sumner.--stucco and gesso, g. t. robinson.--cast iron, w. r. lethaby.--dyeing as an art, william morris.--embroidery, may morris.--lace, alan s. cole.--book illustration and book decoration, reginald blomfield.--designs and working drawings, lewis f. day.--furniture and the room, edward s. prior.--the room and furniture, halsley ricardo.--the english tradition, r. blomfield.--carpenters' furniture, w. r. lethaby.--decorated furniture, j. h. pollen.--carving, stephen webb.--intarsia and inlaid woodwork, t. g. jackson.--woods and other materials, stephen webb.--modern embroidery, mary e. turner.--materials, may morris.--colour, may morris.--stitches and mechanism, alan s. cole.--design, john d. sedding.--designing for the art of embroidery, selwyn image. * * * * * _crown vo. in may._ =european history, - = by h. morse stephens, m.a., balliol college, oxford. forming a volume of periods of european history. * * * * * _crown vo. s. d._ =spain and morocco= studies in local colour. by henry t. finck, author of 'chopin, and other musical essays,' etc. * * * * * _crown vo. s. d._ =faith= eleven sermons, with a preface. by the rev. h. c. beeching, m.a., rector of yattendon, berks. contents.--the object of faith--the worship of faith--the righteousness of faith--the food of faith--national faith--the eye of faith--the ear of faith--the activity of faith--the gentleness of faith--the discipline of faith--faith in man. * * * * * _royal mo. s._ _or in vols. (the 'hours' and 'mirror' separately). s. d._ [_copies may also be had in sheets, complete. s. d._] =the hours of the blessed virgin mary= according to the sarum breviary, together with a brief commentary from 'the mirror of our lady.' this book is printed in red and black on toned paper, with a fine reproduction of an old engraving. * * * * * _crown vo. s. d._ with illustrations by the author, and maps. =from abraham to david= the story of their country and times. by henry a. harper, author of 'the bible and modern discoveries,' and member of the executive committee of the palestine exploration fund. this book is intended as a help to the better understanding of the wonderful story of the old testament. the period contained in it comprises some of the most interesting and critical times of jewish history. contents.--the call and life of abram--the cities of the plain--the life of joseph--the oppression of the israelites--the exodus and the desert route--the land of promise--the judges--samson--samuel--saul--david--david the king--david's flight--david's return and death. * * * * * _crown vo. s._ =from advent to advent= sermons preached at the chapel royal, whitehall. by the late aubrey l. moore, m.a. * * * * * _third edition. crown vo. s. d._ =some aspects of sin= three courses of sermons. by the late aubrey l. moore, m.a. * * * * * _crown vo. s. d._ =the message of the gospel= addresses to candidates for ordination, and sermons preached chiefly before the university of oxford. by the late aubrey l. moore, m.a. * * * * * _crown vo. s. d._ =the fire upon the altar= sermons preached to harrow boys. to . by the rev. j. e. c. welldon, m.a., head master of harrow school, and hon. chaplain to the queen. * * * * * _crown vo. s. d._ =old truths in modern lights= the boyle lectures for , with other sermons. by t. g. bonney, d.sc, ll.d., f.r.s., f.s.a., f.g.s., fellow of st. john's college, cambridge, honorary canon of manchester. * * * * * _second edition. demy vo. s. d._ =high and low church= by lord norton. being a discussion relating to differences of views within the church of england as to matters connected with its doctrine and practice. * * * * * _crown vo. s._ =things old and new= sermons and papers. by the rev. g. h. fowler, late principal of the clergy school, leeds. with a preface by the rev. dr. talbot, vicar of leeds. * * * * * _crown vo. with illustrations. s._ =plain handicrafts= being essays by artists setting forth the principles of design and established methods of workmanship. a guide to elementary practice. edited by a. h. mackmurdo. with a preface by g. f. watts, r.a. * * * * * _eleventh thousand. fcap vo. s. d._ =popular lessons on cookery= by mrs. boyd carpenter. * * * * * _post free to subscribers, ten shillings a year, paid in advance; or three shillings a number._ =the economic review= a quarterly review for the consideration of social and economic questions. _in connection with the oxford university branch of the christian social union._ contents of the april number, . =the history of english serfdom.= prof. w. j. ashley, m.a. =edward vansittart neale as christian socialist.= his honour judge hughes, q.c. =the ethics of wills.= the rev. t. c. fry, d.d. =co-operators and profit-sharing.= w. e. snell. =the alcohol monopoly in switzerland.= joseph king. =the special importance of the study of christian ethics for the church in the present day.= the rev. r. l. ottley, m.a. =legislation, parliamentary inquiries, and official returns.= edwin cannan, m.a. =reviews and short notices.= * * * * * _crown vo. s._ =the religion of humanity= and other poems. by annie matheson. * * * * * _folio, s._ =technical exercises for the pianoforte= by basil johnson, organist of rugby school. * * * * * _second edition, revised. in two volumes. crown vo. s._ with numerous illustrations, including pen and pencil drawings by jane e. cook. also a large-paper edition _de luxe_ of _thirty-six_ signed and numbered copies, with the illustrations hand printed upon japanese paper and mounted, price five guineas net each. =old touraine= the life and history of the famous châteaux of france. by theodore andrea cook, b.a., sometime scholar of wadham college, oxford. there is an itinerary for the tourist, and a map, genealogical tables, lists of pictures, manuscripts, etc., and an index, which will, it is hoped, save the necessity of purchasing guide-books for each of the châteaux. * * * * * _in two volumes. large post vo. s. net._ =a paradise of english poetry= arranged by the rev. h. c. beeching, m.a., rector of yattendon, berks. this work is printed on hand-made paper, bound in buckram, and published in a limited edition, which will not, under any circumstances, be reprinted. the publishers reserve the right to issue at a future date, should they think fit, a smaller and cheaper edition. 'that those who walk in the rose-scented avenues of mr. beeching's garden will say that the planting has been well done, we cannot doubt for a moment. he has not only a knowledge of english literature which is as sympathetic as it is profound, but he has the critical faculty, without which a knowledge of, and even a love for, literature is wasted. he does more than know what is good in literature,--that is comparatively easy. he knows what is bad, and with him base metal is never offered us for gold. there are not many men who can stand this test, but mr. beeching comes through it triumphantly.... before we leave this book, we must commend mr. beeching's excellent notes. they are interesting, to the point, not too long, and often enable one to get an additional touch of pleasure from the verse they annotate.'--=spectator.= 'a very skilful selection, and eminently worthy of its name.... will commend itself to all true lovers of english poetry.'--=times.= * * * * * _second edition. demy mo. s. d._ _may also be had bound in cloth extra, gilt lettered, and with gilt edges, s. d._ =a calendar of verse= being a short selection for every day in the year from twelve poets, one for each month. with an introduction by george saintsbury. 'an admirable little book; perhaps the best of its kind in existence.... we can heartily commend this charming 'calendar of verse.' if we had not praised it as a string of pearls, we should have called it a book of gold.'--=glasgow herald.= 'delightful to handle and to look at, delightful to read in. no extract exceeds twenty lines. the purpose of the volume is not that of introduction, much less of substitution, but rather to remind and refresh.'--=speaker.= * * * * * _with maps. crown vo. s. d._ =history of english= a sketch of the origin and development of the english language, with examples, down to the present day. by a. c. champneys, m.a., assistant master at marlborough college. 'a scholarly and well-written introduction to the study of english philology.'--=times.= 'it is pleasant to be able to say that this volume is very far above the ordinary level of its class.'--=manchester guardian.= 'to the teacher who has not always time nor opportunity to consult all the larger books upon which this is based, it will come as a boon. to the student of english literature who wishes to gain some intelligent knowledge of a subject closely connected with his own, it will be quite as welcome.'--=daily chronicle.= 'a fresh and valuable book.... a remarkably good condensation.... the book is an exceedingly suggestive one.'--=glasgow herald.= * * * * * _crown vo. s._ _with maps and illustrations._ =norway and the norwegians= by c. f. keary, m.a., f.s.a. contents.--the land: the glacial era and its remains; islands; mountains; fjords; valleys; forests; conformation of the country--the people: traces of prehistoric life in modern norway--seafaring: the vikings--the edda and its mythology: discovery of iceland, greenland, and america; origin of old norse poetry; the mythology of the edda--the sagas--history: harald fairhair; hakon; gunhild's sons; olaf tryggvason; st. olaf; magnus the good; harald hardradi; the end of the heroic age; the civil wars; sverri; hakon hakonsson; magnus the law reformer; the union of calmar; transition to modern times--modern norway: constitution; religion; education; land tenure and the means of living--norse literature--the wild flowers of norway--genealogical tables--index. 'the visitor to norway cannot do better than supply himself with this volume. it is not a guide-book; but it is a most intelligent and useful guide, in the best sense of the word, to a comprehensive understanding of the country and its people.'--=spectator.= 'every english and american visitor to norway sufficiently intelligent to desire to know something about the country, its peoples, and its history, will rejoice over this pleasant little book. this book, in size and binding well suited to a place in a portmanteau, and not a cumbrous addition even to a knapsack, will give him briefly and pleasantly the information that he wants.--while mr. keary's book is one that is good to read at all times and in any land, the tourist in norway will find it an invaluable and delightful companion.'--=saturday review.= 'we cordially commend this most instructive and comprehensive little book to all intending tourists, and even those who may have to stay at home could hardly do better than console themselves by travelling in imagination under such an excellent conductor as mr. keary.'--=glasgow herald.= 'certainly everybody who takes any interest in scandinavia should read this book; for there are few whom it will not enlighten, and probably fewer whom it will not delight.'--=st. james' gazette.= 'it is a useful work for the more intellectual class of travellers in norway.'--=daily telegraph.= 'we have little doubt that it will hold its own as a handy work of reference. plans and pictures heighten the charm of this painstaking and admirable record.'--=leeds mercury.= * * * * * _vol. i. crown vo. s. d._ =france of to-day= a survey, comparative and retrospective. _to be completed in two volumes. sold separately._ by m. betham edwards, officier de l'instruction publique de france. editor of arthur young's 'travels in france.' contents of vol. i. introductory. part i.--provinces: bourbonnais, auvergne, velay, languedoc, pyrenees. part ii.--provinces: anjou, poitou, gascoigne, berry. part iii.--alsace-lorraine. part iv.--franche-comté, burgundy, le morvan. appendix. index. 'your excellent work, "france of to-day," fulfils my highest expectations. it is in every way worthy of your high reputation as our first living authority on france.'--mr. frederic harrison. 'no living english writer, perhaps no living french writer, has a more intimate acquaintance than miss betham edwards with france and the french. like arthur young in the last century, she has wandered throughout the whole length and breadth of the country, and she adds to that writer's faculty of observation, broader sympathies and a greater range of intellectual cultivation. her "france of to-day" is a delightful book, setting forth the french peasant and the french bourgeois as they are, naught extenuating nor aught setting down in malice.'--=daily news.= 'the author is chiefly concerned with the france of the republic; and within a short space she gives us a description which is undeniably interesting and readable, and can hardly fail, so far as it goes, to be instructive. a more elaborate work might convey more information, but not in a more attractive shape.'--=st. james' gazette.= 'undoubtedly a work inspired by a happy idea. miss betham edwards styles her book "a survey, comparative and retrospective," and such it is, in the widest acceptation of the term.'--=saturday review.= 'miss betham edwards knows more of rural life in france than probably does any other englishwoman. the present volume describes the south-west, the south, and the east of france. no one interested in agriculture and industry will regret taking it as a companion there. we look forward eagerly to the volume which will complete the work.'--=academy.= 'the characteristics of rural france, and the simplicity and strength which pervade the popular interpretation of life and duty, are charmingly indicated in these pages, and pessimists who profess to be in despair of human progress, will find not a little in this calm and philosophic survey of the social problem in modern france, to disarm their fears.'--=leeds mercury.= 'the tourist, the student of certain economical problems, and the general reader, will all find the book worth their attention.'--=yorkshire post.= * * * * * _crown vo. s. d._ _with a map._ =the forest cantons of switzerland= luzern, schwyz, uri, unterwalden. by j. sowerby, m.a. contents.--introduction--topography and characteristics--political history--constitutional history--subject and protected lands--ecclesiastical history--economical condition, trade, etc.--manners and customs--language and dialects--legends, poetry, literature, art, etc.--remarkable men--geology, fauna, flora, etc.--canton and town of lucerne--lake of lucerne--rigi and pilatus--schwyz: the fortress of the lands--canton uri--st. gotthard--canton unterwalden--alpine exploration--local traditions--index. 'will be found an interesting companion by any whose holiday haunts lie in lucerne, schwyz, uri, or unterwalden. mr. sowerby begins with history, goes on to trades, manners, customs, and legends, and ends up with alpine exploration--in which department he himself has to be credited with several "first ascents." the book is easily portable, and has a good map and a full index.'--=pall mall gazette.= 'this interesting and useful little book.'--=spectator.= 'portable, as a guide book should be, it is admirably readable from the first page to the last.'--=saturday review.= 'to the intelligent and inquiring traveller no better description of these primitive communities could be recommended. the book, it should be added, contains a good map.'--=scottish leader.= 'an excellent and handy little book, which should meet with a warm welcome.'--=manchester guardian.= 'we advise all who take an interest in this delightful country to procure a copy of mr. sowerby's book.'--=westminster review.= 'packed with explicit and diversified information, and that of a kind with which the guide books seldom intermeddle. in saying this we are not speaking at random, for we can truly assert that it is not often our experience to come across a manual filled to better advantage with well-selected and admirably arranged facts.'--=leeds mercury.= 'will be an invaluable companion to those who spend their summer holidays in the neighbourhood of the lake of lucerne.'--=morning post.= 'an excellent and handy little book, which should meet with a warm welcome from the hundreds of british and american tourists who may legitimately wish to know more than ordinary guide-books can tell them about the "history, manners, and customs, social and economical conditions, language, etc.," of the "forest cantons," the "heart and conscience" of switzerland.'--=manchester guardian.= * * * * * _crown vo. s._ =outlines of roman history= with maps. by h. f. pelham, m.a., f.s.a., camden professor of ancient history in the university of oxford. the object of this book is to give a clear and readable sketch of the general course of roman history. care has been also taken to give full references to the chief authorities ancient and modern. contents.--the beginnings of rome and the monarchy--the early republic, - b.c.--rome and the mediterranean states, - b.c.--the period of the revolution, - b.c.--the foundation of the imperial system, and the rule of the early cæsars, b.c.- a.d.--the organisation of the imperial government, and the first conflict with the barbarians, - a.d.--the barbaric invasions, - a.d. * * * * * _crown vo. s. d._ =the french wars of religion= their political aspects. by edward armstrong, m.a., fellow, lecturer, and senior bursar of queen's college, oxford. * * * * * _one volume. vo. s. net._ =the iliad of homer= translated into english prose by john purves, m.a., late fellow of balliol college, oxford. with an introduction by evelyn abbott, ll.d., fellow and tutor of balliol college, oxford. * * * * * _crown vo. s._ =a short history of greek philosophy= for students and general readers. by john marshall, m.a. oxon., ll.d. edin., rector of the royal high school, edinburgh, formerly professor of classical literature and philosophy in the yorkshire college, leeds. * * * * * _super royal to, pp. £ , s. net._ with one hundred and fifty illustrations, of which sixty are full-page, and six photogravure plates. =english pen artists of to-day= examples of their work, with some criticisms and appreciations. by charles g. harper. the english edition of this book is limited to copies, and will not, under any circumstances, be reprinted in any form. twenty-five numbered and signed copies only are issued in a special form, the illustrations hand printed upon japanese paper and mounted. the binding of these copies is in half morocco, and the price of the remaining copies at this date is ten guineas net. 'exceedingly well done, and mr. harper deserves the success which we believe is assured for his work.'--=pall mall gazette.= 'a splendid and tasteful tribute of recognition has been paid by mr. harper to the 'pen artists of to-day' in the shape of a stately volume, containing many admirably executed examples of their work, accompanied by apposite criticisms and nice appreciations.'--=daily telegraph.= 'a very acceptable and useful work in editing the accomplishments of the most conspicuous pen-and-ink artists in england. this task, which we imagine must have proved at once a laborious and a pleasant one, mr. harper has accomplished in a very first-rate manner, and the result lies before us in a very excellently-produced quarto. the volume is a creditable production, even for the present day, the paper, type, and printing being admirable, whilst the author has clothed the whole in a nicely designed and useful binding.'--=british architect.= * * * * * _crown vo. s. d._ =the art teaching of john ruskin= by w. g. collingwood, m.a. * * * * * _crown vo. with illustrations. s._ =the dawn of art in the ancient world= an archæological sketch. by william martin conway. sometime roscoe professor of art in university college, liverpool, victoria university. * * * * * _crown vo. s. d._ with frontispiece and thirty illustrations in the text. =architecture, mysticism, and myth= an essay in comparative architecture, being an inquiry as to the basis of certain ideas common to the sacred buildings of many lands. by w. r. lethaby. * * * * * _royal mo. s._ =love's looking-glass= a volume of poems. by the authors of 'love in idleness.' 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[=a] represents a letter (in this instance a lower case "a") with a macron above it. [illustration: "the grape-gatherers" (_tapestry from cartoon by goya. el escorial_)] the world of art series the arts and crafts of older spain by leonard williams corresponding member of the royal spanish academy, of the royal spanish academy of history, and of the royal spanish academy of fine arts; author of "the land of the dons"; "toledo and madrid"; "granada," etc. in three volumes, illustrated volume iii chicago a. c. mcclurg & co. edinburgh: t. n. foulis american edition published october , contents of volume three textile fabrics pages introduction - spanish silk - cloths and woollens - embroidery - tapestry - lace - * * * * * appendices - bibliography - index - list of illustrations _volume three_ textile fabrics plate page "the grape-gatherers"; tapestry from cartoon by goya; el escorial _frontispiece_ i. the "banner of las navas"; monastery of las huelgas, burgos ii. fragment of the burial mantle of ferdinand the third; royal armoury, madrid iii. king alfonso the learned; from "the book of chess," ms. in the escorial library iv. spanish velvet; about a.d. v. the tunic of boabdil el chico; national museum of artillery, madrid vi. the "banner of saint ferdinand"; seville cathedral vii. velvet made at granada viii. the daughters of philip the second; prado gallery, madrid ix. a _charra_ or peasant woman of salamanca, in the year x. embroidered priest's robe; about a.d. xi. embroidered priest's robe; about a.d. xii. embroidered chasuble; palencia cathedral xiii. embroidered case of processional cross; toledo cathedral xiv. embroidered altar-front xv. embroidered altar-front; toledo cathedral xvi. embroidered altar-front; palencia cathedral xvii. embroidered altar-fronts; palencia cathedral xviii. costume of woman of the balearic islands; about a.d. xix. the "genesis tapestry"; gerona cathedral xx. _tapiz_ of crimson velvet worked in gold tissue; monastery of las huelgas, burgos xxi. "the spinners," by velazquez; prado gallery, madrid xxii. tapestry made at brussels from granada silk xxiii. "a promenade in andalusia"; cartoon for tapestry, by goya xxiv. tapestry; arras-work, from italian cartoons; zamora cathedral xxv. flemish tapestry; collection of the late count of valencia de don juan xxvi. the marchioness of la solana, by goya xxvii. a spanish _maja_; a.d. xxviii. a _maja_, by goya xxix. a lady of soria; about a.d. xxx. handkerchief of catalan lace, presented to queen victoria of spain on her marriage xxxi. curtain of spanish lace; point and pillow work, modern xxxii. point lace fan, of mudejar design, modern textile fabrics introduction our earliest intelligence respecting textile fabrics of old spain derives almost exclusively from moorish sources, and shows, together with the silence of saint isidore, that until the subjugation of the visigoths, the occupants of the peninsula attached no great importance to this industry. under the moors, the south and east of spain grew rapidly famous for the manufacture of all kinds of textile stuffs, and in particular those of silk. the origin of these silks, or of the most luxurious and artistic of them, may be traced to almería. according to al-makkari, what made this andalusian capital superior to all other cities of the world was her "various manufactures of silks and other dress materials, such as the _dibaj_, a silken fabric of many colours, surpassing, both in quality and durability, all other products made elsewhere, and also the _tiraz_, a costly stuff whereon are inscribed the names of sultans, princes, and other personages, and for making which there used to be no fewer than eight hundred looms. inferior fabrics were the _holol_ (a kind of striped silk), and brocades woven upon a thousand looms, while as many more were employed continually in making the scarlet stuffs called _iskalaton_. another thousand produced the robes called _al jorjani_ (or 'the georgian'), and yet another thousand the isbahani robes, from isfahan, and yet another thousand the robes of atabi. the making of damask for gay-coloured curtains and turbans for the women kept busy as many persons as the articles above-mentioned." edrisi, a chronicler of the twelfth century, says of the same capital that she was the principal city belonging to the moors in the time of the moravides. in fact, she was then a great and prosperous industrial centre, possessing, together with other kinds of looms, eight hundred which produced the fabrics known as _holla_, _debady_, _siglaton_, _espahani_, and _djordjani_, curtains with a flowered decoration, cloths of a smaller size, and the stuffs which were denominated _attabi_ and _mi djar_. a similar notice is contained in the _chronicle of rassis the moor_. referring to the end of the tenth century, this author wrote that "almería is the key of profit and of all prosperity. within her walls dwell cunning weavers who produce in quantities magnificent silken cloths inwoven with gold thread." other important centres of this trade and craft were málaga, baeza, alicante, seville, and granada. rassis wrote of málaga: "she has a fertile territory, wherein is made the finest _sirgo_ in the world. from here they trade in it with every part of spain. here too is made the finest of all linens, and that which the women best esteem." of baeza he wrote: "she manufactures excellent and famous silken cloths of the kind which are called _tapetes_"; and of alicante, "this city lies in the sierra de benalcatil, which in its turn is situated in the midst of other ranges containing prosperous towns where silken cloths of finest quality were made in other days; and the weavers of these cloths were skilled exceedingly." málaga is described by the cordovese historian ash shakandi (thirteenth century) as "famous for its manufactures of silks of every colour and design, some of them so costly that a suit is sold for thousands; such are the brocades of beautiful pattern, inwoven with the names of caliphs, emirs and other wealthy personages.... as at málaga and almería, there are at murcia several manufactories of silken cloth called _al washiu thalathat_, or 'the variegated.' this town is also celebrated for the carpets called _tantili_, which are exported to all countries of the east and west, as well as for a sort of bright-coloured mat with which the murcians cover the walls of their houses." the ancient illiberia or illiberis, believed to have been situated not far from where is nowadays granada, is described in rassis' chronicle as "a city great and flourishing by reason of the quantity of silk that she exports to every part of spain. she lies at sixty thousand paces distance from, and on the southward side of cordova, and six thousand paces from, and to the north of the frozen sierra" (_i.e._ the sierra nevada). another chronicle--that of el nubiense, who visited spain towards the twelfth century--states that in the kingdom of jaen alone were six hundred towns which produced and carried on a trade in silk. the foregoing extracts show that under the spanish moors the manufacture of textile fabrics attained in mediæval times a very great importance. it is also certain that during the same period the textile fabrics in use among the christian spaniards were strongly and continually influenced, and even to a large extent produced, by spanish moors, while, as the moorish cities fell into the power of the enemy, the christian rulers encouraged their newly-sworn mohammedan lieges to prosecute this industry with unabated zeal. a privilege is extant which was granted by jayme the conqueror in the year , to a moor named ali and his sons mohammed and bocaron, empowering these artificers to manufacture silk and cloth of gold at jativa, in the kingdom of valencia. the fabrics produced by mussulman weavers such as these, found ready purchase with the wealthier classes of the christian spaniards. the dress and other materials thus elaborated possessed a great variety of names, whose meaning cannot always be determined at the present day. among the fabrics most in vogue were those denominated _samit_ (also _xamed_ or _examitum_), _ciclaton_, _tabis_ or _atabi_, _zarzahan_, _fustian_ or _fustan_, _cendal_ or _sendat_, _camelote_ (also _chamelote_ or _xamellot_), _drap imperial_, and _bougran_ (also _bouckram_, _buckram_), stated by dr bock to be derived from bokhara, and which was of a quality far superior to the buckram of more modern times. these saracenic or semi-saracenic stuffs were manufactured from an early period, but modern experts are not agreed as to their character. miquel y badía and some other authorities believe that _samit_ was a costly material which was sometimes coloured green, and shot with gold or silver thread. others believe it to have been a kind of velvet. in either case it is known to have been used for shrouding the bodies of the wealthy. _ciclaton_ was a strong though flexible material used for robes and also for wall-hangings. _tabis_ or _atabi_ was a kind of taffeta, and probably consisted, as a general rule, of silk, though sometimes it was mixed with cotton. _chamelot_ was an oriental fabric of rich silk, coloured white, black, or grey. it is mentioned, together with velvets, taffetas, and _cendal_ or _sendat_ (another silken stuff) in a law passed by the cortes of monzón in , and which is quoted in capmany's _memorias_.[ ] fustian is thought to have been first produced in egypt. it was woven of thread or cotton, and was largely used in england from at least as early as the twelfth century. from about the same time buckram was also popular in northern countries. [ ] "perco con los draps d'or é d'argent, é de seda axi brocats d'or é d'argent con altres é velluts, xamelots, tafetanes, é sendats se usen molt de vestir en lo dit principat d'alguna generalitat ne dret no y sia posat, mes solament vi liners per liura per la entrada." early in the fourteenth century a number of other costly stuffs began to be made in various quarters of the civilized world, including spain. among these fabrics were _zatonin_ or _zatony_ (perhaps the same as _zetani_, _aceituni_, or _aceytoni_--that is, satin), several kinds of _drap d'aur_ or cloth of gold, several kinds of velvet, _sarga_ or serge, and _camocas_, which is stated by miquel y badía to have been a strong material used for lining curtains, coats of mail, etc. the same writer observes that the stuff called by the name _zatonin_ and its variations is the same as the castilian raso and the catalan _setí_ or _satí_, a favourite though expensive and luxurious fabric in the fourteenth and succeeding centuries. under the name _aceytoni_ it is mentioned in a work in the catalan language titled _croniques d'espanya_, by pedro miguel carbonell, in which we read that at the coronation of don martin of aragon this monarch's consort, doña maría, was "dressed in white cloth of gold and a long mantle ... and rode upon a white horse covered with trappings of white _aceytoni_." miquel y badía has discovered the names of other fabrics which are known from documentary evidence to have been used in older spain, and which were called _aducar_, _alama_, _tela de nacar_, _primavera_ or _primavert_, _almexia_, _picote_, and _velillo_. it is probable that _alama_ and _tela de nacar_ had silver interwoven with their texture. the _primavera_ or "spring fabric" was so named from the flowers which adorned it. _almexía_ is mentioned in the _chronicle of the cid_. it was a costly and elaborate stuff, and is believed by miquel to have taken its title from the city of almería. _picote_ was a kind of satin manufactured in the island of majorca, and _velillo_ a thin, delicate fabric decorated with flowers and with silver thread. the devices on all these stuffs were very varied. prominent types among them were the _pallia rotata_, containing circles which are commonly combined with other ornament, the _pallia aquilinata_, in which the dominant motive was the eagle, and the _pallia leonata_, in which it was the lion. other beasts, birds, and monsters were also figured with great frequency, such as griffins, peacocks, swans, crows, bulls, tigers, or dogs; but the emblem most in favour, especially throughout the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, was the eagle, owing to the numerous and illustrious qualities attributed to it, such as majesty, victory, valour, and good omen. these creatures, too, were frequently represented face to face or back to back, in pairs; nor were they so disposed in textile fabrics only, but on ivory, wood, or silver caskets, and on numerous other objects, as well as on the painted friezes of a place of worship.[ ] [ ] "we have seen many instances of such opposed animals and birds on the metal-work and carving of the thirteenth century, and there is no doubt that the design is much older than mohammedan times, and goes back to the productions of the old artists of mesopotamia and persia. we read in quintus curtius of robes worn by persian satraps, adorned with birds beak to beak--_aurei accipitres veluti rostri in se irruerunt pallam adornabant_. plautus mentions alexandrian carpets ornamented with beasts: _alexandrina belluata conchyliata tapetia_. there is indeed reason to believe that the notion of such pairs of birds or beasts may have originated with the weavers of ancient persia, and have been borrowed from them by the engravers of metal-work; for the advantage of such double figures would be specially obvious to a weaver. the symmetrical repetition of the figure of the bird or animal, reversed, saved both labour and elaboration of the loom. the old weavers, not yet masters of mechanical improvements, were obliged to work their warp up and down by means of strings, and the larger the design the more numerous became these strings and the more complicated the loom. hence, to be able to repeat the pattern in reverse was a considerable economy of labour, and could be effected very simply on a loom constructed to work _à pointe et à reverse_. examples of such repetitions of patterns, especially of symmetrical pairs of animals within circles, are common in byzantine and sassanian woven work, and the saracens followed these models."--stanley lane-poole, _the art of the saracens in egypt_, p. . the colours of these fabrics also varied very greatly. that which was most admired was probably red, crimson, or carmine, used by preference as a ground, with the pattern inwoven or super-woven in gold, silver, or otherwise. velvets, too, were not invariably in monochrome, but would contain two or three colours such as purple, crimson, blue, or yellow, besides gold and silver. miquel y badía mentions a magnificent velvet pluvial in gold and three colours, belonging to a church in cataluña. the following observations are by the same authority, who himself possesses a valuable collection of early textile fabrics, many of which are spanish. "the same prevailing colours are found in the mudejar textile fabrics as in those of the spanish moors--the same ground of red inclining to carmine, of dark blue, or of bluish green, with a pattern in yellow, green, blue, or red, according to the colour which combines with it. i have seen copies of mudejar stuffs in which there is no white, because this was wanting in the fragments which the copying artist had before him. and it is a fact that from some cause, which we cannot now determine, white silk is that which disappears soonest from among the textile fabrics of the spanish moors and mudejares, so that by far the greater part of them contain no white at all, or only traces of it." in spain these handsome stuffs were used by all the wealthier classes, and some idea of their prevalence and popularity may be formed from the voluminous mass of sumptuary laws which deal with them at almost every stage of spanish history. thus, an edict of jayme the first of aragon established, in the year , that neither the monarch nor any of his subjects were to decorate their clothes with gold and silver, or fasten their cloaks with gold or silver clasps. the _ordenamiento_ of alfonso the tenth, subscribed at seville, february th, , provides that no woman is to carry _aljofar_-work, trim her dress with gold or silver, or wear a _toca_ decorated with those metals, but only a plain white one, the price of which is not to exceed three _maravedis_. it is also provided by this edict that on the celebration of a wedding, the cost of the bridal clothes must not exceed sixty _maravedis_, nor may the number of guests who sit down to the marriage banquet exceed five women and five men, besides the witnesses of the ceremony and relatives of the bride and bridegroom. this absurd law was so extensively neglected that two years later the cortes of valladolid took up the matter afresh, and even resolved that the expenses of the king's table, without the cost of his invited guests, were not to exceed a daily total of a hundred and fifty _maravedis_. in a.d. the council of cordova decreed that knights and squires, upon the celebration of their marriage, were not to present their brides with more than two dresses, one of these to be of scarlet, without trimming of ermine or grey fur, or decoration of gold, silver, or _aljofar_. a law of alfonso the eleventh, dated may th, , proclaimed that the women of the upper classes were not to clothe themselves in any silken fabric decorated with gold thread. similar restrictions were laid upon the other sex. "no man, whatever be his condition (excepting only us, the king), shall wear cloth of gold, or silk, or any stuff adorned with gold lace, _aljofar_, or any other trimming, or with enamel: only his cloak may bear _aljofar_ pearl-work, or fillets without pearls." other dispositions signed by the same monarch show that the spaniards of his time were in the habit of wearing costly cloth adorned with gold and silver, pearls, gold buttons, enamel, and other ornament, while even the squires wore furs and gilded shoes. the _ricos-hombres_ loaded their saddles with gold and with _aljofar_-work, and their wives were licensed to bear on each of their dresses the same _aljofar_-work or strings of tiny pearls, to the value of four thousand _maravedis_. provisions of the same tenor are contained in the prolix sumptuary pragmatic of pedro the cruel, signed in the year at valladolid, as well as in that of juan the first, a.d. , which ordained, together with other vexatious prohibitions, that "neither man nor woman, whatever be their condition or estate, shall wear cloth of gold or any silk-stuff, gold or silver _aljofar_, or other precious stones, excepting the infante and infantas, who may wear whatever pleases them." the extravagance of isabella the catholic in dress and personal adornment generally, was illustrated in an earlier chapter of this work. a further instance is recorded by clemencin. according to this chronicler, in and , upon her reception at alcalá of two embassies from france, the queen was dressed in a magnificent robe, which drew upon her a sharp rebuke from her confessor, the virtuous and austere hernando de talavera. from this charge isabella defended herself with more spirit than truthfulness. "neither myself nor my ladies," she wrote in her letter of reply, "were dressed in new apparel. all that i wore on this occasion i had already worn in aragon, and the french themselves had seen me wearing it. i only used one robe at all, and that of silk with three marks of gold, the plainest i could find: in this was all my festival. i say this much in that my clothing was not new; nor did we deem that error could dwell therein."[ ] [ ] _elogio de la reina católica_, p. . although their own extravagance is past all question, on september th, , ferdinand and his consort issued a proclamation at granada, in which it was commanded that "no persons shall wear clothing of brocade, or silk, or silk _chamelote_, or _zarzahan_, or taffeta, or carry linings of the same upon the trappings of their horses, or upon hoods, or the straps and scabbards of their swords, or bits, or saddles, or _alcorques_[ ] ... nor shall they wear embroidered silk-stuffs decorated with gold plates, whether such gold be drawn or hammered, spun to a thread, or interwoven with the fabric." [ ] these are defined by the count of clonard as "a kind of clog (_chapín_) with a cork sole, and which was introduced by the moors under the name _al-kork_." these prohibitions, or others of their import, were ratified by doña juana at the cortes of burgos, and, in , by charles the fifth at valladolid. in the emperor again prohibited "all brocaded stuffs, or gold or silver cloth, whether embroidered or enriched with gold or silver thread, or bound with cord or edging of the same;" and a royal edict of january th, , forbade the wearing of brocade and every other costly stuff to all except the clergy and the military. the clergy, indeed, had always been notorious for extravagance, and not a few of all these sumptuary laws are aimed specifically at them. in a.d. the council of valladolid prohibited the use by priests of sleeved robes, or gilded saddles, bits, spurs, or poitrels. in the synod of león repeated these prohibitions, further insisting that the garments of the clergy, besides being sleeveless, were not to be red or green, and were to have a moderate length ("_non muy largas, non muy cortas_"), and that their cloaks were not to fasten with a clasp or cord; these regulations to be rigidly adhered to _en sennal de honestidat_--"as a sign of honesty." we also know that at this time (thirteenth century) the shirts of many of the wealthier spaniards were woven of finest linen imported from the east, embroidered and picked out with gold and silver thread, and that the clergy were at least the equals of the laity in their craze for costly clothing. in a.d. , an inventory was made of the effects belonging to don gonzalo palomeque, on his election to the bishopric of cuenca. it mentions _almadraques_ and murcian _tapetes_, _carpitas viadas_ from tlemcen, fine murcian blankets (_alhamares_), silk _xamedes_, murcian matting for covering walls and daïses ("_para paret et para estrado_"), and stuffs from syria. another inventory, that of don gonzalo gudiel, archbishop of toledo, is dated a.d. , and mentions, as included with his property, quantities of oriental fabrics which are designated by the general name _tartaricas_.[ ] among them were "unus pannus operatus ad aves de auro et campus de serica viridi, item unus alius pannus tartaricus cum campo de seta alba et vite aurea, item unus pannus tartaricus de seta rubea cum pinis aureis, item unus pannus tartaricus de seta viridi."[ ] [ ] specifically, _tartari_ was a costly fabric, heavily embroidered. ducange considers that it came, or came originally, from tartary. we read of it twice in the _chronicle of the cid_, and again, in the _chronicle of ferdinand the fourth_:--"tiraron los paños de marhega que tenia vestidos por su padre é vistiéronle unos paños nobles de tartari." [ ] quoted by fernandez y gonzalez, _mudejares de castilla_, p. , from the originals in the archiepiscopal library of toledo. a number of mediæval textile fabrics, some in fragments, some intact, have been preserved in spanish private collections or museums. it is, however, seldom easy to determine whether they were made in this peninsula, or whether in sicily, byzantium, venice, or the east. among the most remarkable of all these interesting specimens are, a strip which was extracted from the mausoleum of a spanish bishop, don bernardo calbó, a native of vich in cataluña, and which is now in the museum of that town; other fragments in the same collection, including one of _holosericum_ or pure silk, which was formerly in the neighbouring church of san juan de las abadesas, and is commonly known as the _pallium_ or altar front "of the witches" (owing to certain beasts or monsters figuring in the design), a moorish _tiraz_, now in the academy of history at madrid, the celebrated moorish "banner of the battle of las navas," now in the monastery of santa maría la real de las huelgas at burgos, the banner (also moorish) of the battle of the river salado, the chasubles "of the constable" and of chiriana, preserved respectively at burgos and at caravaca, a fragment, preserved in the royal armoury at madrid, of the shroud of ferdinand the third, and the moorish clothing of the son of the same king ferdinand, the infante don felipe, and of felipe's second wife, doña leonor ruiz de castro. the strip of woven material found in the sepulchre of bishop calbó, who is said to have accompanied don jayme the conqueror in the conquest of valencia (a.d. ), is described by miquel y badía as belonging to the class denominated _pallia rotata_--that is, with circles forming part of their design,--and dates most probably from the twelfth century; but it is impossible to say whether it was manufactured in the east, or whether at valencia or some other spanish town. the same remark applies to other fragments which are also, as i stated, in the vich museum. the one discovered in the tomb of bishop calbó contains, coloured in green, grey, and black upon a carmine ground, a decorative scheme of circles, flowers, and gryphons or other monsters in pairs, _affrontés_, and also, within the circles, the figure of a man grappling with two lions, tigers, dogs, or other beasts, and who is believed to represent samson or daniel--more probably the latter. miquel y badía points out that in this fragment the figure of the man recalls egyptian art, suggested by his curious head-dress, and by the crossing of his clothes upon his breast. another textile fragment in the same collection is coloured black, red, and grey upon a yellowish ground. it is decorated with long-tailed birds resembling peacocks, and with sphinxes which fill the circles or medallions. a third fragment, also in the vich museum, belongs to the type of _pallia cum aquilis et bestiolis_. the design consists of a double-headed eagle with half-extended wings, holding in the claws of either foot some kind of quadruped--perhaps a bull. the colour of the ground resembles carmine, and on it the design is wrought in greenish black--that may have been originally green--relieved at intervals with yellow. the "witches'" _pallium_ in the same collection is decorated with the series of extraordinary beasts or monsters that have won for it this title with the vulgar, depicted in yellow, white, black, and dark green upon a red ground. miquel believes this fabric to proceed from byzantium, and to date from not much earlier than the eleventh century. the devices are disposed in two rows, the lower containing peacocks _affrontés_, and the upper a series of fantastic monsters, each of which possesses a head, two bodies, and four feet--the head being semi-human, semi-bestial, the double body that of a bird, and the claws those of a lion or some other formidable quadruped. the royal academy of history at madrid possesses a fragment of the costly fabric known as _tiraz_, an eastern word (corrupted by the spaniards into _taracea_, _i.e._ embroidery on clothing), which means the bordering for a royal robe. such bordering, which contained inscriptions, or the sultan's name, or both together, is said to have been first used in spain by abderrahman the second, who ruled from a.d. to . "the caliphs of cordova," says riaño, "had a place set apart in their palaces where this stuff was kept: this custom lasted until the eleventh century, when it disappeared, and was re-established in the thirteenth century with the kings of granada." _tiraz_, in fact, was both produced and stored in special departments of the sultan's palaces[ ]; or so we must infer from the following passage by ibn-khaldun. "the places (_almedinas_) where these stuffs were woven were situated within the palaces of the caliphs, and were known as the 'pavilions of the _tiraz_.' the person at the head of these workshops was called the superintendent of the _tiraz_: he had charge of both the weavers and the looms, administered the salaries, and looked to the quality of the work. this post was entrusted by the princes to one of the foremost officers of their kingdom, or else to some freedman who thoroughly deserved their confidence." the same historian adds that the manufacture of _tiraz_ was conducted in spain in the same manner as in the east under the dynasty of the ommeyades. it is, however, certain that among the spanish moors _tiraz_ was not produced exclusively in royal factories. al-makkari states that in the time of the somadies and the almoravides there were looms at nerja (and possibly at almería) for weaving this luxurious fabric, as well as _holas_, a fine brocade, heavily embroidered, and adorned with figures representing the caliphs and other personages. in the time of the almoravides there were at almería as many as a thousand factories for making _holas_. [ ] "an interesting parallel to the royal silk factory, or d[=a]r-et-tir[=a]z of kay-kub[=a]d, and to that of the f[=a]timy khalif at tinn[=i]s, is found in the similar institution at palermo, which owed its foundation to the kelby am[=i]rs who ruled sicily as vassals of the f[=a]timis in the ninth and tenth centuries, though it maintained its special character and excellence of work under the norman kings. the factory was in the palace, and the weavers were mohammedans, as indeed is obvious from a glance at the famous silk cloth preserved at vienna, and called the "mantle of nürnberg," where a long arabic inscription testifies to the hands that made it, by order of king roger, in the year of the hijra , or a.d. ."--stanley lane-poole, _the art of the saracens in egypt_, p. . the piece of _tiraz_ which belongs to the spanish academy of history measures about a yard and a half in length by eighteen inches wide. riaño describes it as of wool, embroidered in silks with "seated figures which appear to be a king, a lady, lions, birds, and quadrupeds"; but after carefully examining it i cannot but agree with miquel y badía that this fabric is woven throughout of pure silk, without the slightest trace of hand-embroidery. it has two borders containing these inscriptions in cufic letters: "in the name of god, the clement, the merciful. (may) the blessing of god and happiness (be) for the caliph iman abdallah hixem, the favoured of god and prince of believers." this monarch, second of the name, reigned at the end of the tenth century and early in the eleventh, and the _tiraz_ we are noticing was found in a casket on the altar of a church at san esteban de gormaz, in the province of soria. as riaño suggests, it was very probably a war trophy. [illustration: i the "banner of las navas" (_monastery of santa maria la real de las huelgas, burgos_)] another most interesting example of saracenic textile work is the so-called "banner of las navas" (plate i.), which popular tradition affirms to have been captured (a.d. ) in the memorable battle of las navas de tolosa, between the almohades and the spanish christians. most experts now consider that this object is not a military ensign, but a curtain or some other hanging for a tent or doorway. the material is _sirgo_ or silken serge, and both the decoration and the workmanship are purely moorish. the design is rich and intricate throughout, consisting of scrolls, leaves, stems, and inscriptions from the koran, disposed with exquisite effect about the principal and central motive, formed by a large eight-pointed star within a circle, and which contains, so as to form the angles of the star, eight repetitions of the words in arabic, "_the empire_." the dominant colour is carmine, and the fabric terminates in eight _farpas_ or scallops with red and yellow edges, and bearing a series of inscriptions in the african character. the "_pendon_ of the rio salado," a trophy which seems to have really been a war-flag, belongs to the cathedral of toledo. it measures at this day about nine feet two inches by seven feet four inches, but is believed to have been originally of a square form, with scalloped edges. the dominant colours are red, green, and gold. the decorative scheme consists of tastefully combined circles and inscriptions in the cufic character, and the lower end concludes in the following sentences, now rendered incomplete through the loss of nearly two feet of the material:--"... the wise, the victorious, the assiduous, the generous, the sultan, the caliph, the famous emir of the muslims and representative of the lord of the universe, abu-said otsmin, son of our lord and master ... the worshipper of (allah), the modest, the warlike, the emir of the mussulmans nassir-li-din (_defender of the law_), abu yusuf yacub, son of abd-il-hac. in the alcázar of fez (god bless it. praised be god), in the moon of moharran of the year twelve and seven hundred" ( of the hegira, or may th-june th, a.d. ). tastefully disposed in white cufic characters, within four rows of circles woven in gold, are the words which sum the mussulman religion,--"there is no god but god: mahoma is his messenger"; and on other parts of the flag are inscribed these sentences:-- "the prophet believes in the purpose for which he was sent by his lord, and all the faithful believe in god, in his angels, in his writings, and in his messengers. we make no distinction between any of his messengers. and these declare: 'we hear and do obey. pardon us, o lord.' ".... and unto thee we shall return. god will not lay on any soul but such a weight as it can bear; for it or against it shall be the deeds it may have done. o lord, chastise not our forgetfulness or errors. o lord, lay not upon us the burden thou hadst laid on those that were before us. ".... o lord, burden us not too heavily. blot out our faults, and pardon them to us, and have mercy on us. thou art our lord. grant us victory over the infidel. there came to us a glorious prophet that was born among us. "on him rests the weight of your faults, and full of goodness and of clemency he longs ardently for you to believe. if you should be forsaken, exclaim, 'god is sufficient for me. there is no god but he. i trust in him, because he is lord of the throne that is on high.'" miquel y badía considers that when it was intact this object must have measured eleven feet square. attention was first drawn to its merit and antiquity when it was shown at the exposición histórico europea of . the chasubles of chirinos (caravaca) and of the chapel of the constable in burgos cathedral are both considered to be of spanish-moorish workmanship. the former is woven of silk of various colours, but without admixture of gold thread, and bears an inscription in arabic which amador de los ríos has interpreted as, "glory to our sultan abul-hachach." the same authority deduces that the fabric dates from the fourteenth or the fifteenth century--that is, from the time of the sultan abul-hachach (yusuf the first) or of his immediate successors. the chasuble preserved at burgos is also woven of variegated silk without gold thread, and may originally have been a _tiraz_, since it bears, in african letters, the inscription, "glory to our lord the sultan." the date is probably the fifteenth or sixteenth century. fragments of similar material are in the collections of señores osma and miquel y badía. [illustration: ii fragment of the burial mantle of ferdinand the third (_royal armoury, madrid_)] the object represented in plate ii. is described in the catalogue of the royal armoury at madrid as _a fragment of the royal mantle in which was buried the king and saint, ferdinand the third of castile_ (a.d. - ). gestoso, in the course of his researches into the history of old seville, has found that in the year philip the second caused an examination to be made at that city of the remains, enshrined in her cathedral, of saint ferdinand. the body was found "with a ring with a blue stone on a finger of the right hand, and wearing sword and spurs." in charles the second sent for the ring in question, and eleven years later a fresh examination was made, when the mummy of the saint was stated to be wrapped in "clothing of a stuff the nature of which cannot now be recognised, but which is chequered all over with the royal arms of castile, and with lions." a third examination was made in , when the "holy body of señor san fernando" was reported to be "covered, the greater part, with a royal mantle, of a stuff which could not be recognised for its decay: only it was seen to be embroidered with castles and lions." probably, therefore, this fragment was taken to madrid at the same time as the ring--that is, in the year . it has an irregular shape, and measures eighteen inches long by thirteen and a half in breadth. the material is a woven mixture of silk and gold thread, and the decoration consists of castles and lions in gold and red respectively, upon a ground of carmine and dirty white. count valencia de don juan points out that this strip belonged to the lower end of the mantle, since it includes a portion of the border, formed by a series of horizontal stripes, blue, yellow, red, and gold. the character of the whole fragment is decidedly mohammedan, and indicates a mudejar fabric, made at seville in the thirteenth century. i find that in the _book of chess_ of alfonso the learned (an illuminated spanish manuscript executed in the thirteenth century, and now preserved at the escorial), alfonso himself is represented (plate iii.) as wearing a mantle with this very pattern of lions and castles contained in squares. therefore it seems extremely probable, either that this device was not uncommon on the robes of spanish kings, or else that at some time the body of san fernando was enveloped in a mantle belonging to, and which perhaps had been inherited by, his son. [illustration: iii king alfonso the learned (_from "the book of chess"; ms. in the escorial library_)] the clothing of the infante don felipe and of doña leonor, his wife, consists of the prince's cloak, which is nearly intact, a piece of his _aljuba_, his cap, and a strip of silken cloth inwoven with gold. the latter fragment is thought to have belonged to the robe of the infanta. these objects, discovered in , in the tomb of don felipe and doña leonor, at villalcazar de sirga, near palencia, are now in the national museum. the cloak or mantle is richly wrought in silk and gold, and bears the word _blessing_, woven in cufic characters upon the ground. the _aljuba_ is also of silk and gold, showing a delicate combination of blue and yellow, and the style and workmanship of all these fragments are unmistakably mohammedan. therefore, in textile crafts, the spanish moors supplied the wants and the caprices both of themselves and of their enemies the christians. the relationship between certain under-garments of the two peoples is evident from the very titles of those garments. thus, the spanish _joquejo_ or _soquejo_, a scarf for winding round a woman's body, is obviously derived, or merely corrupted, from the arabic _jocob_; the spanish _arrede_ or _arrelde_, a kind of cloak, from the arabic _arrida_, and the spanish shirt or tunic for ordinary wear, called the _casot_, _quesote_, or _quizote_ (which was sometimes white and sometimes coloured) from the arabic _al-kuesnat_. the _chronicle of juan the second_ (a.d. ) tells of a mountain covered with moorish troops, "and all of them had red _quesotes_." [illustration: iv spanish velvet (_red upon gold ground. about a.d. _)] among the cities of moorish spain, almería and granada were undoubtedly those which produced the handsomest stuffs--almería from comparatively early in the days of muslim domination, granada from a somewhat later time.[ ] notices are extant of christian princes who directly ordered these materials from granada; _e.g._ in don juan the first caused to be purchased there, as a present to his daughter on her marriage, "una cambra de saya orlada ab son dozer e cobertor de color vermella, blaua, ó vert, ù otro que fuera de buena vista" (_archives of the crown of aragon_). the manufacture of velvet was probably introduced into aragon in the reign of pedro the fourth. excellent silks and cloth of gold were also made at málaga, seville, toledo, and valencia. indeed, no better source exists for studying the character of this important industry in older spain than the ordinances of the cities i have just enumerated.[ ] we learn from these municipal provisions, most of which were framed or ratified in the reign of ferdinand and isabella, that the mingling of fine with base material was forbidden in the strictest terms, and that the styles and classes of even the luxurious and elaborate stuffs, which bore an infinite variety of devices, were very numerous. thus, there were satins, taffetas, _azeytunis_, double and single velvets (plates iv. and vii.), brocades, and silken serges; as well as fabrics interwoven with gold and silver thread, including the _gorgoranes_, _restaños_, _sargas_, and _jergas de filigrana de plata_. the ordinances of toledo mention the following fabrics as manufactured in that city in the reigns of ferdinand and isabella, and of charles the fifth:-- "stuffs of gold and silver made in the same manner as satin. "satins woven with gold. "satins brocaded with silk and gold, or silver flowers. "silver serges with double filigree. "silver and gold materials, which are made like _gorgoran_ or serge. "silver and gold stuffs which are made like taffetas, or in silver with silk flowers. "embroidered stuffs. "embroidered stuffs called silver serge, or _berguilla_. "_lama_, cloth of silver, shaded with watering in silver. "plain silk-stuffs woven with silver or gold, and called _restaño_. "silk-stuffs woven with gold or silver, and called _relampagos_. "serges woven with gold and silver for church vestments. "plain filigree serges. "_velillo_ of silver. "satin woven with gold and silver. "brocades of different kinds. "church vestments. "silver _primaveras_. "serges for church vestments." [ ] the alburquerque inventory mentions, in , "two almería sheets, one with green and purple edging, and the other with white and red"; also "two _short_ holland shirts for sleeping in at night." commenting on the word _short_, señor de la torre de trassierra aptly recalls the thrifty proverb of the spaniards,--"a shirt which reaches below the navel is so much linen wasted." [ ] see particularly _las ordenanzas de los tejedores de seda de sevilla_ (officially proclaimed on march nd, ), and also _las ordenanzas para el buen régimen y gobierno de la muy noble, muy leal, é imperial cuidad de toledo_. (_tit._ cxxxv: "silk-weavers.") it was usual for ladies of the christian-spanish aristocracy to trim their clothes, in moorish fashion, with strings of larger pearls or of _aljofar_-work--a custom which continued until the extinction of the house of austria. the alburquerque inventory includes "a _marlota_ of crimson satin, trimmed with pearls and with _aljofar_, as to the hem, the sleeves, and the hood; with twelve buttons of _aljofar_-pearls in the front thereof, that on a time were thirteen; but one is missing _which was ground up for the said duchess when she was sick_, and six buttons on each sleeve, and the same where each sleeve meets the shoulder." early in the seventeenth century, pinheiro da veiga mentions the same fashion at valladolid:--"at the sale of the marchioness of mondejar, i saw twelve of her _sayas_ with long trains to them, and satin bodices, all of embroidered silk, and some with _aljofar_-work, besides a number of all kinds of _diabluras_." it is stated by ibn-said, al-makkari, al-khattib, and ibn-khaldun, that the moors of granada occasionally adopted christian clothing, and we know that the sultan mohammed, a contemporary of alfonso the learned of castile, was assassinated by abrahim and abomet, the sons of osmin, because he was so clothed, and because he had further violated the precepts of the koran by eating at alfonso's table.[ ] but as a rule the costume of the spanish moors was almost wholly that of orientals. where they were tolerated in a city under christian rule, a certain dress was sometimes forced upon them by their subjugators, as by the _ordenamiento_ (a.d. ) of doña catalina, issued on behalf of her son, juan the second, and which prescribed for the moorish men a _capuz_ of yellow cloth with a mark upon it in the form of a blue half-moon measuring an inch from point to point, and which was to be worn on the right shoulder. the garments of the women were to be similarly marked, on pain of fifty lashes administered publicly, together with the forfeiture of all such clothes as lacked this necessary and humiliating token. [ ] on the other hand, rosmithal recorded in his narrative of a tour of spain that henry the second of castile affected the costume of the mohammedans. but where the spanish moors were in possession of the soil, their clothes were similar in most respects to those of eastern peoples. detailed notices of these costumes are furnished us by ibn-said and other writers. fray pedro de alcalá explains in his _vocabulary_ that, among the granadinos, the use of one garment in particular was limited to royalty, or nobles of high rank. this was the _libas_ (or, in the granadino dialect, _libis_), shaped like roomy breeches, and greatly resembling the _zaragüelles_ worn until this hour by the peasants of the huerta of valencia. ibn-said, quoted by al-makkari (see gayangos, _history of the mohammedan dynasties in spain_, vol. i., p. ) says that the dress of the moors of andalusia was not identical with that of the asiatic mussulman. the former, he declares, would often discard the turban; especially those who lived towards the eastern frontier. in the western region the turban continued to be generally worn by the upper classes and by the leading state officials. thus, at cordova and seville every _cadi_ and _alfaqui_ would wear a turban, while at valencia and murcia even the nobles went without it, and among the lower classes it had fallen into absolute disuse. neither officers nor soldiers of the army wore the turban. we learn from casiri (_bibl. arabico-hispana_, ii., p. ) that the _imama_[ ] was the only form of head-dress used by the _cheiks_, _cadis_, and _ulemas_ of granada. at this capital red was the distinctive colour of the sovereigns of the alahmar dynasty, who took their very title from this circumstance, the arabic word _alahmar_ meaning "red." the distinctive colour of the nasrite sultans was purple, which was replaced by black in time of mourning. in this last fashion the sultans were probably influenced by the christian usage, for ibn-khaldun remarks that black was not a colour approved of by the orientals, who considered it to be related with the spirits of evil. however this may be, the manuscript _history of the house of cordova_ quoted by eguilaz yanguas, says that when boabdil el chico entered that city as a prisoner, "the captive monarch was dressed in black velvet, in token of his adverse fortune and defeat. he rode a richly caparisoned charger, whose coat was black and glossy." [ ] this was a large form of turban. in the well-known painting in the hall of justice of the alhambra, the head-dress is the _aharim_ or _almaizar_. the moors regarded green or white as pleasant and well-omened colours, symbolic of the angels and of all good fortune. perhaps this preference was suggested to them by the cool oasis in the desert. nevertheless, when ibn-hud became ruler of andalusia, his shields and banners were black, as well as his costume. black, too, was the colour adopted by the abbaside sultans, to whom ibn-hud was subject. under the beni-nasr and beni-alahmar, this gloomy hue was changed, as we have seen, to purple or to scarlet, though black continued to be used in sign of mourning. [illustration: v the tunic of boabdil el chico (_national museum of artillery, madrid_)] the chronicle says that abu-said, "the red," who was assassinated at tablada, under the walls of seville, by pedro the cruel, was clothed in scarlet at the time of that atrocious deed. boabdil was also clothed in red at the battle of lucena. the _history of the house of cordova_, from which i have already quoted, says: "il était armé d'une forte cuirasse à clous dorés, doublée de velours _cramoisi_, d'un morion teint de _grenat_ et doré.... sur sa cuirasse était passé un caban de brocart et de velours cramoisi" (plate v.). eguilaz quotes a further passage from hurtado de mendoza, to prove that red continued to be the official colour of the moorish rulers of granada; for when the moriscos had risen in the alpujarra, and met together to invest their leaders, aben-abu and aben-humeya, with the insignia of royalty, they clothed the former in a red costume and the latter in purple, "passing about his neck and shoulders a red token in the form of a scarf."[ ] [ ] eguilaz yanguas, _les peintures de l'alhambra_. as i remarked in speaking of the _tiraz_, the clothing of the moorish kings of spain was of the richest quality obtainable, massively wrought, embroidered in colours and in gold, and bearing "sometimes a prince's name, sometimes his device or motto, or even a portrait of himself embroidered on the right breast of his _caban_ or robe, thus following the fashion of the monarchs of assyria and persia." spanish silk a very fair idea of the magnitude of the craft and trade of spanish silk in bygone epochs may be formed by tracing chronologically the production and treatment of the raw material in various parts of the peninsula. during the centuries of moorish rule, spain's principal silk-producing centre was the kingdom of granada, which then embraced a large extent of coast, together with málaga and other thriving ports. in proof of this, and in his interesting memorial on the silk factories of seville,[ ] ulloa quotes old spanish ordinances of the weavers, stating that quantities of this substance were exported from "tierra de moros" for use by christian craftsmen, and also the _chronology of the kings of granada_, concluded by al-khattib in the year . a fragment of this chronicle is preserved at the escorial, and states, in the well-known version of casiri, that the silk produced at granada was both abundant and of excellent quality, surpassing even the assyrian. [ ] don martin de ulloa, _discurso sobre las fábricas de seda de sevilla_. the growing of mulberry trees and rearing of silkworms was also busily pursued in the kingdom of aragon, which formerly included cataluña, valencia, and the balearic islands. hence, though somewhat gradually, it seems to have spread to seville. in the ordinances of this town relating to her weavers of silks and velvets, and which are dated , it is stated that her _oficiales de texer sedas_ were so few that, as a stimulus to augment their number, all who wished might join them in the practice of this craft without examination. between that year and they evidently multiplied, since subjects of examination of no easy character are formulated in the ordinances of this later date, examined and confirmed by ferdinand and isabella. nevertheless, it is impossible to credit the assertion of some authors that by the year seville possessed no less than sixteen thousand looms, affording occupation to one hundred and fifty thousand persons. as ulloa suggests, it is far more reasonable to suppose that her silk trade grew in proportion as the spaniards continued to discover, and to open up to commerce, new regions of america; and that it reached the maximum of its development in the reigns of charles the fifth and philip the second. the same writer attributes its decline and downfall to the "piracies and insults" of spain's foreign enemies and rivals. the price of seville silks was also raised and the trade injuriously affected, by the imposition, at the close of the reign of philip the second, of the onerous _millones_ tax, as well as of the minor dues denominated _alcavalas_ and _cientos_; while finally, when philip the third was on the throne, the expulsion of the moriscos precipitated the utter ruin of this industry. [illustration: vi the "banner of saint ferdinand" (_seville cathedral_)] the spanish government proved quite incapable of grappling with these wrongs and difficulties. there were, however, numerous attempts to legislate in the direction of reform. measures forbidding the introduction of silk proceeding from abroad received the royal signature in , , , , and . a petition to the same effect, framed by the procurators of the cortes, was presented to the king in , urging that no skein or twisted silk proceeding from the portuguese indies, china, or persia should be imported into spain in view of the damage thus inflicted on the silk-producing regions of granada, murcia, and valencia. at the same time the petitioners suggested that if it should be found impracticable to suppress such importation altogether, the foreign silk should be required to be in the form of stuffs already woven. matters grew steadily worse all through the reign of philip the fourth. the principal cause of this additional decline lay in the constant depreciation of the national currency, which kept at an intolerable pitch of dearness the price of home-grown silk, and enabled foreign traders to undersell the spaniard. this will be better understood if we consider that the composition of the copper and silver coinage was often tampered with by crown and parliament in such a way as to allow the foreigner to rid the country of nearly all her gold and silver, leaving in exchange only the baser metal. at intervals of a few years, proclamations were issued altering the values of the coinage in the most capricious and disastrous terms, and ulloa mentions as still in circulation in the eighteenth century, _ochavos_ of philip the third which bore inscribed the value of twelve _maravedis_ in roman numerals, and also (owing to the restamping of the coins by order of the crown), the second and successive value of eight _maravedis_, marked in ordinary numerals. in fact, so grave were these abuses, that the arbitrary value imposed upon the coins in question grew to be six times that of the actual value of the metal. at the close of the seventeenth century, when charles the second was on the throne, a couple of well-meant and not completely ineffectual attempts were made to bring about a fresh revival in the growth of spanish silk. on november th, , the silk-makers of toledo, seville, granada, and valencia were summoned to a council at madrid, and the dispositions they then agreed upon received the royal signature and became law on january th of the following year, the pragmatic which embodied them being issued to the public ten days later. it was commanded by this document that all the silk produced at the above-named towns should be examined and approved by the _veedores_ or _mayorales_, and bear the official stamp which guaranteed their quality. the effect of these ordinances was further strengthened by a crown _cedula_ of july th, , confirming other dispositions dated ; and later still, in june of , a law was passed prohibiting the exportation of all home-made silks to other countries. the accession of the bourbon kings heralded a further slight improvement. philip the fifth had barely mounted the throne when the junta de comercio was revived by his command, and drafted various laws for bettering this and other industries. royal decrees of june th and september th, , renewed in june of and in april and august of , forbade the introduction of silk and certain other stuffs from china and the rest of asia--a measure which was made more strict as time went on, the prohibition being extended to linens and cottons produced and printed in africa or asia or imitated in europe. in the meantime another _cedula_, signed at the escorial on november th, , had ordered that every spanish citizen of either sex should dress exclusively in silks or cloths of spanish manufacture. these laws, though founded on mistaken principles, undoubtedly restored the national silk trade for a while. in the silk looms of seville had increased to four hundred and five, and by --in which year the court resided at that capital--to a thousand; but on the return of the royal family to madrid, and the declaration of war against england in , the number dropped to a hundred and forty. in an effort was made to remedy this by exempting seville silks from payment of the _alcabalas_ and _cientos_, and further support was rendered in by ferdinand the sixth, who lowered to eighty _maravedis_ per pound weight the tax on spanish silks exported from the kingdom, and issued, in , , and , additional decrees intended to encourage and protect this industry. in the same ruler established the celebrated silk factories of talavera de la reina, sparing no pains to bring their products to a level with the best in europe, and choosing as director of the works a thoroughly proficient frenchman named jean roulière, a native of nîmes, who was assisted by a carefully selected staff of experts, also principally foreigners. about the end of the century laborde described this enterprise as follows:--"the manufactures of silks, gildings, and galloons are highly useful and important.... there has also been raised at cervera, a village two leagues from talavera, another large edifice, in which are twelve mills for twisting the silk, four large windles for winding it, and six machines for doubling it. this complicated machinery is put in motion by four oxen, and the various processes of twisting, winding, and doubling seven thousand and seventy-two threads of silk are thus performed at once. "this establishment was rapidly augmented under the direction of roulière and the other french mechanics who succeeded him in its superintendence. so successful were their labours that, in a short time, stuffs were fabricated in spain not unworthy of competition with those of france, the demand for which was found to diminish. in , roulière being obliged to withdraw from this manufactory, the care of it was committed to a company to the exclusion of almost all the french who had previously assisted in its establishment. the consequences of this change were soon discovered; the manufacture declined, the stuffs deteriorated, and the consumption diminished; the artisans were discharged from the loom, and everything threatened the total subversion of the establishment, when the king interposed, and again extended to it his care and protection, it has since been yielded to the incorporated society of the gremios at madrid, but has never recovered its former splendour and prosperity. "taffetas, satins, silk cloths, and serges are fabricated here, as are silk ribbons, plain and figured velvets, stuffs of silk and silver, stuffs of silk and gold, galloons, gold and silver fringes, and silk stockings. the factory employs three hundred and sixty-six looms, and affords occupation to two thousand persons. there are annually consumed in it about a hundred thousand pounds of silk, four thousand marks of silver, and seventy marks of gold. "some of the stuffs issuing from the manufactory are beautiful and good, but they want the gloss and lustre of the french stuffs; and as they are dearer than those, with all the contingent expense of commission and transportation, they are far from being able to maintain a competition with them. the stockings are of the vilest quality, being thin, shaggy, and ill-dressed. the greater part of these articles are exported to the spanish colonies." further efforts to improve the quality of spanish silk were made by charles the third, in whose reign the silk looms of seville increased to four hundred and sixty-two for weaving larger pieces, sixty-two for silver and gold galloons, three hundred and fifty-four for finely-worked ribbons, twenty-three for small pieces of gold and silver stuffs, eight for fringes and _cintas de rizo_, sixty-three for stockings, sixty-five for _redecillas_, three for caps, and one thousand three hundred and ninety-one for ordinary ribbon. at the same time, according to ulloa, one hundred thousand pounds of silk required to be annually brought to seville to supply these factories. "in its fortunate days," wrote alexander de laborde, "seville had many splendid manufactures; it wove silks of every kind, gold and silver tissues, linens, and cottons.[ ] a memoir presented in by the seventeen companies of arts and trades of this city gives us an idea of the brilliant state of those manufactures: the amount of the silk looms is there stated to be , , and the persons of both sexes employed at them, , . these manufactures had greatly declined even in the last century. we learn from francisco martínez de la mata, in his _discursos_, published in , according to a memoir presented to the king by an _alcalde_ of the silk manufactures of seville, that there were no more, at that time, than sixty-five looms, that a great number of persons having no work had quitted the town, that the population had decreased a third, and that many houses were shut up, uninhabited, and going to ruin. the silk manufactures began to look up again in the eighteenth century, but they are very far below the brilliant state they formerly displayed: in there were silk looms in seville, including those for stockings, slight stuffs, and ribbons."[ ] [ ] in former times, linens and cottons painted, stencilled, or stamped with decorative patterns from an iron or boxwood matrix, were considered to be luxurious fabrics, and are denounced as such in the sumptuary pragmatic (quoted by miquel y badía) issued by jayme the conqueror in a.d. : "item statuimos quod nos nec aliquis subditus noster non portet vestes _incisas_, _listatas_, vel trepatas." latterly, these kind of stuffs were made in great quantities at barcelona, and exported to other spanish provinces, as well as to america. "several manufactures of printed linens are established here," wrote swinburne, in , "but have not yet arrived at any great elegance of design or liveliness of colour." the manuscript (dated about a.d. ) attached to my copy of pigal's plates of spanish costume, says that the _pañoleta_ or _fichu_ (neckerchief) of the women of cartagena in their gala-dress was at that time of "mousseline blanche, quelquefois brodé, et três souvent n'est qu'un mouchoir d'indienne des fabriques de barcelonne, avec une brodure en fleurs rouges, le fond blanc et parsemé de petits bouquets." the same manuscript describes the dress of a cook at granada:--"le jupon (_refajo_), qui est toujours três court, est en hiver de laine avec une garniture au bas: en été il est en indienne. cette _indienne_ est une sorte de percale ou toile de coton peinte, dont il y a plusieurs fabriques en catalogne. on en exportait autrefois une quantité, immense que l'on portait dans les amériques espagnoles; c'est ce qui lui a fait donner le nom d'indienne." from the same source we learn respecting another cotton fabric, which might easily be thought by the unwary reader of to-day to have been of spanish manufacture, that "l'habitant de mahon fait en été un grand usage de l'étoffe des indes appelée _nankin_. cette étoffe n'est connue dans plusieurs parties de l'espagne que sous le nom de _mahon_." [ ] in the marquis of monte-fuerte declared the silk of seville to be of as fine a quality as that of valencia and carmona. (_discurso sobre el plantío de moreras en sevilla y sus inmediaciones._) turning our attention from seville to granada, we find that the fame of the silks produced in this latter city, or rather kingdom (for silk was raised in great quantities throughout the entire region) extended as far abroad as constantinople, and that they were used in greece in the reign of comnenus. the muzarabs, who petitioned alfonso el batallador to bring an expedition to their rescue and wrest granada from her mussulman lords, reported to him in enthusiastic terms the quality and abundance of the silk of that locality, and many a document and chronicle record its vogue among the spanish christians of the middle ages. the alcaicería or silk-market of granada is referred to by various of the older writers, including marineus siculus, navagiero, lalaing, bertaut de rouen, and alvarez de colmenar. the name itself is stated in fray pedro de alcalá's _vocabulario_ to be derived from the arabic _al-aqqisariya_, meaning "an exchange for merchants." buildings, or groups of buildings, of this kind existed both in spain and in morocco. early in the eighteenth century a spanish friar wrote of fez; "the moorish portion of this city is the alcaicería. it stands nearly in the centre of the level part of the town, and near the principal mosque, resembling a town in itself, with solid walls and doors, and chains across it to keep out the horses. it consists of fifteen streets of wealthy shops, stretching without a break, and what is sold in them--whether of linen, silk, or cloth--is of the richest and the noblest quality." very similar are the descriptions relative to the alcaicería of granada in the olden time. bertaut de rouen wrote of it, and of the adjoining zacatin; "en retournant devers la porte d'elvire est le _zacatin_, qui est une rue paralelle au canal du darro, longue et assez estroite, qui vient de la place de la chancellerie à la place de _vivarambla_. dans cette rue sont tous les orfévres, les marchands de soie, de rubans, de vermillon, qui croist assez près de grenade, dont on fait là grand trafic. c'est une plante semblable à celle du safran, dont il y a beaucoup dans ces quartiers-là. "dans cette mesme rue du _zacatin_ donne d'un costé l'_alcayzerie_, qui est une espèce de halle couverte à la manière de la foire saint germain, où sont plusieurs boutiques remplies des marchandises les plus curieuses. ils disent que cette place, aussi bien que beaucoup d'autres des autres villes d'andalousie, se nomme ainsi à cause d'un privilege que donnerent les cesars aux arabes de travailler en soye." alvarez de colmenar wrote of the same edifice, a few years later than bertaut; "vis-à-vis de la chancellerie on voit une maison fort longue, nommée alcacéria (_sic_), partagée en près de deux cent boutiques, où les marchands ètalent tout sorte de marchandises, particulièrement des étoffes en soie." on the authority of the same writer, the makers and the dyers of silk-stuffs inhabited another quarter of the town. "le dernier quartier de la ville, nommé antiqueruela, est dans une plaine, peuplé de gens venus d'antechera, d'où lui vient le nom qu'il porte. ses habitants sont pour la plupart ouvriers en soie, tisseurs de satin, de tafetas, de damas; teinturiers qui teignent en pourpre, en écarlate, et autres ouvriers semblables." he adds; "il s'y fait grand commerce d'étoffe de soie; et la ville et les environs sont pour cet effet plantés d'un si grand nombre de meuriers, que le seul impôt sur les feuilles de ces arbres vaut annuellement trente mille écus au roi." about the beginning of the nineteenth century laborde wrote: "the alcaicería is in the bivarambla: it is merely an immense edifice, without ornament, covering a considerable extent of ground. the moors used it as a bazaar, and a good many tradesmen still carry on their business there. it contains about two hundred shops." it remained, in fact, in much the same condition as when the moors possessed it, until the year , when a fire, which broke out on the night of july th of that year, reduced it almost totally to ashes. to-day the historic silk trade is no more; but the alcaicería, consisting of a chapel and a street which call to mind the graceful and effective decoration of its predecessor, has been rebuilt with taste and accuracy from the model of the old. the _ordenanzas_ of granada city, the first edition of which was published in , and the second in , inform us very closely of the silk trade of that region in the times immediately succeeding the reconquest. having regard to the fact that the silk was now spun in skeins in an imperfect manner, "with much deceit and trickery," and that its quality was of the worst (ordinance of a.d. ), nobody was allowed henceforth to spin silk in or about granada without being qualified through examination by the _veedores_ or inspectors appointed for this purpose by the corporation. the inspector might charge for this examination a fee of twenty-five _maravedis_, and if the candidate were successful he was permitted to set up his loom forthwith, and engage two lads or girls, not less than twelve years old, to fetch and carry at his wheel, "so that the work may be continued all day long." minute instructions follow as to the method of spinning the silk, wages, the treatment of apprentices, and other detail. many of these narrow points of city law were troublesome and senseless, and must have tended to destroy the trade. for instance, the earnings of a master-spinner, after paying the lads or girls who worked for him, were limited to a maximum of two _reales_ and a half per day. women were allowed to spin upon the following conditions: "also, seeing that there be some honest women here who have no access to a public wheel, but work within their dwellings only, we (_i.e._ the city councillors) command that these may spin per thousand of cocoons, or at a daily wage, not to exceed two _reales_ and a half." the silk was not to be spun with an _escobilla_ or brush, but with the hand, obedient to the rhyming spanish proverb which says, or used to say, _con escobilla el paño, y la seda con la mano_ ("brush cloth with a brush, and silk with the hand"). the laws affecting the dyers of silk contain the following provisions. they were not to dye with pomegranate or sumach, and if the rind of the former fruit were found in their houses, they were liable to a fine of six thousand _maravedis_ and thirty days' imprisonment. dyeing with brazil-wood was also prohibited in the case of silks of finer quality exposed for sale in the alcaicería. elaborate directions follow as to the manner of applying the dye. in the case of silks dyed blue or purple, the dyer, before he drew the fabric from the vat, was required to show it to the _alamin_ or inspector of the silk, or else to one of the _veedores_ nominated by the city councillors. the fines imposed upon the dyers who were found to contravene these regulations were distributed in the following proportion: one-third towards repairing the ramparts or _adarves_ of granada; another third between the _alamin_, the _veedores_, and the other officials who discovered and denounced the culprit; and the remaining third between the magistrates and other authorities who tried and sentenced him. further, each silk-dyer was to have six _tinajas_, or large jars (see vol. ii., pp. _et seq._), kept continually full of dye, well settled, and liable at any hour to be analyzed by the _veedores_. in dyeing fabrics black, each pound of silk was to be treated with ten ounces of foreign galls of fine quality, two ounces of copperas, and two ounces of gum-arabic. it is evident that nearly all this legislation was of a mischievous character, nor can it cause surprise that certain of the silk-makers of this locality should have been in the habit of committing many kinds of fraud, such as mixing salt or oil with the raw material, in order to increase its weight. thus, at the same time that the laws themselves were made more numerous and stringent, the more elaborate and various were the shifts invented by the citizens as a means to violate those laws. the inspectors were empowered to enter a shop and examine its contents at any hour. sometimes, we read, such ingress was denied them, and the door was kept closed, or slammed in their faces. the penalty for this resistance was a fine of two thousand _maravedis_ and twenty days imprisonment. no silk-spinner was allowed to possess more than two spinning-wheels (ordinance of november th, ), or to keep these working after midnight, for we are told that in this way the _veedores_ were impeded from paying their official visit in the small hours of the morning, and much "deceit and insult" was the consequence. this ordinance was confirmed by a royal rescript of . [illustration: vii velvet made at granada (_late th century_)] another group of _ordenanzas_ concerns the weavers and the silk-merchants of the alcaicería, determining that no silk was to be imported from the kingdoms of valencia or murcia, and that no merchant was to buy the raw material in order to resell it at a profit, but might only trade in the productions of his own factory. minute instructions are appended for weaving the various stuffs which had a silk foundation, such as several kinds of damask, scarlet velvet[ ] many kinds of satin, velvet dyed with brazil-wood, taffeta of four leishes, taffeta of two leishes, and _sargas_, or silken serge. other fabrics mentioned in the ordinances are _tocas_ called "san juanes," _campuses moriscos_ (elsewhere "las tocas moriscas que se llaman _campuzas_"), "las tocas moriscas labradas que se dizen _coninos_," _quinales_ and _alfardillas_, _alcaydias_, _tocas de reyna_, and _espumillas_. most of these names are of obscure meaning at the present day; but i find that _espumillas_ were silken crape, while _alfardillas_ are defined in the old dictionary of fathers connelly and higgins as "an ancient kind of silken ribbon, or tape." [ ] granada was especially renowned for her velvets (plate vii.), grounded or relieved, in the oriental manner, with gold or silver. no weaver was allowed to be the owner of more than four looms for making velvet, satin, damask, taffeta, or silken serges. the apprentice to a satin-maker required to be bound for a minimum term of three years, the apprentice to a damask-maker for five years, the apprentice to a taffeta-maker for three years. no weaver was to have more than three apprentices at one time, except in the case of the damask-makers, who might have four. no weaver might dismiss his apprentice without deponing to the cause before the city officers, nor might he accept money, or anything in lieu of money, from an apprentice. master-weavers were required to pass their examinations in granada; no other city would suffice. we further learn that many of the apprentices were "of evil character," and damaged velvet stuffs "maliciously, though knowing perfectly how to weave the same." if any worker at this craft fell sick, the guild or _oficio_ was to defray the expenses of his cure, including physic "until he be recovered, provided his be not a venereal ailment, or a wound inflicted with a knife." if he succumbed, the guild was to bury him; and when a master-weaver died, his apprentices were compelled to serve out the rest of their indentures with his widow, or his sons. no slave might learn to weave, even though he should be made a _horro_ or freedman. other ordinances refer to the officers known as xelizes and almotalefes of the silk, the privilege of appointing whom had been conferred upon the town-council by ferdinand and isabella. it was the business of the _almotalefe_ or _motalefe_ to collect silk throughout the _alcarias_ or villages of the surrounding districts, and convey it, on behalf of the owner, to a _xeliz_ or "superintendent of the market," attached to one or other of the three alcaicerías of the kingdom of granada. the _xeliz_, in his turn, was required to see that the parcel was put up for sale by public auction and disposed of to the highest bidder, after which he handed to the _motalefe_ a certificate of the price obtained, together with the corresponding cash, less certain fees deducted for himself and calculated on a reasonable scale. the number of _motalefes_ throughout this region was evidently large, because in the year the town-council resolved to appoint as many as "one or two in every town and district." ordinances to the above effect were notified to the city of almuñecar, and the towns of motril, salobreña, and the alpujarras; from which we must infer that, though subordinated to the capital herself, these places also were silk-producing centres of no slight importance. further laws relating to the xelizes were passed in . on august th, the mayor of granada (described as the "very magnificent" señor hernan darias de saavedra) summoned before him these officials in order to admonish them respecting certain fresh decisions that had been adopted by the councillors. the said xelizes were six in all, known severally as juan ximenez, hernando el comarxi, juan infante zaybona, juan de granada, lorenzo el mombatan, and francisco hernandez almorox--names which are of interest, as showing that the morisco element was still of weight among the manufacturers and merchants of granada. from this time forth, and by the resolution of the town authorities, the xelizes in question were called upon to lodge a deposit of one thousand ducats as security for the value of the silk entrusted them for sale. besides this, the silk was to be sold in the zaguaque--that is, by public auction "as in the time of the moors," from two in the afternoon onward. the buyer was required to settle his account before ten in the morning of the day next following his purchase. failing this, the silk was to be again put up for sale, and the costs of this new operation were charged to the defaulting first purchaser, who was further obliged to pay a daily compensation of two _reales_ to the _motalefe_ who had brought the silk to market. xelizes were strictly forbidden to traffic on their own account, and the fines for infringing any of these laws were heavy. if the infraction were repeated once, the fine was doubled; if twice, in addition to the same amount in money, the transgressor was banished for all his lifetime from granada. all pieces of stuff which measured ten yards long and upwards, and which it was desired to sell within the capital or district of granada, required to be marked with the weaver's stamp. if three pieces were sold together, or sent abroad to other places to be sold, they required to be stamped with the city seal at a fee for stamping of two _maravedis_ the piece. this was to be performed by the _veedores_, who were also to keep a register of all the city looms, and pay them a visit of inspection once at least in every month. finally, one of the most ridiculous and noxious of these ordinances forbade the planting of more mulberry-trees in or about granada; notwithstanding that it was also forbidden to deal in silk imported from valencia or murcia, as the merchants were said to mingle these foreign silks with that of granada herself, to the detriment of the latter. throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the silk-trade of this capital remained in much the same condition. in a company was formed at granada titled the "compañía real de comercio y fábricas de granada," and the formal prospectus of this society, of which document a printed copy is in my possession, was embodied in a royal _cedula_ dated in the same year. the preliminary remarks attached to this certificate explain that the people of granada were now reduced to "the most unhappy state of poverty, insomuch that nowhere is there memory of a greater horde of mendicants." the principal cause of this distress is stated to be the ruin of the silk-trade, in which disaster may be recognised the consequences of the senseless legislation i have instanced in the foregoing paragraphs. the fifteen thousand looms which once upon a time existed there had dwindled to six hundred, and the production of raw silk, from one million pounds a year to one hundred thousand. the new company was floated with the professed ambition of restoring granada to a measure of her old prosperity. the capital was half a million _pesos_, divided into shares of two hundred _pesos_ each; but silk and woven fabrics generally, whose value had been suitably appraised by the authorities, were admissible in payment of a share. the holder of each five shares enjoyed one vote, except in the case of founders, who were privileged, as "instruments of this important establishment," to vote upon possession of a single share. if a shareholder wished to sell his interest, the company was to have the first refusal. it further possessed initially in cash a sum exceeding one hundred and twenty thousand _pesos_--sufficient to construct and work three thousand looms in all; and it engaged, in return for certain favours and exemptions under royal warrant, to set up twenty looms for making serges of fine quality, and eight more in each year, for the space of ten years, for making _carros de oro_, _medios carros_, _anascotes finos_, _christales_, "and every other kind of stuff that is not manufactured in this kingdom." the favours and exemptions thus solicited were of a very mischievous character; for the political mind of spain was not yet shrewd enough to grasp the fact that where all competition is removed, quality cannot but decline. the products of the company were freed from paying taxes for ten, or in the case of stuffs whose price amounted to six _reales_ per yard, for twenty years. similarly, all of its merchandise exported to america "in _flotas_, _galeones_, _registros_, or other craft of those that are permitted," was freed from all except the royal dues on loading, although if shipped to other parts it was to pay a tax of fifty _maravedis_ for each castilian pound of sixteen ounces. all the materials and ingredients required by the company in the preparation of its fabrics were exempted from customs and other dues. the company enjoyed a preferential right to purchase silk throughout the kingdom of granada, and such as it abstained from purchasing was to be sold by public auction in the alcaicerías of granada and málaga, that of almería being henceforth suppressed. the company was also empowered to introduce silk from murcia and valencia, and the determination to crush all private enterprise is clearly expressed by the twenty-second heading of this document, which says; "all manufacturers and traders who do not associate themselves with this body shall pay the full tariff of dues at present established." the company was further empowered to compel the inhabitants of this locality to plant new lots of mulberry-trees, "in view of the notorious fact that not the one-hundredth part remains of all that were delivered by the royal census to the occupants of the kingdom of granada at the time of the reconquest." the company might further open shops and erect warehouses wherever it chose. its assets were to enjoy perpetual immunity from seizure by the city council, whether as a loan or otherwise, and none of its servants might be called upon to serve the crown in the event of war. very shortly after its foundation, this company united (each bringing half the capital) with another powerful association titled the commercial company of estremadura, with a view to securing a conjoint crown monopoly or "exclusive privilege" for portugal, "to the effect that only these two companies may traffic there in silk, and none other of my vassals or the inhabitants of my dominions may do business, whether in pure silk, or silk mixed with silver or with gold, in the kingdom of portugal aforesaid." the privilege was granted in these terms, and bears the royal signature, attached at aranjuez, june th, . its provisions were to last for ten years, and, in return for their concession, the two companies engaged for a like term of ten years to set up fifty silk-looms annually at toledo, "over and above the looms at present working in that city." i have not been able to trace, in writing or in print, the subsequent records of the royal commercial and manufacturing company of granada, although i have been told that it existed for some time, and that on one occasion there was a riot among the townsfolk in opposition to its tyranny.[ ] in swinburne wrote of the same region: "the annual produce of silk in this province, before the year , seldom fell short of two millions six hundred thousand pounds weight, whereas now it does not exceed one hundred thousand." judging from this, the company does not appear to have prospered. in the same author wrote of other and more fertile silk-producing districts: "the manufacturers of silk are the cause of a population (_i.e._ in valencia) that may be reckoned considerable, if compared to that of other provinces of spain. the produce of this article came this year to one million pounds, but one year with another the average quantity is about nine hundred thousand pounds, worth a doubloon a pound in the country. the crop of silk this last season was very abundant. government has prohibited the exportation of valencian raw silk, in order to lay in a stock to keep the artificers constantly employed in bad years; for it has happened in some, that half the workmen have been laid idle for want of materials. as they are not so strict about murcian silk, which is of an inferior quality, i am told that some from valencia is sent out of spain under that denomination. the great nurseries of mulberry-plants in this plain (the huerta of valencia) are produced from seed obtained by rubbing a rope of _esparto_ over heaps of ripe mulberries, and then burying the rope two inches under ground. as the young plants come up, they are drawn and transplanted. the trees, which are all of the white kind, are afterwards set out in rows in the fields, and pruned every second year; in murcia, only every third year, and in granada never. the granadine silk is esteemed the best of all; and the trees are all of the black sort of mulberry." [ ] similar companies were formed at toledo, zaragoza, burgos, seville, and zarza. for the crown _cedula_, dated february th, , authorizing the real compañía de comercio y fábricas of toledo, see larruga's _memorias_, vol. vii., p. . according to laborde, who wrote some twenty-five years later; "the cultivation of silk was formerly very flourishing in andalusia; the kingdoms of granada, seville, and jaen produced immense quantities of it, but after the conquest of those countries it was burdened with heavy taxes: silk was made subject to ecclesiastical tithes payable in kind; the royal tenth it paid under the moors was retained, estimated at three _reales vellon_ each pound of silk. to these were added a duty of _tartil_ of seventeen _maravedis_ per pound and duties of _alcabalas_ and _cientos_, fixed at eleven _reales_ thirty-two _maravedís_. there accrued from it a tax of fifteen _reales_ fifteen _maravedís_ for the king, and six _reales_, or thereabouts, for the ecclesiastical tithe, making together twenty-one _reales_ fifteen _maravedís_, or about four shillings and sixpence the pound, which at that time sold only for thirty _reales_, or six shillings and three pence english. the speculators were consequently discouraged, most of them relinquished a labour from which they derived so little profit, and this branch of industry entirely failed in the kingdoms of cordova and seville, and afterwards in those of granada and jaen. for some time it has been looking up in the two latter kingdoms, but it is very far from what it was under the moors. the mulberries of granada and jaen are black; they are suffered to grow without any care or management, are never lopped or dressed, and look as if they were planted by chance." of murcia he wrote; "this province has the raw materials of other manufactures no less important. in the first place, it has a prodigious quantity of silkworms, which are not turned to advantage; most of the raw silks are sold to the neighbouring provinces, and manufactured silk is imported from foreign looms, though the inhabitants might manufacture their own materials, and make it an article of considerable exportation. the town of murcia is the only place where they work some small quantity; there they manufacture a few slight silks, chiefly taffetas and velvets, but of an inferior quality; and the whole is confined to a small number of looms. they make a much greater quantity of ribbons, in which twelve hundred looms are employed; but they are badly dyed, and have not a good gloss. the murcians likewise prepare the raw silk, spin, and twist it; they have even a warden, and a great number of masters in this business, and, in spite of its importance, they carry it on without being subject to any superintendence, everyone doing as he pleases. the consequence is that the silk is badly prepared and spun unequally. the threads are collected without any method, sometimes more, sometimes less, and then twisted unequally. they are of course unfit to make fine stuffs, and the trade of murcia is therefore declining.... silk stuffs, satins, velvets, and taffetas are made here, but there is no great manufactory of them. they are wrought at private houses, and are but of a middling quality." toledo silk, including the delicate and costly _cendal_ (see pp. , ) which is mentioned in the sumptuary law, dated , of alfonso the eleventh, was largely in demand from early in the middle ages till about the sixteenth century. the statements of the older writers as to this neighbourhood are contradictory. according to damián de olivares, himself a native of toledo, this city in the sixteenth century possessed between five thousand five hundred and six thousand looms, consuming annually more than six hundred thousand pounds of raw silk. other authors estimate the number of her looms at twenty, thirty, or even forty thousand. writing in our own time, count cedillo is responsible for declaring that after the revolt of the communities, the persons occupied in weaving silk amounted to fifty thousand, all of whom were natives of toledo and the neighbouring villages; and he adds, perhaps a little rashly, that the velvets, damasks, satins, and taffetas of this locality were "unrivalled, even in comparison with the admirable products of seville, cordova, and granada."[ ] certainly, the silk stockings of toledo enjoyed a wide-spread fame, and were used, among other distinguished patrons, by the duke of guise and by philip the second. they were also exported in quantities to america. banners, altar-fronts, and vestments for religious worship were also made here in large numbers, and of excellent quality, both in silk alone, and in this substance mixed with gold and silver. [ ] _toledo en el siglo xvi._ miquel y badía says that in the fifteenth century toledo, together with genoa and venice, manufactured superb velvets, coloured crimson, blue, purple, or yellow, and figured with pineapples or pomegranates (plate iv.). the latter tree and fruit are commonly related, in spain, with the city of _granada_; but quite apart from this, the pomegranate was formerly regarded as a symbol of fecundity and life. (see goblet d'alviella, _la migration des symboles_, p. , and also madame errera's catalogue, no. .) in these velvets the gold thread is woven with consummate skill, and forms, in the costliest and most elaborate specimens, a groundwork of exceedingly small rings. these fabrics were used as hangings for beds and walls, as well as for the clothing of great lords and ladies. touching the use of silk for certain articles of dress, an amusing story is told in the ms. account of valladolid, published by gayangos in the _revista de españa_. "one day, don pedro de medicis is reported to have paid a visit to a married lady, to whom he had presented some damask curtains, and he was wearing at the time some taffeta hose which made a creaking as he walked. the lady came out of her room, and, finding him in one of the lower apartments, exclaimed, 'why do you come here at such an hour, and with that silk on you which creaks so loudly? take care my husband does not hear it.' whereto the gentleman replied; 'good god, madam, is it possible that the two hundred yards of damask which i gave you for that curtain have made no noise at all, but that a mere four yards of simple taffeta about my breeches should put you in such consternation?'" laborde wrote of all these manufactures at the time of their decline; "it is easy to estimate their former importance from the loss they sustained by the introduction of foreign merchandise. the memorial states that the consumption of silk was materially diminished, and computes the loss sustained by thirty-eight thousand artisans, from the interruption of their occupation, at , , ducats. symptoms of decay continued to increase till the middle of the sixteenth century, when every vestige of commerce was effaced. "toledo remained in this state of listless despondence till the present archbishop made a noble effort to revive the love of industry, and to open an asylum for the tribes of mendicants, accustomed from infancy to subsist on precarious bounty. the measure adopted by this prelate was to establish in the alcazar various branches of manufacture, such as linen, ribbons, cloths, serges, woollen stuffs, and silk stuffs of every description. he introduced also another branch of occupation, appropriated solely to the production of sacerdotal ornaments. in there were a hundred and twelve manufactories in toledo, ten for lawns and canvas, twelve for ribbons, fifty-five for silk, and seven for sacerdotal ornaments. at this period the indigent class employed in them amounted to six hundred people, who were instructed in various processes, and were led insensibly to acquire the useful habits of industry. they were taught to draw, to prepare the materials, and to perform the manufacture; and each was destined to pursue some occupation suitable to his age, his inclination, and his abilities." in townsend, himself a clergyman, had written of toledo in far less hopeful terms. "this city, which contained two hundred thousand souls, is now reduced to less than twenty-five thousand. the citizens are fled; the monks remain. here we find twenty-six parish churches, thirty-eight convents, seventeen hospitals, four colleges, twelve chapels, and nineteen hermitages, the monuments of its former opulence." townsend's good taste, unusual for a traveller of that time, was horrified at the profanation of the alcazar, whose "magnificent apartments are now occupied with spinning-wheels and looms, and instead of princes they are filled with beggars. the good archbishop here feeds seven hundred persons, who are employed in the silk manufactory; but unfortunately, with the best intentions, he has completed the ruin of the city; for by his weight of capital, he has raised the price both of labour and of the raw material, whilst, by carrying a greater quantity of goods to the common market, he has sunk the price of the commodity so much, that the manufacturers, who employed from forty to sixty workmen, now employ only two or three, and many who were in affluence are now reduced to penury. "these people are so far from earning their own maintenance, that over and above the produce of their labour they require forty thousand ducats a year for their support." alvarez de colmenar, ricord, bourgoing, laborde, and other writers, spanish and non-spanish, of the eighteenth century, inserted full descriptions of the silk trade of valencia and barcelona. "on y fait," wrote alvarez de colmenar of the former of these towns, "de très bonnes draperies, fortes, d'un bon et long usage, et propres à résister à la pluie, et grande quantité d'étoffes de soie; delà vient que les meuriers, dont les feuilles servent à nourrir les vers à soie, y font d'un fort gros revenu pour les habitans." ricord, in his scarce pamphlet, printed at valencia in , gives valuable statistics relating to this industry and locality, prefacing his figures arranged in tabular form by the following remarks: "the silk factories of this province form the principal basis of her commerce. they not only consume all the silk which is raised in the kingdom (of valencia), and which, in , amounted to , pounds of fine silk, , of that of alducar, and , of _hiladillo_, but they also require to provide themselves from aragon and other parts of spain, or even from abroad, seeing that in the year aforesaid more than , pounds were imported from foreign countries." the tabular statement appended to these observations tells us that in the region of valencia the looms for making fine and silken fabrics such as velvets, _anascotes_, stockings, handkerchiefs, scarves, garters, and ribbons, gave employment to a total of , workmen, and were distributed among the towns or villages of valencia, alcira, san felipe, alcoy, vilanesa, denia, ruzafa, alicante, peniscola, beniganim, pego, olivo, liria, asuevar, orihuela, gandia, elche, castellon, and vall de almonacid. riaño admits, however, that this manufacture might have prospered even more, if means had been adopted to suppress certain acts committed by the weavers, spinners, and twisters of the silk. more curious and instructive is the description of the same industry by jean-françois bourgoing, whose observations, evidently secured at first-hand, are worth translating _in extenso_:-- "what attracted us still more than the fine-art works were the stuffs produced at the silk-factories, which constitute the principal glory of valencia and contribute to her prosperous condition. we followed all the process of this manufacture, from the cultivation of the mulberry-tree to the weaving of the richest fabrics. i will try, therefore, to give a comprehensive account of them. "spain, and particularly the kingdom of valencia, could well export her silk to foreign parts, even after setting apart a quantity sufficient for her factories. government, however, does not appear to be convinced of this, because it offers constant hindrance to such exportation, or else, when it consents to it, imposes heavy dues. these dues consist of nine _reales_ and a _quartillo_, or nearly two _livres_ seven _francs_ per each valencian pound of silk, which only weighs twelve ounces, and is worth at least fifteen _livres_ when it is in the raw state. when the silk harvest has been scanty, as in the year , it has been known to fetch eighty _reales_ or twenty _livres_. this year, too, the yield of silk has been so small that the manufacturers of valencia petitioned government to allow the introduction, duty-free, of two hundred thousand pounds of it from italy and france. "in ordinary years, the pound of (raw) silk costs eight _reales_ for twisting and three _reales_ for dyeing in green, blue or other common colours; so that this material, ready to use, costs altogether about seventy-one _reales_ the pound, or seventeen to eighteen francs of our money. "of course this price varies according to circumstances. one of the causes which exercise the greatest influence on this fluctuation is the harvest of the mulberry. these valuable trees are thickly planted over the champaign of valencia, and all of them are of the white-leaved kind. this distinction, which would be superfluous in france, is by no means so in spain, where, in several provinces, as, for instance, the kingdom of granada, the leaves of the black mulberry are used to nourish the silkworms, and yield almost as handsome a silk as those of the white.[ ] [ ] "the mulberry of valencia is the _white_, as being most suitable to a well-watered plain. in granada they give the preference to the _black_, as thriving well in elevated stations, as more durable, more abundant in leaves, and yielding a much finer and more valuable silk. but then it does not begin bearing till it is about twenty years of age. in this province they reckon that five trees should produce two pounds of silk. "i had the curiosity to examine their method of feeding the silkworms. these industrious spinners are spread upon wicker shelves, which are placed one above the other, all round, and likewise in the middle of each apartment, so as to leave room only for the good woman to pass with their provisions. in one house i saw the produce of six ounces of seed, and was informed that to every ounce, during their feeding season, they allow sixty _arrobas_ of leaves, valued at two pounds five. each ounce of seed is supposed to yield ten pounds of silk, at twelve ounces to the pound. march th, the worms began to hatch, and may nd they went up to spin. on the eleventh day, from the time that they were hatched, they slept; and on the fourteenth, they awoke to eat again, receiving food twice a day till the twenty-second day. having then slept a second time, without interruption, for three days, they were fed thrice a day; and thus alternately they continued eating eight days and sleeping three, till the forty-seventh day; after which they ate voraciously for ten days, and not being stinted, consumed sometimes from thirty to fifty _arrobas_ in four and twenty hours. they then climbed up into rosemary bushes, fixed for that purpose between the shelves, and began to spin. "upon examination, they appear evidently to draw out two threads by the same operation, and to glue these together, covering them with wax. thismay be proved by spirit of wine, which will dissolve the wax, and leave the thread. having exhausted her magazine, the worm changes her form and becomes a nymph, until the seventy-first day from the time that the little animal was hatched, when she comes forth with plumage, and having found her mate, begins to lay her eggs. at the end of six days from this period of existence, having answered the end of their creation, they both lie down and die. this would be the natural progress; but, to preserve the silk, the animal is killed by heat, and the cones being thrown into boiling water, the women and children wind off the silk."--townsend; _journey through spain in the years and _; vol. iii., pp. - . "the leaves to these mulberry-trees are sold by the load of ten _arrobas_; and the valencian _arroba_, which is about equal to twenty-seven french pounds, cost, in , about thirty _sols tournois_. "the mulberry leaves are gathered once, twice, or, at most, three times in each year; but it is not often that the two last crops are of as fine a quality or as abundant as the first. the greater part of the year is suited for harvesting the leaves, and this harvesting is carried out progressively as the silkworms copulate, steadily increasing in quantity up to the moment when they build their cocoons. as a rule only the leaves are plucked, the branches being spared as far as possible. thus despoiled of its verdure in the middle of the finest times of year, although surrounded by a dazzling vegetation, the tree looks like a dry log floating on a green expanse of waters, while the mass of naked trunks which seem to be completely sterile, and which grow more numerous as the season advances, combine to render cheerless a prospect otherwise so fertile and so smiling. still worse becomes their state when the trees are pruned entirely of their branches--an operation which is performed upon them at least once in every three years. "in the space of ten years the kingdom of valencia has yielded six million pounds of silk, which makes a yearly average of six hundred thousand pounds; and as the whole of spain produces a million pounds per annum, we see from this that valencia alone supplies more than half of the entire quantity. the silks of valencia are the finest of the whole peninsula, and fit to be compared with the best of europe generally, but the spinning is still imperfect, because in spain there are not, as in france and elsewhere, houses where the women who spin are gathered together under the eye of an inspector to see that all the silk is spun evenly. in the kingdom of valencia the spinning is distributed among several thousand hands, who introduce six, seven, eight, or even more ends in a thread of silk which should always have the same number; hence the unevennesses in the fabrics which are woven from them, while for the same reason we do not utilize for any delicate work the raw material which we import from spain. the silk we employ for our costlier fabrics is of the kind which we import from piedmont and the southern provinces of france. also, for the last few years we have felt less need of the valencian silk. the laws prohibiting the exportation of this spanish silk have stimulated the cultivation of mulberry-trees in languedoc, where the peasantry, alive to the profit which these trees could render them, have preferred them to other kinds for planting round their property. this is why, in the year , french silk could be bought for a lower price than the valencian silk purchased in that region, plus the dues levied upon its exportation. i know of a merchant who at this time enjoyed the privilege of exporting for six years a hundred thousand pounds free of all dues, but who throughout the year was unable to find a purchaser in france. spain could perhaps remedy the egress of her raw material by further increasing (as, indeed, she daily does) the number of her looms, and by exporting a greater number of her products to her american possessions; but her silk-stuffs will never be perfected until she markets them in foreign countries, where the taste of her customers may tend to better that of her manufacturers. "the silk raised in the kingdom of valencia is estimated, during an average year, to be worth six or seven millions of _piastres_ (nineteen to twenty-two millions of _livres_.) at the time of my visit to this city, she only employed one half this quantity, although her looms of every size amounted to four thousand. the rest, in spite of the prohibitions laid upon its extraction, is smuggled off to foreign countries, escaping, sometimes to france by way of barcelona, and sometimes to portugal by way of seville and extremadura. nevertheless, there is probably more silk in spain to-day than formerly, and measures have been earnestly adopted to encourage the industries which make use of it. for some time past, silk-looms have been scattered over the whole of cataluña, and in the kingdoms of granada, cordova, seville, etc., producing handkerchiefs, ribbons, and other stuffs in sufficient quantity to supply, or nearly so, the national market: nevertheless this still left a large market for our stocking-factories of languedoc. the spanish government, by the law of , limited itself to excluding these stockings from forming part of the foreign cargoes to the colonies, but as they continued to be imported into spain, this law was readily evaded, since it sufficed to stamp the french article with the mark of a spanish factory. it would have required an excessive vigilance, almost a positive inquisition, to guard against a fraud of this kind, prompted by the avarice of traders. the spanish government next sought, by the law of , to put a stop to it by totally excluding our silk stockings, and this measure, together with the establishment of a number of new looms in spain, has produced an almost absolute stagnation in the market which our factories of languedoc had formerly enjoyed in the peninsula. but let me return now to the valencian factories. "this city has no one building in which might be performed the whole of the processes through which the silk must pass. any person who wishes to examine them, must visit several workshops; and this was the course which we adopted, under the guidance of a manufacturer as intelligent as he is amiable, named don manuel foz, a gentleman who has travelled extensively in order to perfect his knowledge of handling silk, and who, among other secrets, has brought from constantinople the art of watering silken stuffs. as a reward for his activity, he has been appointed _intendente_ of all the factories of valencia. "there are hardly any merchants at valencia who are not more or less concerned in silk-making: indeed, they look upon this industry as quite a _point d'honneur_. some of them supply with silk no more than four or five looms, which work at their expense, while others have under their control as many as several hundred. "after the silkworm has cleverly built its cell, the first thing to be done is to stifle it before it can pierce the cocoon in search of a new existence. for this purpose the cocoons are thrown into a moderately heated oven; and then, when once the worm is killed, they can be kept without being spun for as long as may be needed. "in order to strip them of their covering of silk, they are thrown into hot water, after which the women workers pick up, and with surprising quickness, the threads of several of them, join them, and deal them out, thus joined, on wheels constructed for this object. on the design of the wheels depends the degree of thoroughness with which the silk is spun; but those which are employed in spain are generally the most imperfect, as i shall presently explain. "i have already said that the slip of silk should be drawn from at least four cocoons, and even then it only serves for making slender fabrics, such as taffeta or ribbon. we were shown, indeed, a skein which was assured to contain no more than two cocoons; but so slight a slip is of no use at all. most of them are made from seven or eight cocoons, and two of the former are joined in order to form a thread sufficient to be placed upon the loom. "my readers are sure to know that all woven fabrics consist of two distinct parts, the woof and the warp. the woof is that which is passed by the shuttle from one side of the loom to the other, and which is enchased between the two surfaces formed by the warp. as the woof is subjected to more wear and tear than the warp, it should be stouter. for this reason each of the two ends of which it is composed is twisted separately before the two are twisted together, while for the warp the latter of these processes is sufficient. the result of this difference is that, when looked at beneath the microscope, the thread of the woof has an uneven look, as though it were a small cable, while that of the warp looks flat and smooth, and is therefore adapted to reflect the light, receiving the shiny look which makes a silk-stuff so attractive. "but the beauty of these fabrics depends, above all else, upon the way in which the silk is divided as it is drawn from the cocoon. this first stage of the spinning is performed in one or other of three ways, according to the kind of wheel which is employed for it. the method which the spaniards have adopted from an early period has the following drawback; that the small threads of six, seven, and eight cocoons which are stripped at the same time, go to form a single thread, and are deposited upon a small spindle without the thread rubbing against another one, which friction serves to lay the little hairs which bristle up, so that the slip of silk thus formed retains a hairy nap and is easily frayed. in the piedmontese method, on the other hand, each slip is joined to another, and is not drawn apart until it has been twisted round it four or five times. "the third method, known as that of vaucanson, is more expensive than the one last mentioned. in the wheel invented by vaucanson, the two silk-slips are reunited after the first twisting, in order to be twisted once again. this operation is called the 'double _croissade_.' "if these threads, thus placed on bobbins, are intended for the woof, they are enchased perpendicularly in a machine consisting of several compartments, in which they are twisted separately. thence they are transferred to another machine, in which they are twisted all together; after which they are ready for the loom. those which are destined for the web are not twisted (as i have explained above) until the moment when they are united. both at valencia and at talavera de la reina these machines, so precious to the weaver's craft, and which economise manual toil, are not unknown.[ ] [ ] they certainly were not unknown at valencia. i have before me a copy of the work, _disertacion descriptiva de la hilaza de la seda, segun el antiguo modo de hilar y el nuevo llamado de vaucanson_, written by the priest francisco ortells y gombau, and published at valencia in , by order of the royal council of commerce and agriculture. this book, which clearly sets forth the superiority of vaucanson's method over those which had preceded it, states that at first the valencians were strongly opposed to the vaucanson wheel, believing that it caused a loss and waste of silk. probably the real reason was that it prevented the manufacturers from adding spurious weight to the silk by mixing it with oil. this practice, says ortells, was then "so widespread an evil in the kingdom of valencia, that there is hardly anybody who does not resort to it: notwithstanding it has been so often prohibited by his majesty, yet openly, where all the world may witness, do the workers spin with much oil added to the silk." the vaucanson form of wheel was also more expensive. in the region of valencia its cost was about thirty _pesos_, that of the older wheels being only fifteen or sixteen _pesos_. however, this difficulty was not insuperable, for in the year the royal council of commerce presented a hundred and twenty vaucanson wheels to the peasants who had raised a minimum crop of a hundred pounds of silk, requiring, in return, that the recipients of the gift should spin not less than fifty pounds of silk per annum. "at the latter of these towns i had already seen a single toothed-wheel, which set in motion up to a thousand of these tiny bobbins on which are wound the twisted slips of silk. the wheels i saw at valencia were smaller, because in this city there is not, as there is at talavera, a royal factory self-contained within a single building. at valencia each manufacturer, in order to carry out these various processes, requires to deal with workmen and machines distributed through several quarters of the town, and chooses from among them such as he best prefers. "nothing can be simpler than the working of these silk-twisting machines, when once the toothed-wheel has set them going. the perpendicular movement of all these little bobbins is looked after by women, and even children.[ ] [ ] at the time when vaucanson's wheels began to be used in spain, silk was spun by men all over the peninsula, except in the immediate neighbourhood of valencia (orteils; _hilaza de la seda_, pp. _et seq._) in every other region devoted to this industry such as the valley of the jucar and the huertas of orihuela and murviedro, as well as in the factories of toledo, seville, granada, cordova, jaén, baeza, talavera, and priego, the spinning was performed by men exclusively. women, however, were often engaged in harvesting the cocoons. "if they should happen to clog, a touch of the finger disengages them. if one of the slips should break, the harm is mended in a trice: the practised fingers of the machinist pick up the broken ends with marvellous despatch, tie them together by an imperceptible knot, and the bobbin which was thus delayed loses no time in overtaking its neighbours. "the slips of silk, before being twisted two by two, are put through another process which i ought to mention. when they are still in skeins they are spread upon a large tub in which is a quantity of viscous substances heated to boiling point, the gases from which tend to make them adhere to one another. this is termed _passer à la brève_. "thence they are removed to the machine for twisting them. the silk, on issuing from this machine, is called organzine; and it is only when it is in this state that it can be exported from piedmont, where the twisting process was better executed than elsewhere, until the time when it was rendered yet more perfect by vaucanson.[ ] this clever mechanic has combined all possible advantages relating to the business of the silk-weaver. his system, and no other, is practised in the lyons factories; but these wheels _à double croissade_ are only available for silk produced in france; since that which is exported from abroad and which is principally used in these factories, requires to be reduced to organzine before it can again be taken out of the country. [ ] "i should here remark that the silk which is spun and twisted according to the method of vaucanson, forms a fabric a third part closer and stronger than ordinary silk-stuffs." "in this respect spain possesses a sensible advantage over other manufacturing nations; since she raises a greater quantity of silk than she is able to consume, and could easily put it through the most advanced and perfect processes; in spite of which she has clung for ages to her faulty method. the present government has attacked this method by the only means efficient to bring about a change; that is, the slow but certain influence of persuasion. in the count of floridablanca contracted with a french merchant settled in madrid, that he should supply a hundred _tours_ of the vaucanson pattern for spinning silk, first to the murcian factories (of which province the count was a native), next to the valencian, and subsequently to any others that might wish for them; and with this object he granted to the merchant in question the privilege of exporting, free of duty, six hundred thousand pounds of silk in six years. nevertheless, it is possible that this measure may yet remain fruitless for many years owing to the apathy of the spanish manufacturers, who were loth to use a finer, closer quality of silk, because it must be woven with greater care owing to its containing three ends instead of two, the work being greater on this account without a corresponding increase in the gain. it has also been found necessary to employ frenchmen in the earliest trials made in spain of this new method. "the success of the spaniards should not be counted on, if we are to judge of it by a factory, which was founded some years since at _la milanesa_, a league's distance from valencia, by an intelligent man named la payessa.[ ] [ ] this man, joseph lapayese or la payessa, did not initiate vaucanson's method in this region. he succeeded a frenchman named reboul, who, in , and holding privileges from the crown, began to work with vaucanson wheels at vilanesa, near valencia--the same place which bourgoing calls _la milanesa_. both the king and his minister of finance, don miguel de muzquiz, were keenly interested in these experiments, and muzquiz, who owned an estate near the town of sueca, in the same neighbourhood, imported four more of the new wheels there, under reboul's direction. this craftsman, however, was not successful. lapayese, who came after him and enjoyed the same crown privileges, made considerably better progress, his efforts being seconded by the royal junta, the archbishop, and other bodies or individuals of valencia, who awarded prizes of wheels and money to the best workers in the new style. "he introduced the method of vaucanson, but when i went to see his factory he had not seen his way to recover the money which this improvement had cost him. he employed barely two hundred persons for the most important work; nothing more was done than to spin the silk, divide it, and convert it into organzine. thus treated, it cost from fifty to sixty _reales_ more per pound than that which is prepared according to the spanish method, so that its success was but small. "i shall not describe in detail either the method of dyeing the silk, or that of weaving it. the first of these operations is readily imagined; the second is hard to understand, and still more so to explain, unless one is assisted by engravings. i will merely observe that all silk is dyed in skeins, just before it enters the loom. if it be required occasionally to dye it after it is woven, this is only when the silk is spotted, or when the dyeing of the skeins has proved a failure. at the time of my visit to valencia, there were a hundred and seventeen master-dyers in that city, but not all of them were working. "the stuffs in which the factories of valencia are most successful are principally of the smooth sort; they also make there handsome damask _brochés_ with large flowers for wall-hangings; but generally all that is undertaken is by order of the court, madrid, and the provinces. the valencians follow as closely as possible the rapidity with which the french designs are changed, and those who profess to invent new ones are but copying the french ones in a greater or less degree. notwithstanding, the valencian fine-arts academy is taking serious steps to form designers, and a school has been founded which has already developed able pupils--amongst others, a young man called ferrers, who had died a short while before our arrival at the city, and some of whose designs of flowers we had occasion to admire. "but the process in which the valencians particularly excel is that of watering stuffs, which m. foz has rendered absolutely perfect. he gave us a clear account of this process, which consists in passing a cylinder over the stuff to be watered, this cylinder being pressed upon by a heavy mass moved to and fro by a mule which draws a lever round and round. the stuff is folded in the manner of a closed jalousie, and these folds require to be often varied so as to distribute the undulations evenly. m. foz admitted that the shape and the arrangement of these undulations are more or less a matter of chance, but he proved to us that it is possible to influence them to some extent by moistening the stuff in a certain manner and direction, and this is the particular secret which he alone possesses in the whole of spain. the excellence of this method is demonstrated by the beauty of the watered silk which issues from these presses. m. foz himself set us to judge of this by asking us to compare the blue ribbon of the order of charles the third, watered by himself, with those of the order of the holy spirit. the comparison, i must admit, was far from advantageous to these last." the subsequent vicissitudes of the valencian silk trade are indicated by laborde, who wrote, some few years later than the conscientious and observant author of the _nouveau voyage en espagne_:-- "the mulberry-trees are of great importance; the fields of valencia are covered with them, particularly in the environs of that town, in the dale of elda, in the county of carlet, in almost all the places situated on the sea coast, etc. there are white mulberry-trees, which are lopped every two years. "the leaves of these trees serve as nourishment to silkworms, which are raised almost everywhere in the kingdom of valencia. algemesi, alcira, carcagente, castillo of san felipe, the county of carlet, undasuar, gandia, denia, orihuela, and all the villages near the sea are places which produce the greatest quantity. "the silk made from them is the finest in spain. it would be equal to the best and finest silks of europe, if the valencians, in spite of the vivacity of their imagination, did not obstinately persist in their old routine in the skeining; for in the skein they put an undetermined number of threads. the government has hired a man who has the most experience in this kind of work; but in vain does he endeavour to instruct them, since the manufacturers continue their bad custom just the same. the quantity of silk wound annually is, on an average, about , , pounds of twelve valencian ounces ( , , pounds of sixteen ounces avoirdupois). it is commonly sold raw for fifty reals of vellon a valencian pound, which gives a total of , , reals of vellon (£ , ).... "silk is twisted in different places in the kingdom of valencia, for which purpose machines and mills are established at gandia, san felipe, carcagente, orihuela, and valencia. the most important establishment of this kind is at la milanesa, near the last mentioned town. nevertheless, these machines are not able to furnish as much as the manufactures of the country require. part of the silk is sent to priego and toledo in andalusia, whence it is returned into the kingdom of valencia to be worked.... "a great many impediments are thrown in the way of the exportation of silk, which is only allowed for six months after the harvest. if in that period the national manufacturers want it, they are at liberty to take it from the merchants who have bought it, on reimbursing them the purchase-money together with six per cent. interest. the consequence is that the merchants, uncertain whether they will be allowed to export the silk which they have purchased, no longer take any foreign commissions for it, and so this branch of exportation has fallen. besides this, a duty has been laid upon the silk sent out of the kingdom, of nine reals of vellon and one quartillo ( s. - / d. sterling) on every pound of twelve valencian ounces, which is almost a fifth of its value. this is another obstacle to the exportation of it. a very small quantity, twisted and dyed, is sent into portugal. "generally , , pounds of silk are made annually, of which , , are consumed in the province, and , pounds are exported to talavera de la reina, requeña, toledo, granada, seville, priego, and cataluña. from this results a product of , , reals (£ , , s.)." of the city of valencia, laborde wrote:-- "the manufactories of silk are the most considerable. they employ nearly , persons, and make taffetas, serges, silks, satins, plain damasks, striped, printed, of one colour and of mixed colours, full velvets, flowered velvets, plain and of various colours. the plain stuffs are those in which they succeed best. there are also fine damasks made and worked with large flowers." according to the same writer, the manufacture at valencia of silk stockings, galloons, silk ribbon, handkerchiefs, and sashes revived to such an extent, that in the year the looms for producing these articles were more than they had been in . "there are silk looms, which work about , pounds of silk annually; the handkerchiefs, sashes, and other little articles of lace consume , pounds." [illustration: viii the daughters of philip the second (_by sanchez coello. prado gallery_)] equally as instructive is laborde's account of barcelona.[ ] after remarking that the decay in her manufactures lasted from the end of the sixteenth century till the middle of the eighteenth, he continues:--"they are at present in a very flourishing state, and are more numerous and varied than ever.... there are looms of silk stuffs, and of ribbons and silk galloon. the silk works consist of taffetas, twilled and common silks, satins, and velvets of every kind and colour. these are mixed with gold and silver. gold cloths and brocades are also made there.[ ] the manufactures are not carried on by companies, but dispersed among the workmen themselves, by which perhaps the qualities may in some degree be injured. it is remarked that the stuffs would be better if they were closer, for their texture is commonly loose; they are also different in the gloss, which is seldom fine, and is never equal to that in the manufactures of france. another fault in all these stuffs is the imperfect preparation of the silk, which leaves it nearly always shaggy: the cause of this is the silk being spun or twisted in an uneven manner. the same unpleasant effect is observed in the silk stockings. they cannot be fine, their stitches being uneven, and often large and shaggy. they do not last long, and are as dear as the french stockings after the duty on their entrance into spain has been paid. [ ] the art of weaving silk appears to have found its way into barcelona comparatively late, for the veil-makers did not form a guild of their own till a.d. , the velvet-makers till , the silk-twisters till , and the dyers of silk till . [ ] brocade (spanish _brocado_ or _brocato_) may be generally described as a silk-stuff woven with devices or raised figures in gold and silver thread, or either of these metals separately (plate viii.). this costly fabric, which may be said to have superseded the earlier kinds of cloth of gold, was greatly in vogue in older spain, especially throughout the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. it is constantly referred to by her writers ("no siendo nueva la que prohibe las telas de oro, los _brocados_, y tabies."--fernandez navarrete; _conservacion de monarquías_, p. ), and denounced by her priests (fray luis de león, "y ha de venir la tela de no sé donde, y _el brocado de mas altos_, y el ambar que bañe el guante"), or in the pragmatics of her kings (_e.g._ that of september nd, , and of : "está prohibido todo género de colgaduras, tapicerias sillas, coches, y literas de _brocados_, telas de oro ó plata.... asi mismo se prohiben bordaduras en el campo de los doseles y camas; pero no en las cenefas, que podrán llevar alamares, y fluecos de oro, ó plata, ó _brocado_"). brocade was made in spain at toledo, barcelona, seville, valencia and elsewhere, but as a rule it could not be compared in quality with that of genoa or venice. a cheaper, though showy and attractive modification of brocade was brocatel, in which the silk was mixed with common thread or flax. according to the dictionary of the spanish academy, this commoner fabric was used for hangings for churches, halls, beds, etc., and a document of tells us that the price of brocatel made at granada, and containing two colours, was twenty-two _reales_ the yard. "at barcelona, laces, blonds, net-work, and tapes employ about twelve thousand persons. galloons, laces, and gold and silver fringes, are likewise made here; but these are of no great importance. silk, gold, and silver embroideries are very common, and the embroiderers are so numerous that they are to be found in every street. "_silk stuffs._--these are manufactured at manresa, cardona, and mataró, which has forty-eight looms; but principally at barcelona, where there are five hundred and twenty-four. there they make velvets, satins, damasks, silks, taffetas, and gold and silver stuffs. the town of barcelona alone uses annually , pounds of raw silk. "_taffetas, handkerchiefs, and silk sashes._--they make a great quantity of these at barcelona, where there are a good many little manufactories of this kind. there are a hundred and fifty looms at reus, and six hundred at manresa. at the last place sixty thousand dozen handkerchiefs are made, which take about seventy thousand pounds of raw silk. "_silk twisters._--there are some of these in several towns, and a great many in barcelona. there are eighteen frames at mataró, which twist, one year with another, one hundred and twenty-four quintals of silk; and thirty-seven at tarragona, which twist eleven thousand quintals." elsewhere in the course of his exhaustive tomes, laborde sums up the general revival of the spanish silk-trade in the following terms:-- "silk stockings are woven at málaga, zaragoza, valencia, and at various other places in the kingdom of valencia; at valdemoro, and at talavera de la reina in new castile; also in different parts of cataluña, more especially at mataró, arenys del mar, and barcelona. the most extensive manufacture is carried on at the latter city, where the number of frames amounts to nine hundred. in the city of mataró are fifty-two, in valencia one hundred and fifty, and nearly as many in talavera. the stockings made in spain are of a loose texture; owing to the improper method in which silk-throwsting is conducted, they are badly dressed and worse glossed. the spanish people themselves prefer french stockings, and most of those manufactured in the country are exported to america. "ribbons hold a distinguished place among the manufactured articles of spain. some few are woven at jaen, granada, and cordova; but more at talavera. cadiz has but twenty ribbon-looms, manresa five hundred, mataró eighty, vich twenty-two, requeña two hundred, valencia four hundred, murcia twelve hundred, and barcelona nearly three thousand. these looms are not in factories, but individually dispersed. the spanish ribbons are in general thin and flimsy, have little lustre, and their colours are neither brilliant nor permanent. ribbons are made of floss-silk at toledo, where there are about twelve looms, and at manresa, where there is a greater number.[ ] [ ] towards the nineteenth century, ribbon was a great deal worn upon, or together with, the regional costumes of the spanish women; for instance, on the gala bodice or _cotilla_ of the _hortelana_ of valencia, who further used it to make fast her _alpargatas_ or sandals, described in the manuscript account attached to pigal's plates as "espèce de cothurnes, attachés avec des rubans en soie ou fil bleu ou rouge." the same fabric served the peasant woman of carthagena for securing the sleeves of her gala camisole, for lacing the bodice of the woman of iviza, and in the other balearic islands, for tying the _rebocillo_ or _rebociño_ beneath the chin. also it was with ribbon that the servant-girls of granada suspended a cross round their necks, that the _charra_ of salamanca (plate ix.) trimmed her hat, that the women of madrid, la mancha, and andalusia bound up their knots of hair (_moños con cinta_), and that, in some localities, even ladies of the highest class secured their shoes about the lower leg and ankle. [illustration: ix a _charra_ or peasant woman (_salamanca, a.d. _)] "silk taffetas, serges, and other articles, such as common and figured satins, damasks, and plain and flowered velvets, are made at jaen, granada, murcia, valencia, and the adjacent villages; at málaga, zaragoza, toledo, requeña, talavera de la reina, mataró, manresa, cardona, and barcelona. the silk-trade of jaen and granada is at present in a very languishing state; the manufacture of murcia is dwindled to a few individual looms. at toledo are fifty looms, fifty at mataró, forty at málaga, six hundred at requeña, four hundred at talavera, which consume annually two hundred thousand pounds of silk; five hundred at barcelona, which annually manufacture, in conjunction with those of cardona and manresa, about three thousand pounds weight of silk; and in the city of valencia are three thousand, whose annual demand of silk is eight hundred thousand pounds, while twenty-two thousand persons are employed in the trade. in zaragoza are sixty looms, which consume fifty thousand pounds of silk; but taffetas only are manufactured there. the cities of toledo and talavera de la reina are the only places where the looms are collected together in factories: in all other places they are separated, and are found individually at the houses of the respective weavers. "a great portion of the silks manufactured in spain are stout and excellent, but they are destitute of the brilliancy observable in french silks. the damasks made at valencia are extremely beautiful, and in that city they excel in the art of mixing silk and mohair, and produce mohair stuffs which appear to be superior to those of france and england. "quantities of silk handkerchiefs and bands are manufactured at reus, manresa, and barcelona. reus had five hundred looms, manresa six hundred, and annually made sixty thousand dozen handkerchiefs; barcelona, a much larger quantity. "at barcelona is a very considerable manufacture of white, coloured, plain, and figured gauzes. "the art of silk-throwsting tends greatly to improve the silk manufactures in spain. machines invented in other countries have been adopted here, and in many places profitable changes and corrections have taken place in the trade. silk is principally thrown at priego, toledo in andalusia, at murcia in the kingdom of the same name, at cervera near talavera de la reina in new castile, at valencia, at milanesa near that city, at gandia, san felipe, and carcagente in the kingdom of valencia. the silk-throwsters, who work at their own houses, and are paid in the great, that is, according to the quantity of work they perform, are very numerous in murcia; but they perform the business there in a very slovenly way. in the city of murcia a factory is established, where silk is thrown in an excellent manner by means of an ingenious machine, which has been already described. the establishment at la milanesa is a very important one, and well administered. at cervera are a dozen silk-mills, each having four large dividers, and six machines for doubling and twisting, by which seven thousand and seventy-two threads are divided, doubled, and twisted at the same time." cloths and woollens although the history of spanish cloths and woollens is not of great importance, i think it well to briefly sketch their history. sails and other fabrics of the coarsest kind are said to have been made, almost in prehistoric times, at sætabi (the modern játiva) and at saguntum (murviedro). from the thirteenth century cloths of good quality were made at barcelona, lerida, san daniel, bañolas, valls, and other towns of cataluña. a privilege of alfonso the learned, dated may th, , contains the following technical disposition relative to the cloth-looms of the city of soria: "que la trenza cuando sea ordida que haya varas, que pese una aranzada é libras de estambre; é cualquier que la fallare menor, que peche sueldos. que todos los tejedores é tejedoras de la dicha cibdad é de su tierra, que pongan en las telas de lino linnuelos é en las de estopazo linnuelos; é en las de marga é de sayal linnuelos." segovia was another ancient centre of this manufacture, which larruga considers to have been transferred hither upon the extinction of the factories of cameros, burgos, and palencia. however this may be, the _fuero_ of sepúlveda, signed by alfonso the sixth, tells us that clothworks existed here as early as the eleventh century. towards the end of the fourteenth, when catherine of lancaster was married to the infante don enrique, the english princess brought over, as part of her dowry, a flock of merino sheep. these are believed to have pastured near segovia--a city where catherine made her home for many years. in any case, segovian cloths improved considerably from about this time, and by the reigns of charles the fifth and philip the second, when thirty-four thousand persons were employed in the manufacture and twenty-five thousand pieces of cloth were produced annually, were thought (especially the baizes and the serges) to be unsurpassed in europe.[ ] sovereigns, including charles the second and charles the fifth of spain, and henry the eighth of england, were among the patrons of these fabrics, while as late as the year the franciscan friars engaged in redeeming captives from the turks, reported that "at constantinople, whither they had carried segovian cloths as presents to the principal rulers of that country, those cloths were spoken of in terms of high approval." [ ] colmenares, who wrote a history of segovia down to the reign of philip the second, says that in his time the clothmakers of this town were "true fathers of families, who within and without their houses sustain a multitude of persons (in many cases two and three hundred), producing, with the aid of other people's hands, a great variety of finest cloth: an employment worthy to be ranked with agriculture, and that is of the utmost profit to any city, or to any kingdom." early in the seventeenth century, and owing to a series of causes such as impertinent or improvident legislation, heavy taxes, and the importation of foreign cloths, the trade showed symptoms of decay.[ ] bertaut de rouen wrote in , referring to the spanish character at this time: "bien souvent le pain leur manque, comme j'ay veu dans _almagro_, petite ville située dans le meilleur pays d'andalousie, et dans _segovie_, qui est une des grandes villes d'espagne, et où il y avoit autrefois des plus riches marchands à cause des draps et des chapeaux que l'on y faisoit, qui a esté longtemps le sejour des roys de castille, et qui n'est qu'environ à douze ou quatorze lieuës de madrid, où il n'y avoit point de pain dans toute la ville le jour que j'y arrivay, et il n'y en eut qu'à quatre heures après midy, que l'on le distribua par ordre du _corregidor_, aussi bien qu'à almagro." [ ] an amusing passage in fernandez navarrete's _conservación de monarquías_ (a.d. ) tells us that most of the costlier dress-materials used in spain about this time proceeded from abroad, and that they were "of so fine a texture that the heat of an iron scorches them and wears them out in a couple of days; while a great number of men employ themselves in the effeminate office of dressing collars, who, ceasing also to be men, forsake the plough or warlike exercises; for it is certain that when the spaniards kept the world in awe, this land produced a greater number of armourers, and less persons who busied themselves with looking after womanish apparel" (p. ). the rise, decay, and subsequent revival of the spanish cloth industries, and particularly the segovian, are well described by laborde, bourgoing, and townsend. according to the first of these authorities, "at so early a period as the merchants (of segovia) complained that there was every year a reduction in the fabrication of cloth, to the amount of five thousand five hundred pieces; and that there resulted from this deficiency an annual loss of , , ducats and reals, or about £ , sterling. in the eighteenth century it appeared, from the observations of the economical society, that the fabrication of stuffs and cloths employed but one hundred and twenty looms, in which only four thousand three hundred and eighteen quintals of washed wool were consumed. "about forty years ago these manufactures began to revive, the looms were multiplied, and the consumption of wool considerably augmented. a single individual, don lorenzo ortiz, has for some years accelerated their progress. in there was an addition of sixty-three looms, which employed eight or nine hundred quintals of wool, and afforded occupation to two thousand four hundred manufacturers." the same author wrote that early in the nineteenth century, "the woollen manufactures of new castile are the most numerous and important. cloths are made at toledo, chinchon, brihuega, guadalajara; serges, stuffs, and flannels at toledo and cuenca. the cloths of brihuega are of an excellent quality, but those of guadalajara are still superior to them; in particular, the cloth of vigonia. there are twenty-eight looms at toledo, forty at guasmenia, a hundred at brihuega, and six hundred and fifty-six at guadalajara." bourgoing wrote, a dozen years or so before the close of the eighteenth century: "spanish wool is eagerly demanded by manufacturing peoples of the rest of europe. nevertheless, it is not turned to so much advantage as it might be. french, dutch, and english come to spain to purchase the wools of segovia and león at the ports of bilbao and santander.[ ] not even so much as the commission on their sale is left in power of the spaniards, for the foreigners buy up the wool straight from the shepherd, and wash it on their own account. out of one million of _arrobas_[ ] of fine wool which spain produces annually, she exports more than half in washed wool, and a lesser quantity, by far, of unwashed. it has been estimated that the export duties on this wool and which it has not been hitherto thought prudent to curtail, produce a sum of close upon five millions for the king of spain. here, therefore, is another reason for not suppressing the 'abusive measure' of which the patriotic spaniards complain so loudly; since it is far from easy to do away with so appreciable a source of revenue unless one has at hand a swift and sure alternative measure by which it may be substituted. all the same, government is endeavouring to derive a greater fiscal profit from the exportation of these wools, and at the same time to bring about a greater use of them in the peninsula. for a long time past, all kinds of common woollen fabrics, such as clothing for the soldiery and lower classes, have been made in spain. the exportation of these fabrics is prohibited. as for the finer wools, these also are employed in several places, but more than anywhere else at guadalajara, where i visited the factories towards the end of the year . i was surprised to remark that in several respects the manufacture had reached a great pitch of perfection. i say _i was surprised_, because i had heard, times without number, that the spaniards were completely ignorant of these processes, and did not know how to card, or spin, or weave, or dye, or full, or calender; that their stuffs grew loose and wore badly; that the price was exorbitant, etc. how many prejudices of this nature was i able to throw aside after fair and deliberate examination of the stuffs in question! i will only quote a single point to prove that the censures which are aimed at the spaniards respecting the quality of their cloths are not applicable to them all, and that they are well upon the road to being entirely undeserving of them. i was shown at guadalajara a piece of scarlet cloth, which, both for its excellent quality and for its skilful dyeing, seemed to me to be quite comparable with the best cloths of julienne. these latter cost at their place of manufacture as much as thirty-nine _livres_ the ell. at guadalajara, i noted from the tariff established in the factory, that the price of the finest scarlet cloth was only from thirty-one to thirty-two _livres_ the ell. comparing these and other figures on the tariff, i came to the conclusion that there was about the same difference in price between spanish cloths and french cloths, in favour of the former. what seems more singular still is that the factories which work at the king's expense are generally administered in a thriftless fashion, and that the factory of guadalajara was being greatly mismanaged at the time in question. however, subsequently to my visit, changes for the better have been introduced, which will improve the quality of, as well as cheapen, its products, though, even when i saw it, this factory was one of the most perfect to be seen anywhere. within a space by no means large, it contained all the machines and apparatus required for clothmaking, except the thin, polished pasteboards which are placed between the folds of a piece of cloth as it is passed through the press. these were still brought from england; but everything else was prepared upon the spot, even to the large scissors used in the shearing. there were eighty looms for the finest cloths, whose proper name is _cloths of san fernando_, from the town where they were first produced; a hundred for cloths of the second quality; and five hundred and six for making serges, in which, in course of time, hopes are entertained of excelling those of england.[ ] all these looms were contained in two buildings, and kept employed three thousand eight hundred and twenty-five persons, all of them paid by the king,[ ] without counting some forty thousand more dispersed all over the castilian and manchegan tableland, engaged in spinning the wool which is made up into stuffs at guadalajara. it would be difficult, i am sure, to find a factory better organized. even the town in which it is, presents a striking contrast with others of that neighbourhood. i did not see one single mendicant or idler among all its fifteen or sixteen thousand inhabitants. such are the good results of its manufactures, and, above all, those of cloth, including many small and detailed processes which women, children, aged people, or even the sick are able to perform. here, where nature seemed to have condemned these ailing folk to a tedious and useless existence, art, as it were, steps in and finds employment and relief for them. nevertheless, it must be owned that the spaniards (as they themselves admit) are still a little behindhand in the method of dyeing and fulling their cloths, though when a people possess (as they) the raw materials needed, both for making and for dyeing, a few men skilled in these processes are all that is wanted to perfect several branches of this industry; especially when, as is the case in spain, government spares no effort to achieve this end. guadalajara is further the only place in spain which produces the celebrated vicuña cloth; an admirable fabric for which the rest of the world has cause to envy spanish america.[ ] as the use of this cloth has not as yet become general, it is not continually manufactured, nor is it easy to obtain a few ells of it without ordering them several months in advance. this stuff is also manufactured for the king of spain, who makes presents of it to various other monarchs. in the year , after concluding a treaty with the porte, he sent twenty pieces of it to the sultan of turkey. they gave great satisfaction. it has been imagined from this circumstance that spain would not be loth to supply the turkish market with her cloths; and other of the manufacturing nations have felt some measure of alarm, perhaps unnecessarily. the spanish government has too much sense to enter upon such a competition with other peoples as long as spain does not supply the whole of the two and twenty million citizens who live beneath her rule. the same government, too, is well aware how remote is this degree of prosperity. the clothworks of guadalajara have a kind of branch factory at brihuega, four leagues distant. at brihuega there are a hundred looms, all used for making fabrics of the finest quality. [ ] this recalls the statement made, centuries before, by alonso de cartagena at the council of bâle: "and if the english should vaunt the cunning of their cloth-makers, then would i tell them somewhat; for if our country lack the weavers to make a cloth so delicate as the scarlet cloths of london, yet is that substance titled _grana_ (the kermes, or scarlet grain), from which the scarlet cloth receives its pleasantness of smell and brilliancy of hue, raised in the kingdom of castile, and thence conveyed to england, and even to italy."--larruga, _memorias_, vol. xiv., p. . [ ] "the weight of an _arroba_ is twenty-seven pounds. the average price is from twenty-three to twenty-seven _livres_ the _arroba_ of unwashed wool of the best quality, which pays five _livres_ ten _sols_ of export duty. the _arroba_ of washed wool pays double." [ ] "it has been calculated that spain, about this time, paid annually to england two million pounds sterling per annum, solely on account of her woollens." [ ] "his majesty maintained this factory by a monthly payment from his treasury of one hundred and fifty thousand _livres_; an exorbitant amount, which very possibly would not be covered by the sales of cloth." townsend wrote in "royal manufactures and monopolies have a baneful influence on population: for, as no private adventurers can stand the competition with their sovereign, where he is the great monopolist, trade will never prosper. the spanish monarch is a manufacturer of broad cloth, at guadalajara and brihuega; china, at the palace of the buen retiro; cards, at madrid and málaga; glass, at san ildefonso; paper, in segovia; pottery, at talavera; saltpetre, at madrid and various other places; stockings, at valdemoro; swords, at toledo; tapestry, at madrid; tissue, at talavera. he has the monopoly of brandy, cards, gunpowder, lead, quicksilver, sealing-wax, salts, sulphur, and tobacco."--(_journey through spain_, vol. ii., p. .) [ ] "it is made from wools of buenos aires and peru. the wool of the former of these regions is the longer, but the peruvian is the more silky." "segovia, famous at all periods for the excellence of her wool, was formerly not less so for the number and perfection of her clothworks. now, every patriotic spaniard must lament to see how she has fallen. in the year the number of her looms did not exceed two hundred and fifty. the most important factory was that of ortiz, founded in under the title of _real fábrica_: the king possessed an interest in it. in ortiz was still employing three thousand workers in and about segovia, and manufactured every quality of cloth in sixty-three looms, from the pieces which contained the two thousand threads prescribed by the _ordenanzas_, to those which should contain four thousand. his energy was only hampered by the indolent character of the segovians. the privileges wherewith the government has sought to stimulate his first experiments in this craft are not at all injurious to the other manufacturers. they all concur to sell their goods, and at a reasonable price. in september of , the most expensive cloths cost only ninety reals the _vara_; that is to say, about thirty-one _livres_ and ten _sols_ the ell." [illustration: x priest's robe; spanish (_embroidered in gold on green velvet. about a.d. _)] townsend wrote, precisely at the same time as bourgoing: "segovia was once famous for its cloth, made on the king's account; but other nations have since become rivals in this branch, and the manufacture in this city has been gradually declining. when the king gave it up to a private company, he left about three thousand pounds in trade; but now he is no longer a partner in the business.[ ] in the year were made here twenty-five thousand five hundred pieces of cloth, which consumed forty-four thousand six hundred and twenty-five quintals of wool, and employed thirty-four thousand one hundred and eighty-nine persons; but at present they make only about four thousand pieces. the principal imperfections of this cloth are, that the thread is not even, and that much grease remains in it when it is delivered to the dyer; in consequence of which the colour is apt to fail. yet, independently of imperfections, so many are the disadvantages under which the manufacture labours, that foreigners can afford to pay three pounds for the _arroba_ of fine wool, for which the spaniard gives no more than twenty shillings, and after all his charges can command the market even in the ports of spain. "in the year , the city contained five thousand families, but now they do not surpass two thousand--a scanty population this for twenty-five parishes; yet, besides the twenty-five churches, together with the cathedral, they have one and twenty convents. when the canal is finished, and the communication opened to the bay of biscay at santander, the trade and manufactures of segovia may revive; but, previous to that event, there can be nothing to inspire them with hope." [ ] a report presented by the council of commerce to the marquis of la ensenada, put forward, in , the absurd pretence that the king of spain maintained his factories "not for any state convenience or _ad lucrum captandum_, but in order to augment our own products, and diminish those which are imported from abroad."--larruga's _memorias_, vol. xv., pp. and . also see the conference delivered by the count of torreánaz in , in the royal spanish academy of moral and political science; p. , note. several of the spanish crown factories were finally taken over by the association--immensely wealthy at one period--known as the five chief gremios of madrid (_los cinco gremios mayores de la villa de madrid_), and it is clear that the investment of a large amount of capital, subscribed by many shareholders, would of itself be calculated to destroy the narrow ideals and what i may term the individually greedy spirit which hitherto had ruled within the craftsman's private family. private interests, in short, were superseded by the larger interests of a powerful company. that which i have mentioned was composed of the five _gremios_ of the capital of spain which subscribed the largest sums in taxes to the national exchequer; namely, the drapers, haberdashers, spicers and druggists, jewellers, cloth-merchants, and linen-drapers. for many years this association administered, on government's behalf, the _alcabalas_, _tercias_, and _cientos_ of the town and district of madrid, and subsequently (a.d. ) the _millones_ tax, together with other important dues, and ultimately, as i have stated, took over, on a liberal scale of purchase, the royal cloth and silk factories of talavera de la reina (a.d. ), san fernando, guadalajara, brihuega, ezcaray, and cuenca. the decay and downfall of the company was due to gross mismanagement, and indeed, the idiosyncrasies of the spanish character render this people, even at the present day, but little fitted to embark upon commercial schemes requiring competent directors, heavy capital, and confident assistance, moral and material, from a large body of investors. spaniards, as i have insisted elsewhere, do not pull well together; and so, early in the nineteenth century, the association of the five great _gremios_, which had possessed at one time many millions of _pesetas_, suspended payment of all dividends. it is fair to add, however, that this collapse was partly owing to the wars between france and spain. swinburne had written of the same city ten years earlier ( ): "the inhabitants do not appear much the richer for their cloth manufactory. indeed, it is not in a very flourishing condition; but what cloth they make is very fine." [illustration: xi priest's robe; spanish (_embroidered in gold on green velvet. about a.d. _)] the ordinances of granada (a.d. ), from which we learn that cloth was also manufactured at that capital, contain the usual dispositions relative to the stamping of this product by the city officers. the stamps were in a box which was kept in a corner of the cathedral and closed by two keys, guarded severally by a councillor and an inspector of the trade, or _veedor_. on every day except a public festival, between the hours of ten and eleven of the morning, and three and four of the afternoon, it was the duty of these two authorities to proceed to the alcaicería, and ascertain if any cloth required stamping. if so, the stamps were fetched forthwith from the cathedral, the cloth was marked, and the stamps were solemnly restored to their chest beneath the double key. among the woven fabrics other than those of silk, and which are specified in the ordinances of granada relative to the _tundidores_ or shearers, are cloths of florence, flanders, london, valencia, zaragoza, onteniente, segovia, and perpignan; _velarte_ (a fine cloth manufactured at granada), red _burel_ (kersey) of baeza, black kersey of villanueva and la mancha, _ruan_ (roan linen), fustians, friezes, and _cordellate_ (grogram) of granada, valencia, toledo, segovia, and cuenca. according to capmany, cloths of the commoner kind, and which were popular about this time, were the _granas treintenas_ and black cloths of valencia, the white or yellow _veintiseiseno_ cloths of toledo, the white cloths of ciudad real, the green _palmillas_ of cuenca, and green _dieciochenos_ of segovia, the _contrayes_ of cazalla, and the _pardillos_ of aragon. spanish cloth was also manufactured at vergara, cordova, jaen, murcia, palencia, tavira de durango, and medina del campo. [illustration: xii embroidered chasuble (_palencia cathedral_)] laborde says: "in the archives of the crowns of aragon and castile there is a notice of the duties paid from the thirteenth to the end of the seventeenth century for foreign cloths sold in spain, and for other articles of consumption coming from abroad. the principal cloths came from bruges, montpellier, and london; the velvets from malines, courtrai, ypres, and florence. this trade became so injurious to spain, that ferdinand and isabella thought themselves bound to limit it entirely to the stuffs required for ornaments of the church, which of itself was a considerable quantity. their prohibition is the subject of the rescript of september nd, , for the provinces of the crown of castile. even so far back as the ordinances of barcelona in , mention is made of the taxes levied on the cloths of flanders, arras, lannoy, paris, saint denis, chalons, beziers, and reims."[ ] [ ] in the reign of francis the first, the importation of catalan cloth into france was prohibited altogether.--levasseur, _histoire des classes ouvrières en france_, vol. ii., p. . among the various cloths (exclusively or chiefly of the less expensive kinds) which were manufactured in the capital and country of cataluña, we read of those of pure scarlet, scarlet tinted with light or dark purple, ash-coloured, carmine, and rose; of cloth of combed wool, _medias lanas_ (half-woollens), serges, and _cadinas_ or _banyolenchs_. but before the close of the fifteenth century the production of these fabrics had suffered a serious decline caused by the tactless government of ferdinand the catholic, and above all, by the introduction of the inquisition into barcelona. a privilege of ferdinand, granted on november th, , to the barcelonese clothmakers, admits that this was the foremost and most useful local manufacture ("no y ha altre art ni offici que mes util done"), adding, however, that it had fallen into a state of sad prostration "owing to the indisposition of these times." (capmany, _memorias_, vol. ii., _doc._ ccxliv). this was undoubtedly the case; for in a report of the city council drawn up in , it is stated that good cloth can only be manufactured from good wool, but that this had now become a difficult matter at barcelona, because the clothmakers were without the money to purchase such wool. in consequence, they appealed to the city (then even more resourceless than themselves) to help them. although it has become fashionable in some quarters to deny that the inquisition contributed in a sensible degree to the decline of spanish arts and industries, the following passage, quoted from the municipal archives of barcelona, places the fact beyond all argument as far as this locality is concerned. the city councillors declared in that "by reason of the inquisition established in this city, many evils have befallen our commerce, together with the depopulation of the said city, and much other and irreparable damage to her welfare; and as much more harm will occur in the future, unless a remedy be applied, wherefore the said councillors entreat of the king's majesty that of his wonted clemency he order the said inquisition to cease; or else that he repair the matter in such wise that _the merchants who departed because of the inquisition_ may return, and continue in the service of their god, their king, and of the general welfare of the city aforesaid." [illustration: xiii embroidered _manga_ or case of processional cross (_early th century; toledo cathedral_)] in the same author remarked: "the kingdom of valencia produces little wool, yet there are five manufactories of woollens and coarse and fine cloths: they are at morella, enguera, bocairente, onteniente, and alcoy. the small woollen stuffs are principally made at enguera; nothing but the coarsest cloths are made at morella, bocairente, and onteniente. the manufactory at alcoy is the most considerable: the cloths, though finer, are generally of an inferior quality. the woof of them is thick, with little nap upon it. the finest are scarcely superior to the beautiful cloths of carcassonne." 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[ ] (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. [ ] the cathedrals of toledo and palencia are particularly rich in sets of magnificently embroidered vestments. "each set," says riaño, "generally includes a chasuble, dalmatic, cope, altar frontal, covers for the gospel stands, and other smaller pieces. the embroideries on the orphreys, which are formed of figures of saints, are as perfect as the miniatures on illuminated mss." [illustration: 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:-- ( ) the ascension of the virgin mary, who is supported by six angels. ( ) the adoration of the magi. ( ) san ildefonso in the act of cutting off a piece of the veil of santa leocadia, patron of toledo. ( ) the martyrdom of san eugenio, another patron of the city of toledo. the ground of this elaborate "sleeve" is a fabric of rich silk, on which the embroidery is worked in gold and silver thread and coloured silks, principally blue and red, combined in delicate, harmonious tones. the figures are outlined with fine gold cord, which forms a kind of frame or fencing to confine the stretches of smooth silk. the careful copying of architectural detail is stated by serrano fatigati to be strongly characteristic of spanish industrial art in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and even sixteenth centuries. the same writer considers that this "sleeve" was executed towards the year , when embroiderers of great renown, such as alonso hernández, juan de talavera, martin ruiz, hernando de la rica, pedro de burgos, and marcos de covarrubias were engaged on similar work in the venerable city of the tagus. two out of the four panels, says serrano fatigati, may possibly be from the hand of covarrubias, who was a famous craftsman of his time, and held the post of master-embroiderer in toledo cathedral. in any case, the four panels are evidently not all by the same artist, nor do they appear to have been executed at precisely the same period. [illustration: xv embroidered altar-front, with the arms of cardinal mendoza (_ th century. toledo cathedral_)] the gorgeous embroidered tapestry which also belongs to this cathedral (where it serves as a hanging or _colgadura_ for the altar on the day of corpus christi), and which is known as the "tanto monta" _tapiz_, is stated by some authorities to have been the _dosel_ or bed canopy of ferdinand and isabella, and to have been purchased, in the year , for , _maravedis_ by alonso fernández de tendilla, steward of those sovereigns. riaño gives the following account of the same object:-- "as a fine specimen of embroidery on a large scale, must be mentioned the _dosel_ or canopy called the tent of ferdinand and isabella, which was used in the reception of the english envoys, thomas salvaige and richard nanfan, who were sent in to spain to arrange the marriage of prince henry with the infanta doña catalina." the ambassadors describe it in the following manner: "after the tilting was over, the kings returned to the palace, and took the ambassadors with them, and entered a large room; and there they sat under a rich cloth of state of rich crimson velvet, richly embroidered with the arms of castile and aragon, and covered with the device of the king which is a ... (blank in original),[ ] and his motto, written at length, which is 'tanto monta.'" ("memorials of king henry the seventh," gairdner, london, , p. ). [ ] the device of ferdinand the catholic was a yoke; the sheaf of arrows, that of isabella. (see vol. ii., p. , etc.). riaño also describes the mantle of the virgen del sagrario at toledo. "it is completely covered with pearls and jewels forming a most effective ornamentation. this embroidery was made in the beginning of the seventeenth century, during the lifetime of cardinal sandoval, who presented it to the church." señor parro, in his exhaustive work _toledo en la mano_ (vol. i., p. ), gives the following account of it: "it is made of twelve yards of silver lama, or cloth of silver, which is entirely covered with gold and precious stones. in the centre there is a jewel of amethysts and diamonds. eight other jewels appear on each side, of enamelled gold, emeralds, and large rubies. a variety of other jewels are placed at intervals round the mantle, and at the lower part are the arms of cardinal sandoval enamelled on gold and studded with sapphires and rubies. the centre of this mantle is covered with flowers and pomegranates embroidered in seed-pearls of different sizes. round the borders are rows of large pearls. besides the gems which are employed in this superb work of art, no less than two hundred and fifty-seven ounces of pearls of different sizes were used, three hundred ounces of gold thread, a hundred and sixty ounces of small pieces of enamelled gold, and eight ounces of emeralds." [illustration: xvi embroidered altar-front (_palencia cathedral_)] as in other countries, embroidery in spain was executed in the bygone time, both by paid embroiderers, and as a domestic occupation by the ladies of the aristocracy. the work of the professional embroiderer consisted principally of paraments or altar-fronts (plates xiv., xv., xvi., xvii.), and ecclesiastical vestments. among the former of this class of objects, nothing is finer than the _frontal_ of the chapel of saint george in the audiencia of barcelona. it is believed to have been wrought by antonio sadurni, a catalan embroiderer who flourished in the middle of the fifteenth century. the scene represented is the combat between saint george (patron of cataluña) and the dragon. the saint has rescued a damsel from the monster's claws, and her parents are looking on from a _mirador_ of their palace. this central episode is surrounded with borders and arabesques of extraordinary richness. riaño gives a list, compiled from cean, martinez, suarez de figueroa, and other authors, of forty-seven spanish embroiderers of the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. more recently, ramírez de arellano has discovered, among the municipal archives of cordova, the names of sixteen others, who resided at that city towards, or early in, the seventeenth century. the craftsmen in question were diego de aguilar, juan bautista, bernardo carrillo, luis carrillo de quijana, andrés fernández de montemayor, hernán gómez del río, diego fabián de herrera, diego del hierro, diego lópez de herrera, diego lópez de valenzuela, antonio de morales, gonzalo de ocaña, mateo sanguino, manuel torralbo, cristóbal de valenzuela, and martin de la vega. documents in the same archive contain additional particulars respecting two or three of these artificers. thus, on february th, , hernán gómez del río engaged himself to embroider for the convent of the trinity at cordova, "a bordering for a chasuble and four _faldones_ for dalmatics, with their collars and _sabastros_ and _bocas mangas_. the said _bocas mangas_ to be four in number, and the collars two; also the _collaretes_ which may be necessary for the two dalmatics, and which i am to embroider in silk and gold upon white satin. the _collaretes_ also to be embroidered by me in silk and gold to match a bordering of white satin for a cloak in possession of the said convent." further, the convent was to supply the artist with the quantity of white satin required, and pay him two hundred and ten ducats, secured by certain of the convent's revenues, for the gold, the silk, and the workmanship. [illustration: xvii embroidered altar-fronts (_palencia cathedral_)] manuel torralbo contracted to embroider a velvet altar-front and its corresponding _fronteleras_ for the parish church of luque, at a price of three hundred _reales_; and cristóbal de valenzuela (on september th, ) to embroider two frontals for the altar of the church of obejo. one of them was to be of purple velvet worked in gold, and the other of "black velvet, with borders and _caidas_ embroidered in yellow satin and white satin, with skulls and bones embroidered in gold."[ ] [ ] the skull and crossbones were a favourite design upon these objects. the church of the escorial possesses four paraments so decorated, which were shown, in , at the parisian exhibition of retrospective art. turning our attention to the embroidery which was executed, principally as a recreation, by highborn spanish ladies of some centuries ago, the romance of _el compte arnau_, quoted by miquel y badía and written in catalan and provençal, contains the following lines:-- "¿ ahout teniu las vostras fillas--muller leal? ¿ ahout teniu las vostras fillas--viudeta igual? a la cambra son que _brodan_--compte l'arnau a la cambra son que _brodan_--seda y estam." isabella the catholic presented to the chapel royal of the cathedral of granada an ecclesiastical robe embroidered by her own hands for the festival of corpus christi. the material was black satin brocade, with a fringe of white silk, and the letters ihs in white damask.[ ] [ ] gómez moreno; _apuntes que pueden servir de historia del bordado de imagineria en granada_ (_el liceo de granada_; th year, no. ). [illustration: xviii wife of well-to-do merchant (_palma, balearic islands. about a.d. _)] the same usage continued in the seventeenth century. countess d'aulnoy says: "young ladies of great beauty and of noble blood engage themselves to wait on ladies of the aristocracy, and spend most of their time embroidering the collars and sleeves of shirts in gold, silver, and coloured silk, although, if they be suffered to follow their liking, they work but little, and gossip a great deal." the same writer refers repeatedly to the sumptuous embroideries in use among the upper classes of the spaniards of that time. thus, the bed-pillows of the princess of monteleón were embroidered with gold. the sleeves of the coat of charles the second were of white silk, very large, opening towards the wrist, and embroidered with blue silk and jet, the rest of his costume being embroidered in white and blue silk. in the palace of the same monarch, the daïs of the throne-room was covered with "a wondrous carpet, and the throne and its canopy were embroidered with pearls, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and other precious stones." the cloaks of the chevaliers who belonged to the military orders of santiago, calatrava, and alcántara were embroidered with gold. the gentlemen of madrid covered their horses with silver gauze, and trappings embroidered with gold and pearls.[ ] the same gentlemen wore coats whose sleeves were of coloured satin, embroidered with silk and jet, and even their lackeys, when they attended their masters in a procession, wore uniforms of cloth embroidered with gold and silver. unmarried girls and brides wore gold-embroidered bodices. the chairs in which the ladies of madrid paid visits were made of cloth embroidered in gold and silver, stretched upon the wooden frame. in the train of the duchess of terranova went six litters covered with embroidered velvet. "in the parish church of san sebastián," wrote countess d'aulnoy, "i have seen a hand-chair made by order of the queen-mother, for carrying the sacrament to sick persons in bad weather. it is lined with crimson velvet embroidered in gold and covered with hide studded with gilt nails: it has large window-glasses, and a kind of small belfry full of golden bells." [ ] a similar usage prevailed at valladolid. the account of this city as it existed in , published by gayangos in the _revista de españa_, describes don juan de tassis, count of villamediana, as "riding in the finest clothes imaginable; his cloak, jacket, breeches, shoes, and the trappings, harness, reins, etc., of his horse, being all embroidered with the finest twisted silver thread. even his horse's blinkers were of the same material." with the succession of a french line of sovereigns to the throne of spain, a taste for french embroideries passed into the peninsula, and these, in course of time, were imitated by the spanish craftsmen.[ ] "we find," says riaño, "that madrid was the principal centre of this industry, and that french designs were universally copied, as was the case in the whole of europe. the splendid curtains and embroidered hangings for apartments which exist at the royal palaces of madrid, the escorial, and aranjuez, are admirable specimens." [ ] the use of embroidery was, however, greatly curbed by sumptuary pragmatics, issued early in this century (see vol. i., pp. , ). a similar pragmatic had appeared in ; but it is clear from the passages i have quoted, that little or no attention was paid to it. i may mention here the embroidery, often of a rich and highly ornate character, which is, or used to be, applied to the regional costumes of spain. plate ix. is reproduced from a rare print in my possession, showing the gala dress, as it existed in the year , of the _charra_ of salamanca, with full, white sleeves ornamented in black embroidery with animals and other devices. a similar costume is still worn in that neighbourhood. plate xviii., also copied from a print in my collection, dating from about the year , shows the costume worn by the women of the well-to-do middle class of the island of majorca. "le jupon ou _guardapies_," says the manuscript description prefixed to this series of plates, "en mousseline, complete le costume de cette insulaire: il est orné au bas de riches broderies, mais assez court pour laisser voir un joli petit pied chaussé d'un bas de coton ou de soie et d'un élégant soulier de satin." tapestry there is a dim tradition, derived from or supported by a latin poet ("tunc operosa suis _hispana tapetia_ villis") that carpets or tapestries of some kind were made in the spanish peninsula in the time of the romans. undoubtedly this craft was practised by the spanish-moors, particularly in the regions of valencia, alicante, cuenca, and granada. this statement is confirmed by two laconic notices which occur in the _description of africa and spain_ of edrisi, a mohammedan geographer of the twelfth century. of the town of chinchilla, in alicante province, he wrote,--"woollen carpets are made here, such as could not be manufactured anywhere else, owing to the qualities of the air and water"; and of cuenca, "excellent woollen carpets are manufactured at this town." "en espagne," says müntz, "l'industrie textile ne tarda pas à prendre également le plus brilliant essor, grâce à la conquête maure. les étoffes d'almeria acquirent rapidement une réputation européenne; il est vrai que c'étaient des brocarts, des damas, et autres tissus analogues, non des tapisseries: l'influence qu'elles furent appelées à exercer au dehors se borna donc au domaine de l'ornementation." [illustration: xix the "genesis tapestry" (_ th century; gerona cathedral_)] of a similar composition to the foregoing fabrics specified by müntz--that is to say, not genuine tapestries, although requiring for several reasons to be classed with these--is the celebrated "genesis" (plate xix.) of the cathedral of gerona. this primitive yet complicated work of art, dating from the twelfth century, is embroidered in crewels upon linen, and represents the creation of the world. its dimensions are about four yards high by four and a half yards wide; but the bordering has been torn away in places. the design is thus described by riaño:--"in the centre is a geometrical figure formed by two concentric circles. in the lesser circle is a figure of christ holding an open book, on which appear the words _sanctus deus_, and on each side _rex fortis_, surrounded by the inscription, _dixit quoque deus, fiat lux, et facta est lux_. in the larger circle are the words, _in principio creavit deus coelum et terram, mare et omnia quæ in eis sunt, et vidit deus cuncta quæ egerat et erant valde bona_. "the space between the two circles is divided by radiating lines into eight portions, in which are represented the mystic dove, the angels of light and darkness: the division of land from water, the creation of sun, moon, and stars, of birds, fishes, and beasts, and of adam and eve. in the angles outside the larger circle are the four winds, and the whole is surrounded by a border, imperfect in parts, containing representations of the months, and apparently of certain scriptural incidents, too much defaced to be clearly made out." the royal palaces of spain and many of her noble houses have possessed, from about the fifteenth century, splendid collections of the costliest tapestries, consisting principally of _paños de ras_, or "arras cloths" (as they were called among the spaniards, and especially in aragon). until a later period all, or very nearly all, these objects were imported from the flemish workshops.[ ] at the palace of a nobleman in madrid, bertaut de rouen observed "les plus belles tapisseries du monde." the same author tells us that in the seventeenth century, when he visited spain and wrote his entertaining _journal_, it was customary for the walls of the royal palace to be hung with tapestry in winter, these hangings being removed for greater coolness in the summer months. in reading descriptions of spanish life referring to the same period, one is struck by the craze which prevailed among the spaniards for displaying tapestries and other gay-coloured fabrics in all kinds of places and on every possible occasion. thus, bertaut de rouen relates that when he saw a play performed in the alcázar, "le long de ces deux costez de la salle estoient seulement deux grands bancs couverts de tapis de perse"; that the boxes at the bull-fights, both at madrid and in the country, were "tapissées de brocatelle de soye"; and that the lower part of the dome in one of the chapels of seville cathedral was decorated with the same material. at the haunted castle of quebaro, on the road from galareta to vitoria, countess d'aulnoy saw upon the walls of a large chamber, some tapestries representing the amours of don pedro the cruel and of doña maría de padilla. "this lady was depicted seated, like a queen, among various other ladies, while the king crowned her with a chaplet of flowers. elsewhere doña maría was reposing in a forest, as the king offered her a falcon. i also saw her dressed as a warrior while the king, in armour, offered her a sword. this set me thinking whether she had ever accompanied don pedro in one of his campaigns. all the figures in these tapestries were badly drawn, but don fernando assured me that all well-executed likenesses of doña maría de padilla represented her to be a woman of rare charm, the loveliest of her century." [ ] "a côté de l'italie, il faut citer l'espagne, tributaire comme elle des ateliers flamands. les résidences royales regorgeaient de ces précieux tissus, qui aujourd'hui encore, à madrid ou à l'escurial, se chiffrent par centaines. parmi les présents que le roi de castille envoya à tamerlan ([dagger] ), on remarquait des tapisseries dont les portraits étaient faits avec tant de délicatesse, dit un chroniqueur persan, que si on voulait leur comparer les ouvrages merveilleux autrefois exécutés par le peintre mani sur la toile d'artène, mani serait couvert de honte et ses ouvrages paraîtraient difformes."--müntz, _la tapisserie_, p. . pinheiro da veiga says that at valladolid in , a banquet was celebrated in "a large gallery, completely covered with the richest silk brocade, as were most of the other apartments." he also says that cloths of similar richness were employed as street-awnings. "upon the ninth was the corpus procession, at which the king was to assist; and a proclamation was issued that none should promenade on horseback or in coaches. i found nothing remarkable in this procession, unless it were the hangings and the awnings to keep off the sun, which were of the richest damask and brocade." of the same _fiesta_ countess d'aulnoy wrote in : "the streets through which the procession has to pass are adorned with the finest tapestries in all the world, since in addition to those belonging to the crown, many of the greatest beauty are displayed by private persons. the _celosías_ of all the balconies are replaced by elaborate canopies and hangings, and the whole roadway is covered with an awning to ward off the sun, and which, for the sake of greater freshness, is moistened with a little water." nearly identical with this account is that of alexander de laborde, who wrote, a century and a quarter later than the countess; "on corpus christi day there is a grand procession composed of the regular and secular clergy of madrid, followed by the king, his ministers, and court, each bearing in his hand a wax taper. magnificent awnings of tapestry are raised in the streets through which the procession is to pass; the balconies are decorated with splendid hangings; the seats are covered with cushions, and occasionally surmounted with a daïs; in some of the streets the face of day is darkened by canopies which stretch from one side to the other. altars are placed at regular intervals; the balconies are thronged with ladies superbly dressed, who sprinkle scented water, or scatter fragrant flowers on the passing multitudes." pinheiro da veiga also describes a set of remarkable tapestries, evidently flemish, which he saw in the chapter-room of the convent of cármen calzado at valladolid. "it was hung with the richest tapestry, silk, and paintings that had belonged to the duke of lerma. i greatly admired some cloths of green velvet, worked all over with the _bucolics_ of virgil, in _tarjas_ embroidered in silk and gold, as though they were _sebastos_[ ] of ecclesiastical vestments, but these were old, of great value, and extraordinary merit. finer still were certain cloths of recent workmanship, such as i had never seen equalled, of a white material painted in tempera, with the borders, dresses, and faces of the personages on them wrought in twisted gold. i never saw anything so brilliant or so novel. the cloths were eight in number, with four embroidered _guardapuertas_. the persons figured upon them wore belts of real pearls, rings set with diamonds and rubies on their fingers, and gold chains and medals studded with precious stones, just as living people wear them." [ ] a portuguese word meaning a strip of silk upon the back of a chasuble. the fashion of collecting foreign tapestries seems to have reached its height at the spanish capital in the first half of the seventeenth century. "nowadays," wrote fernandez de navarrete, in his _conservacion de monarquías_, published in , "gentlemen are not contented with hangings which a few years ago were considered good enough to adorn a prince's palace. the spanish taffetas and guadamecíes, so highly esteemed in other provinces, are held of no account in this one (madrid). the _sargas_ and _arãbeles_ wherewith the moderation of the spanish people was satisfied in former days, must now be turned into injurious _telas rizas_ of florence and milan, and into costliest brussels tapestry." [illustration: xx _tapiz_ of crimson velvet worked in gold tissue (_ th century. monastery of las huelgas, burgos_)] it is perhaps allowable to include among the oldest makers of spanish tapestry the names of gonzalo de mesa and diego roman, who, in the year , were paid respectively one thousand _maravedis_ and eighteen hundred _maravedis_, for decorating the tents of king sancho the fourth. there also exists the following entry, dating from the same period; "to boançibre, master of the tents; xxx _maravedis_ for his food, for fifteen days."[ ] [ ] manuel g. simancas, _artistas castellanos del siglo xiii_ (_boletín de la sociedad española de excursiones_ for january, .) far clearer than these laconic excerpts is a document preserved in the library of the academy of history at madrid, in the form of a memorial presented to philip the second by a spanish tapestry-maker of salamanca, named pedro gutierrez,[ ] and setting forth, in pessimistic language, the unhappy condition of this craft in the peninsula. pedro relates of himself that in twenty-four days he made for the cardinal-archduke no less than a hundred and twenty _reposteros_; and that in order to exhibit his cleverness as a tapestry-weaver, he set up a loom in the royal palace (being officially the _tapicero_ to the crown), and worked for forty days where all might criticise the product of his toil. gutierrez also states that the township of madrid had provided him with six hundred ducats to enable him to establish there a tapestry-factory for the space of ten years, together with six hundred and fifty ducats from the cortes for supporting his apprentices, and a thousand ducats from the king to defray the cost of certain voyages he had made to lisbon, monzón, and barcelona, and of removing his residence from salamanca to the capital of spain. he complains, however, that the house he dwells in at madrid is not large enough to contain his loom, and replies to the objections of such persons as opposed his opening the tapestry-works at all (on the ground that this craft was practised better and more cheaply in flanders), by asserting that spanish makers of _reposteros_ were now accustomed to receive a daily wage of no more than three _reales_ and "a miserable meal." this, he urges, should render spanish tapestries at least as inexpensive to produce as those of flanders; although, upon the other hand, he admits that the colouring of the former is likely to prove inferior to the flemish cloths in purity and durability. "common tapestry," he says, "seldom keeps its colour upward of a couple of years, so that, if such were used in open sunlight on the backs of beasts of burden, or to cover carts, exposed to sun, wind, dust, and mire, or else for cleaning shoes upon, as now is practised with the _reposteros_, their imperfections would become apparent all the sooner." [ ] at about the same time that this petition was presented by gutierrez, another tapestry-maker named pedro de espinosa, a native of iniesta, was living at cordova. on february nd, , he married leonor de burgos, and received as dowry from his bride the sum of thirty-five thousand _maravedis_. (ramírez de arellano, _artistas exhumados_, published in the _boletín de la sociedad española de excursiones_.) mention of these typically spanish objects known as _reposteros_,[ ] induces me to quote an interesting notice relating to the visit of philip the second to cordova, in the year . the train of the duke of medina sidonia, who journeyed to this city in order to receive his sovereign, consisted of a hundred and three mules covered with "new _reposteros_ of wool, and of six mules covered with _reposteros_ of purple velvet, embroidered with silver and gold, and bearing the duke's arms." [ ] "_reposteros_," says riaño, "is the ancient name given to the hangings which are placed outside the balconies on state occasions in spain. several splendid examples of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries may still be seen at the houses of spanish grandees, of which those belonging to the conde de oñate and marques de alcañices at madrid are the most remarkable for their artistic design." it is surprising that riaño should insert so incomplete a definition of this word, whose primitive and proper meaning, according to the dictionary of the spanish academy, is "a square piece of cloth with the arms of a prince or señor, which serves for covering baggage carried by beasts of burden, and also for hanging in antechambers." see also vol. ii., p. (note) of the present work. if, as seems most likely, the woollen _reposteros_ above referred to were of woven work containing a device, this passage would demonstrate that the manufacture of the cloths in question was sometimes the province of the tapestry-maker and sometimes that of the embroiderer. ramírez de arellano, from whose instructive studies on the craftsmen of older spain i quote the foregoing extract, says that the making of _reposteros_ constitutes a branch of craftsmanship distinct from embroidery of the common class, and that the men who produced them deserve to be included among artists of real merit. he gives the names of two, hernán gonzalez and juan ramos, who worked at cordova in the middle of the sixteenth century. a document relating to the former of these men tells us that in those days the price of a _repostero de estambre_ measuring sixteen palms square, with a coat-of-arms worked in the centre, and a decorative border, was ninety _reales_. [illustration: xxi the spinners (_by velazquez. prado gallery_)] riaño says: "i do not find any information of a later date which suggests the existence of the manufacture of tapestries in spain during the middle ages." davillier, however, affirms that in the year two master-makers of tapestry were living at the court of the king of navarre, and that other craftsmen, holding the same title, were established at barcelona in and . this notice is accepted by müntz: "a la fin du xiv^e et au commencement du xv^e siècle, les espagnols tentèrent de fonder dans leur patrie quelques ateliers de haute lisse. a barcelone, en et en , plusieurs tapissiers (_maestros de tapices_) firent partie du grand conseil. mais ces tentaves ne semblent pas avoir eu de résultats durables. il était plus commode de recourir aux manufactures flamandes, si merveilleusement organisées. peut-être même ce système était-il plus économique. ne voyons-nous pas aujourd'hui jusqu'à l'extrême orient tirer, pour raison d'économie, des fabriques de manchester et de birmingham les tissus courants dont il a besoin?" the history of tapestry-making at madrid may be said to date from the establishment in this town of a small factory by pedro gutierrez, whose petition to philip the second i have already quoted, and who received protection both from that monarch and from the queen, doña ana. in gutierrez was succeeded by antonio ceron, who formally styled himself "tapicero de nuevo, sucesor de pedro gutierrez" ("maker of new tapestries, successor to pedro gutierrez"), and petitioned the king for the grant of a meal a day, "in recompense of having taught his trade to eight lads, and of having mounted eight looms in (the factory of) santa isabel." this factory of santa isabel was so called from the street in which it lay, and part of it is represented in the celebrated painting by velazquez called _las hilanderas_ ("the spinners," not, as it is translated in riaño's handbook, "the weavers." plate xxi.). this factory was unsuccessful, and declined by degrees until it ceased completely, in spite of the efforts made to revive it in by a belgian named metler, and in by a salamanquino, nicholas hernández. [illustration: xxii tapestry made at brussels from granada silk (_ th century. spanish crown collection_)] a new tapestry-factory--that of santa barbara--was founded shortly afterwards in a building known as the casa del abreviador. the first director, engaged in by order of philip the fifth, was jacob van der goten, a native of antwerp,[ ] who died in , and was succeeded at the factory by his sons, francisco, jacobo, cornelius, and adrian. these craftsmen worked with _basse lisse_ looms till , in which year a _haute lisse_ loom was mounted by a frenchman, antoine lenger. [ ] the royal contract with the elder van der goten, dated july th, , was the result of secret negotiations, and largely brought about by the influence of philip's minister, cardinal alberoni. in , when the court removed to seville, a tapestry-factory was established at this city also. the director was jacob van der goten the younger, assisted by the painter procaccini. at the end of three years this factory closed its doors, and van der goten and procaccini, returning to madrid, established themselves at the old factory of santa isabel, from which, in , they again removed to the factory of santa barbara.[ ] [ ] "on saturday, may th, passing through the gate of saint barbara, i visited the tapestry manufactory, which resembles, and equals in beauty, the gobelins, whence it originally came. i found a frenchman at the head of it, who was civil and communicative. this fabric was brought into spain, and established here under the direction of john de van dergoten, from antwerp, in the year . they now employ fourscore hands, and work only on the king's account, and for his palaces, making and repairing all the tapestry and carpets which are wanted at any of the _sitios_, or royal residences."--townsend, in . "the elegant manufacture of tapestry is carried on without saint barbe's gate, at the entrance of the promenade of los altos, or chamberi; it was established in by philip the fifth, at whose invitation john dergoten, of antwerp, was induced to undertake its superintendence, an office at present filled by his descendants. the productions of this manufactory are carpets and tapestry, the subjects of which are often drawn from fable or history; it sometimes copies pictures executed by superior artists, and affords daily employment to eighty persons, including dyers, drawers, designers, and all its various branches."--laborde (about ). in , when, with the exception of cornelius, who was considered the most skilful of them all, the family of the van der gotens had died out, the direction of the santa barbara factory was entrusted to several spanish artists, named manuel sanchez, antonio moreno, tomás del castillo, and domingo galan. sanchez, who acted as general superintendent of the works, died in , and was succeeded in this office by his nephew, livinio stuck, whose son resumed the directorship in , after the factory had been paralysed by the invasion of the peninsula, and destroyed by the french in . since then it has never ceased working, and descendants of the stucks continue to superintend it at the present day. [illustration: xxiii a promenade in andalusia (_cartoon for tapestry. by goya_)] the collection of tapestry belonging to the crown of spain is probably the finest in the world. as far back as the reign of ferdinand and isabella the walls of the royal palace were hung with decorative textile cloths or _paños de ras_, and among the officers in the household of their son, the youthful prince don juan, we find included a keeper of the tapestry and _reposteros_. but it was not until the reigns of charles the fifth and philip the second that the royal collection was enriched with numerous sets of celebrated tapestries produced in italy and flanders--countries which were then subjected to the yoke of spain. frequent additions were also made throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, both from abroad and subsequently (when the brussels industry declined) from the spanish factories of santa isabel and santa barbara. as early as the year a spaniard wrote enthusiastically of "the rich and cunning tapestries belonging to his majesty, to whom it would be easier to win a kingdom than to get them made anew."[ ] at the present day it is impossible to estimate with any certainty the number of these tapestries, the greater part of which are locked away. only on certain festivals, such as the days of corpus christi and the candelaria (purification), a few are unfolded and displayed in the upper galleries of the palace at madrid. their total number is believed to be not far short of one thousand pieces;[ ] but señor tormo calculates that were they no more than five hundred, they would, if placed end to end, cover more than two miles of ground. [ ] licentiate gaspar gutierrez de los ríos, _noticia general para la estimación de las artes y de la manera en que se conocen las liberales de las que son mecánicas y serviles_. [ ] riaño estimates them at this number. see his _report on a collection of photographs from tapestries of the royal palace of madrid_; london, ; and also _tapices de la corona de españa_, with plates in phototype, and text by count valencia de don juan; madrid, hauser and menet, . among the sets which form this wonderful collection, distributed between the palaces of madrid, the prado, and the escorial, none is of greater merit or magnificence than the series of twelve cloths depicting the _conquest of tunis_ (plate xxii.), designed for charles the fifth by his court painter, jan vermay or vermeyen, of beverwyck, near haarlem, and executed by william pannemaker, of brussels. it was agreed by pannemaker in that the materials employed upon this tapestry should consist of the finest wool, granada silk, and, for the woof, the choicest lyons _fillet_--the very best that money could procure. the emperor himself was to provide the gold and silver thread. accordingly, pannemaker was supplied with five hundred and fifty-nine pounds and one ounce of silk, dyed and spun in the city of granada, where one of charles' agents resided for two years seven months and twenty-five days, for the purpose of superintending its preparation. the cost of this silk, exclusive of the agent's expenses, amounted to , florins. nineteen colours were employed in the dyeing, each colour consisting of from three to seven shades, and a hundred and sixty pounds of the finest silk were consumed in trying to obtain a special shade of blue. after receiving these materials, pannemaker kept seven workmen constantly engaged upon each _paño_ of this tapestry, or eighty-four workmen in all. as soon as any one of the pieces was concluded, he submitted it to experts who pointed out such details as they recommended for correction. the entire work required a little more than five years, and was therefore terminated in . the price paid for it was twelve florins per ell, and the number of these was , representing a total cost of , florins, while pannemaker, subject to the emperor's being satisfied with the work, was further promised a yearly pension of a hundred florins.[ ] [ ] müntz, _la tapisserie_, pp. , . wauters, _les tapisseries bruxelloises_, pp. , . houdoy, _tapisseries représentant la conqueste du royaulme de thunes par l'empereur charles-quint_. equally remarkable are the spirited design and the flawless execution of this series of elaborate cloths, recalling, in their swarms of armed figures and the lofty point of view, which reduces the sky to a mere strip, the vivacious war and camp pictures of snyders. the titles of the subjects, forming, as it were, a pictured epitome of the expedition led by charles in person against the barbary pirates, are as follows: ( ) a map of the spanish coast; ( ) the review of the troops at barcelona; ( ) the landing of the forces; ( ) a skirmish; ( ) the camp; ( ) foraging; ( ) the capture of la goleta; ( ) the battle of los pozos, tunis; ( ) a sortie of the besieged; ( ) the sack of tunis; ( ) the victors returning to the harbour; ( ) the forces embarking. according to müntz, this tapestry has been copied at least on two occasions; once in the eighteenth century by josse de vos, of brussels, and also, in the same century, in spain, partly at seville, and partly at the factories of santa isabel and santa barbara. [illustration: xxiv tapestry. arras work, from italian cartoons (_first half of th century. zamora cathedral_)] other most valuable and beautiful tapestries belonging to the spanish crown are the series titled _the history of the virgin_, believed to be from cartoons by van eyk, _the passion_, from cartoons attributed to van der weyden, the _history of david_ and _history of saint john the baptist_, the _mass of saint gregory_, and the _founding of rome_. all of these series date from the fifteenth century and early in the sixteenth. belonging to a later period are the reproductions of rustic scenes and hunting subjects by teniers and others, executed in spain between and , the _scenes from don quixote_, made at santa barbara from procaccini's cartoons, and the eminently national series produced at the same factory from designs by francisco goya y lucientes. this latter group amounts to several dozen pieces, including the well-known _blind man's buff_, _a promenade in andalusia_ (plate xxiii.), _the crockery-seller_, _the grape-gatherers_ (_frontispiece_), and other spirited and charming scenes of popular spanish life--"tout cela," as lefort describes it, "spirituel, vif, pittoresque, très mouvementé, bien groupé, s'élevant sur des fonds champêtres ou baignant gaiement en pleine lumière." other tapestry collections of great merit belong to the cathedrals of burgos, zamora (where they line the walls of the sacristy; plate xxiv.), zaragoza, toledo, tarragona, and santiago. the first of these temples possesses the following sets, which are displayed to decorate the cloisters on the feast of corpus christi:-- ( ) the history of cleopatra and mark antony. ( ) the history of david. ( ) the creation. ( ) an historical subject. ( ) the theological and cardinal virtues. ( ) a series of five gothic tapestries, which represent some mystery or allegory, and seem to be of flemish manufacture. one other _paño_, of a similar character, accompanies them. all but the last of the above sets are marked with two b's separated by a shield, denoting brussels workmanship. the _theological and cardinal virtues_ were presented to the cathedral about the end of the sixteenth century. they are evidently executed from italian cartoons, and the _haute-lisse_ craftsman who made them, in or towards the year , was named francis greubels.[ ] [ ] see an article on these tapestries by señor lamperez y romea, published in no. of the _boletín de la sociedad española de excursiones_; and also nos. and of the same publication, for an article on the crown and other spanish collections, by elías tormo y monzó. [illustration: xxv flemish tapestry (_late th century. collection of the late count of valencia de don juan_)] the tapestries which belong to the cathedral of zaragoza number some sixty or seventy pieces, including a series (fifteenth century) representing _the life of saint john the baptist_, from designs by lucas of holland. good tapestries were also the property of valencia cathedral, but have been dispersed and sold in recent years. the convent of the descalzas reales at madrid possesses a set from designs by rubens. ten pieces of this series formerly belonged to the count-duke of olivares, who sent them to his town of loeches; four passing subsequently to the duke of westminster's collection. the small though valuable collection formed by the late count of valencia de don juan (plate xxv.), passed at this nobleman's death to his daughter, señora de osma, who has presented part of it to the archæological museum at madrid. another collector resident in spain, mons. mersmann, of granada, possesses a series of fine brussels cloths representing scenes from _don quixote_, by van den hecke. lace although the spaniards have enjoyed, and still enjoy, a widespread fame for lace-making, their written records of this craft are unsubstantial. originally, perhaps, they borrowed it from the arabs or venetians. certainly, the earliest spanish lace was such as is made with a needle, that is, point, not pillow lace. in this form, _à la aguja_, and in the sixteenth century, the spaniards possibly conveyed the secrets of its manufacture to the netherlands, receiving from the natives of this country, in exchange, the art of making lace by means of bobbins, including the characteristic "flemish net," or _red flandés_. towards the sixteenth century the parts of spain where lace was manufactured in the largest quantity were some of the manchegan towns and villages, the coast of finisterre, and nearly the whole of cataluña. in la mancha lace was made, and still is so, at manzanares, granatula, almagro, and other places. that of almagro (the celebrated _punto de almagro_, resembling the lace of cataluña), is mentioned by nearly all the older travellers. in _don quixote_, teresa writes to sancho panza that their daughter sanchita was engaged in making bobbin-lace at a daily wage of eight _sueldos_. [illustration: xxvi the marchioness of la solana (_by goya_)] in , at the exhibition of sumptuary arts which was held in barcelona, a magnificent lace _toca_ was shown, which was affirmed by its possessor, señor parcerisa, to be the work of a spaniard of the later part of the fifteenth century, and to have belonged to isabella the catholic. the cathedral of the same city owns three thread-lace albs of sixteenth century workmanship, and the south kensington museum other pieces of spanish lace of a comparatively early date, probably made by nuns and subtracted from the convents during the stormy scenes of . dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, we have a number of notices, though scrappy and inexplicit as a rule, relating to spanish lace. one of the more complete and interesting is quoted by riaño from the _microcosmia y gobierno universal del hombre cristiano_ (barcelona, ) of father marcos antonio de campos. "i will not be silent," wrote this austere _padre_, "and fail to mention the time lost these last years in the manufacture of _cadenetas_, a work of thread combined with gold and silver; this extravagance and excess reached such a point that and ducats were spent in this work, in which, besides destroying the eyesight, wasting away the lives, and rendering consumptive the women who worked it, and preventing them from spending their time with more advantage to their souls, a few ounces of thread and years of time were wasted with so unsatisfactory a result. i ask myself, after this fancy shall have passed away, will the lady or gentleman find that the chemises that cost them ducats, or the _basquiña_ (petticoat) that cost them , are worth half their price, which certainly is the case with other objects in which the material itself is worth more?" [illustration: xxvii a spanish _maja_ (_a.d. _)] several of the other notices relating to the lace-makers' craft are from the pen of countess d'aulnoy. of the countess of lemos this writer says: "her hair was white, but she carefully concealed it beneath a black blonde"; and of another spanish lady, doña leonor de toledo, that she wore "a green velvet skirt trimmed with spanish blonde." in the apartments of the young princess of monteleón the countess saw "a bed of green and gold damask, decorated with silver brocade and spanish blonde. the sheets were fringed with english point-lace, extremely broad and handsome." the countess also says that the petticoats of the spanish ladies were of english point-lace,[ ] and that these ladies, when they visited each other, wore on their heads "a _toca_ of the richest english black point-lace, half a yard broad, forming points like the antique laces, beautiful to look at, and very dear. this head-dress suits them rarely." [ ] upon the other hand, a notice dated says that at that time spanish-made black lace was largely used at the court of england. according to balsa de la vega, whose interesting articles on spanish lace (published in the newspaper _el liberal_) are worth perusal by all who are interested in this craft, about the middle of the seventeenth century the custom originated in spain of making lace in broader pieces, dividing the pattern into a number of strips or _fajas_ which were subsequently sewn together. in belgium, on the contrary, the design was cut out, following the contour of the floral or other decoration. in former ages gold and silver lace was made in france, and also at genoa. i think it possible that genoese merchants, many of whom are known to have settled in granada and other spanish cities, may first have introduced this branch of lace-making among the spaniards. the sumptuary laws of aragon, castile, león, and navarre would seem to show that lace of these materials, known as _punto_ or _redecilla de oro_ (or _plata_) was manufactured by the spanish jews between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. during the seventeenth century and part of the eighteenth, the quantity produced in the peninsula was very large. in his _fenix de cataluña_, a work which was published at barcelona in , feliu de la peña says that spanish _randa_ or _réseuil_, of gold and silver, silk, thread, and aloe fibre, was better made in spain than in the netherlands. the journal of bertaut de rouen contains the following notice of this silver lace: "le roy y envoya le lieutenant du maistre des postes, avec huit postillons, couverts de clinquant, et quarante chevaux de poste, dont il y en avoit huit avec des selles et des brides du roy où il y avoit de la dentelle d'argent, que monsieur le mareschal fit distribuer à environ autant de gens que nous estions, sur une liste qu'il avoit envoyée quelques jours auparavant." [illustration: xxviii a _maja_ (_by goya_)] it is impossible to mention spanish lace without recalling that most graceful article of headwear, the _mantilla_, the use of which is gradually dying out. at present we understand by this word a black or white head-covering of lace alone (the white being more conspicuous and dressy), but about a hundred years ago the _mantilla_ was made of a variety of fabrics. also, it was worn in an easier and more _negligé_ manner than nowadays, retaining a closer likeness to the _velo_ or _manto_ with which the spanish women of the seventeenth century were able, at their pleasure, to completely mask their faces (plates xxvi. and xxvii.). indeed, as late as the early part of the nineteenth century the _mantilla_ was sometimes thrown over the face (plates xxviii. and xxix.). the same usage is referred to by townsend, who describes the _mantilla_ as "serving the double purpose of a cloak and veil."[ ] to-day it is worn, not hanging loose and open, but a good deal bunched up at the bosom. the hair, too, is dressed to an unusual height, with a tall comb, and over this the delicate lace covering should droop a little to one side. a flower or two (roses or carnations by preference) may be worn at one side of the head, and where the _mantilla_ is caught up at the breast. [ ] "pour les femmes, elles ne sortent point qu'emmantelées d'une mante noire comme le deüil des dames de france, et elles ne se montrent qu'un [oe]uil, et vont cherchant et agaçant les hommes avec tant d'effronterie, qu'elles tiennent à affront quand on ne veut pas aller plus loin que la conversation."--bertaut de rouen; _journal du voyage d'espagne_, p. . the manuscript account of spanish costumes early in the nineteenth century, and which is prefixed to my copy of pigal's coloured lithographs, contains some excellent descriptions of the older spanish _mantilla_. we learn, for instance, that at palma the women of the well-to-do middle class wore a _mantilla_ of black taffeta, trimmed with blonde (plate xviii.).[ ] in la mancha, and among the peasants, it was of white muslin; at cordova, in cold weather, "en flanelle ou en bayette fine: elle est garnie de rubans à l'extrémité desquels il y a deux gros noeuds: en été elle est en mousseline." the small _mantilla_ or "mantellina" of the wife of the smuggler of tarifa was "en flanelle blanche, ou noire, ou rose, brodée d'un ruban: elle en fait três souvent un usage différent des autres femmes espagnoles, car au lieu de la mettre sur la tête attachés avec des épingles, elle s'en sert de schal: quelque fois elle la met en baudrier laissant flotter derrière elle les deux extrémités qui sont ornées d'un noeud en ruban." the servant-girl of madrid wore a white _mantilla_ in summer, and a black one in winter. the same author describes in greater detail the _mantillas_ of the fine ladies. "la mantille et la basquigne," he says, "voila de quoi se compose principalement le costume du beau sexe en espagne. ce costume, quoique national, est susceptible de recevoir aussi bien que tout autre les divers degrés de luxe que les femmes d'une riche classe et celles du plus haut rang peuvent apporter dans leur parure: la classe la moins aisée porte la mantille en laine noire ou blanche et la basquigne en serge ou autre étoffe de laine noire. pendant le jour, lorsque les dames espagnoles se présentent en public, c'est toujours avec la mantille et la basquigne, mais le soir si elles vont au spectacle ou ailleurs, elles sortent três souvent habillées à la française." [ ] blonde, i need hardly state, is silk-lace. it can always be distinguished by the glossy surface. [illustration: xxix a lady of soria (_about a.d. _)] elsewhere he says: "nous avons déjà dit qu'un simple ruban, un peigne, ou une fleur, est la coiffure adoptée par les dames espagnoles, pour faire usage de la mantille: celle-ci est dans l'hiver quelquefois en serge de soie, taffetas, etc., noir, garnie en outre de blondes, ou d'un large ruban de velours noir en échiquier (_cinta de terciopelo à tablero_), mais ce ruban est toujours noir. il y eut un temps où la mode, qui ne fut pas de longue durée, prescrivait que les bouts de la mantille se terminassent en trois pointes ornées chacune d'une houppe (_borla_) noire, ou d'un lacet de ruban noir. jamais les mantilles ne sont doublées." the same author remarks of the lady of madrid; "la mantille de tulle brodé ne se porte que dans la belle saison ... elle ne dépasse jamais la ceinture"[ ]; and of the lady of granada: "si la mantille est blanche, elle est en tulle parsemé de petits bouquets et garnie de larges et riches dentelles. si elle est noire, comme cela arrive plus ordinairement, elle est alors en blonde: il y a de ces mantilles qui coutent cinq cent, mille, et jusqu'à deux mille francs." [ ] this is incorrect. it was sometimes worn longer. [illustration: xxx handkerchief of catalan lace (_presented to queen victoria of spain, on her marriage_)] a good deal of lace, principally of the less elaborate and cheaper kinds, was formerly manufactured in the kingdom of valencia. cabanillas wrote in that at novelda, a small town of this region, more than two thousand women and children worked at making laces, which were hawked about the country by others of the townspeople. swinburne remarks upon the same industry, and ricord tells us in his pamphlet ( ) that cotton lace was made in six factories at torrente, alicante, and orihuela.[ ] the total product of these factories for the said year was , , yards, which sold at from nine to twelve _reales_ the yard. laborde wrote some years later, in the first volume of his book, that lace, and gold and silver fringes were then made at valencia, and in the fourth volume; "gold and silver laced stuffs, and velvets of all colours brocaded and flowered with the same metals, are made at toledo, barcelona, valencia, and talavera de la reina; and the manufacture at the last-named city annually consumes four thousand marks of silver, and seventy marks of gold. [ ] a letter from vargas y ponce to cean bermudez, dated , says that in this year there existed at murcia a school for making blondes, owned by one castilla. "he does good work, teaches well, and has executed blondes for the queen, which are well spoken of." "at barcelona, talavera de la reina, and valencia are also manufactured gold and silver edgings, lace, and fringes, though not in a sufficient quantity to answer the demands of spain; and the gold is very badly prepared, having too red a cast." lace-making was an ancient and important industry of every part of cataluña. lace articles for ladies' headwear are known to have been made throughout this region at least as far back as the fifteenth century, and capmany reminds us that by a _cedula_ dated from the cortes of monzón, december th, , the emperor charles the fifth confirmed the ordinances of the guild, established long before, of the _tejedores de velos_ of barcelona. technical provisions are embodied in this code, concerning various articles of lace employed as headwear, such as _alfardillas_, _quiñales_, and _espumilla_, all of which were largely exported to america. the attention of foreigners who travelled in cataluña towards the eighteenth century was constantly attracted by the lace-makers. swinburne mentions "martorell, a large town, where much black lace is manufactured," and "espalungera (esparraguera?), a long village, full of cloth and lace manufacturers," and wrote of sarriá and its surroundings, close to barcelona: "the women in the little hamlets were busy with their bobbins making black lace, some of which, of the coarser kind, is spun out of the leaf of the aloe. it is curious, but of little use, for it grows mucilaginous with washing." [illustration: xxxi curtain of spanish lace (_point and pillow work. modern_)] "martorell," wrote townsend in , "is one long, narrow street, in which poverty, industry, and filth, although seldom seen together, have agreed to take up their abode. the inhabitants make lace, and even the little children of three and four years old are engaged in this employment." laborde wrote that at the beginning of the eighteenth century seventeen manufactories of blondes were established at mataró, and adds of barcelona province generally at that time: "laces and blondes constitute the employment of women and children. the work is principally done at pineda, malgrat, san celoni, tosa, canet, arenys, callela, san-pol, mataró, esparraguera, martorell, and barcelona.... the laces are almost all shipped for the new world." the most observant and most entertaining of all these tourists was arthur young, who wrote, in , of the towns upon the coast of cataluña: "the appearance of industry is as great as it can be: great numbers of fishing-boats and nets, with rows of good white houses on the sea-side; and while the men are active in their fisheries, the women are equally busy making lace." of mataró he says: "it appears exceedingly industrious; some stocking-frames; lace-makers at every door.... i am sorry to add that here also the industry of catching lice in each other's heads is well understood. "pass arrengs (arenys), a large town ... making thread lace universal here. they have thread from france; women earn ten to sixteen _sous_ at it. great industry, and in consequence a flourishing appearance. canet, another large town, employed also in ship-building, fishing, and making lace.... pass malgrat, which is not so well built as the other towns, but much lace made in it.... reach figueras, whose inhabitants seem industrious and active. they make lace, cordage, and mats, and have many potteries of a common sort."[ ] [ ] tour in catalonia in ; vol. i., p. , etc. lace-making prevails to-day all through this region of north-eastern spain, particularly in the strip or zone of it including the valley of the llobregat as far as martorell, and which extends from palamós to barcelona. the towns which produce the greatest quantities of lace are arenys de mar, malgrat, san pol, canet, and arenys de munt. in the last of these places an important regional exhibition of lace was held in july of last year, the number of exhibitors amounting to one hundred and twenty-five. due to the increasing production of underlinen and woven fabrics generally, or to other causes, lace-making has declined at blanes, pineda, calella, and one or two other places. at san celoni, vallgorguina, san vicente, san andrés de llevaneras, argentona, caldeta, and san acisclo de vilalta, lace is made by women who combine this work with dirtier and rougher labour in the field. most of the lace made in these towns is therefore black. [illustration: xxxii point lace fan, of mudejar design (_modern_)] in the spring of last year, an elaborate lace pocket-handkerchief (plate xxx.), designed by señor riquer, and executed in a traditional style of cataluña, denominated locally the _ret catalá_, was made in the old-established lace-factory of the widow of mariano castells in the town of arenys de mar, and offered by the agricultural institute of san isidro as a wedding-present to princess ena of battenberg. two _encajeras_ worked at this handkerchief under the personal direction of the widow castells, and the time employed by them in making it was two months. plate xxxi. represents a small portion of a very original and beautiful lace curtain, ten feet high, designed by señor aguado, and executed, partly by señorita pilar huguet (who superintended the work throughout), and partly by seventeen of this lady's pupils, at the school of arts and industries, toledo. although it is a hackneyed trope to declare that the ornamentation of the spanish-moors, whether in ivory, wood or metal, stone or plaster, was "delicate enough to seem of lacework," i believe this to be the first occasion when such intricate and graceful motives have been actually reproduced in lace. the result of the experiment has proved surprisingly effective. the design is spanish-arabic in its purest form, recalling various arabesques upon the walls of the alhambra, and includes thirty-three medallions which constitute the principal decorative scheme, a hundred and forty-eight palms or _alharacas_, and the arabic expression "god is all-powerful," repeated sixty-six times. the centre of the curtain consists in all of four hundred and forty-eight pieces. the broad cenefa or bordering, which runs right round the whole, contains, in arabic, the following inscription: "this curtain was begun in the _curso_ (course or series of classes) of the year - , and terminated in the _curso_ following, (art) school of toledo." the style adopted throughout is that of brussels, known erroneously as english point, although upon a coarser scale than is considered to be proper to this lace, the ground being executed by the needle, or in point-work, and the rest by bobbins. plate xxxii. represents a covering for a fan, also executed by señorita huguet, and also in the brussels style. the design is a combination of mudejar motives, such as conventional foliage and geometrical bordering, with a spanish scutcheon and the double-headed eagle of the emperor charles the fifth. at the present day, and largely owing to the initiative and the skilled tuition of señor salvi, excellent lace is manufactured at madrid, including reproductions--which have been generally admired in great britain and elsewhere--of the finest point or bobbin work of malines, manchester, and venice. appendices appendix a the legend of san miguel in excelsis towards the year a.d. , when witiza was king of spain, there dwelt at the castle of goñi, not far from the city of pamplona in navarre, a cavalier named don theodosio, whose wife, doña constanza de viandra, was a lady of remarkable beauty. on one occasion don theodosio found himself obliged to quit his native country for a time, in order to command a military expedition against the berbers, and before his departure he begged his father and mother to cheer his wife's loneliness while he should be away, by taking up their residence at his castle. they came accordingly, and as a special mark of honour to the parents of her lord, doña constanza gave up to them her own chamber, together with the nuptial couch. after a time, when theodosio's enterprise was concluded, and the warrior, safe and sound, was returning to navarre, the devil, disguised as a hermit, one evening lay in wait for him at a spot called errotavidea, situated at a few miles' distance from goñi castle, in the wooded and romantic valley of the ollo. stepping up to the cavalier's side, satan assured him, in a tone of smooth hypocrisy, that during his absence the lady constanza had been seduced by one of theodosio's own servants. upon the knight's demanding proof, "proceed," replied the devil, "to your castle, enter your nuptial chamber, and there you will find your consort in the very arms of her paramour." frantic with apprehension, the warrior spurred home, broke into his chamber at the dead of night, and, passing his hand over the bed, encountered, as satan had malignantly foretold, two bodies; whereupon he drew his sword and, in this moment of fatal and irreflective haste, murdered his own father and mother. then, just as he was rushing from the room, he met, carrying a lighted lamp, the lady constanza herself, returning from the chapel in which, as was her custom every night, she had been praying for his safe return. smitten with deep repentance for the crime, whose enormity had been discovered by the impetuous lord in so dramatic and dreadful a fashion, theodosio journeyed to rome, and related what had happened to the pope, who sentenced him to wear a heavy iron collar round his neck, and chains about his body, and to wander, in a state of rigorous penance, through the loneliest regions of navarre, without setting foot in any town, until, as a sign that divine justice was satisfied, the chains should fall from off him. wherever this should come to pass, he was instructed to build a temple in honour of the archangel michael. the sentence was patiently performed, and theodosio had spent some years in solitary wandering, when on a day a single link dropped from his ponderous chains. this happened on the top of a high mountain called ayedo, in the sierra de andía, and accordingly the penitent erected on the spot a simple fane in the archangel's honour, known by the name of san miguel de ayedo, and which, in the form of a little hermitage, still exists. this proof of heavenly grace presaged a further and a more complete deliverance. when theodosio's wandering had lasted seven years, he reached one day the summit of mount aralar, at two leagues' distance from his own castle, and was there met by a ferocious dragon of appalling size. being, as a penitent, unarmed, as well as encumbered by his massive chains, the miserable man fell helpless to his knees, and called to god to succour him. the prayer was heard. suddenly the form of his patron the archangel flashed out against the sky, the dragon fell dead, and all of theodosio's chains were shattered, and dropped from him. here, therefore, he built another and a larger temple in honour of his guardian, and, accompanied by doña constanza, passed the remainder of his life in peaceful and secluded piety. the castle of goñi, which was also called "saint michael's palace," and "the palace of the cavalier to whom saint michael revealed himself," was standing as late as the year , but, according to padre burgui, by the close of another century the walls were crumbling fast. until about the year there also stood an ancient wooden cross to mark the spot where satan, in a hermit's garb, had appeared to don theodosio. appendix b jet-work of santiago in former times the art of carving jet was largely practised at this town. the characteristic form was the _signaculum_ or image of saint james; that is, a more or less uncouth representation of the apostle in full pilgrim's dress. the height of these images, which are now dispersed all over europe, varies between four and seven inches. they are fully described in drury fortnum's monographs, _on a signaculum of saint james of compostela_, and _notes on other signacula of saint james of compostela_, as well as in villa-amil y castro's _la azabachería compostelana_. these objects were sold in quantities to the pilgrims visiting santiago, who nevertheless were often cheated by the substitution of black glass for jet.[ ] [ ] the following passage from townsend's journey through spain (vol. ii., p. ), is curious as showing where jet was formerly found in this peninsula. "when i returned to oviedo, a gentleman gave me a collection of amber and of jet, of which there is great abundance in this province: but the two most considerable mines of it are in the territory of beloncia, one in a valley called las guerrias, the other on the side of a high mountain in the village of arenas, in the parish of val de soto. the former is found in slate, and looks like wood: but when broke, the nodules discover a white crust, inclosing yellow amber, bright and transparent. jet and a species of kennel coal, abounding with marcasites, universally accompany the amber." specimens of this work are in the british and cluny museums, and in the archæological museum at madrid. an interesting jet figure of the apostle on horseback belonged to the late count of valencia de don juan. jet processional crosses (twelfth and thirteenth century), studded with enamel, and which were used at funerals, are preserved in the cathedrals of oviedo and orense. rings, rosaries, and amulets were also carved from this material. as to spanish processional crosses generally (the use of which was undoubtedly borrowed from the standard borne at the head of pagan armies), i may say that they are commonly fitted with a handle, called the _cruz baja_ or "lower cross," though sometimes this handle is dispensed with, as, for instance, at the funerals of infants. according to villa-amil y castro, the typical shape of the spanish processional cross has always been that denominated the _immissa_, consisting of four arms terminating in straight edges. the same authority says that within this broader definition the primitive form was the greek cross, that is, having four arms of equal length. another early form was the "oviedo" cross (see vol. i., plate ii.), with the four arms in the shape of trapezia, united at the centre by a disc. of this latter shape are, or were, the crosses of guarrazar and those which were presented by alfonso the second and alfonso the third to the cathedrals of oviedo and santiago. a later form was the _potenzada_ cross, which had a cross-piece fixed at the extremity of each arm. as time advanced, this t-shaped termination to the arms assumed such decorative and capricious forms as the trefoil and the fleur-de-lis. early in the history of the spanish church the processional cross consisted often of a wooden core, covered with more or less profusely ornamented silver plates, and having, between the handle and the upper part, an enamelled bulb or _n[oe]ud_. the image of christ, converting the cross into the crucifix, was not attached until a later period, because, as villa-amil y castro has remarked, the primitive christians considered the essential glory of their faith, rather than, as yet, the perils and the pains to which they were exposed by clinging to that faith. the cross was thus the symbol of the christian's glory; the crucifix, of his suffering.[ ] [ ] as for the clothing of sacred images in spain, even these are subject to changes in the fashion of costume. ford makes merry over "the saviour in a court-dress, with wig and breeches." swinburne wrote in , from alicante: "we have been all the morning in great uneasiness about sir t. g.'s valet de chambre, who, till within this hour, was not to be found in any of the places he usually frequents. his appearance has quieted our apprehensions; and it seems he has been from sunrise till dinner-time locked up in the sacristy of the great church, curling and frizzling the flaxen periwig of the statue of the virgin, who is to-morrow to be carried in solemn procession through the city." a similar passage occurs in one of the letters of lady mary wortley montagu. "i was particularly diverted," she wrote from nuremberg in , "in a little roman catholic church which is permitted here, where the professors of that religion are not very rich, and consequently cannot adorn their images in so rich a manner as their neighbours. for, not to be quite destitute of all finery, they have dressed up an image of our saviour over the altar in a fair, full-bottomed wig, very well powdered." appendix c description of the _custodias_ of seville and cordova the _custodia_ of seville cathedral is described by its author, juan de arfe, in the following terms:-- the shape is circular, with projecting friezes and bases. the _custodia_ is four yards high, and is divided into four orders of symmetrical proportions, the second order being smaller by two-fifths than the first, the third smaller by the same fraction than the second, and the fourth than the third. each order rests upon four-and-twenty columns, twelve of which are of a larger size, and wrought in relief. the other and the smaller twelve are striated, and serve as imposts to the arches. all these orders are of open work, containing twelve _vistas_ (prospects) apiece. six are of full dimensions, and the other six spring from half-way up the larger ones, as is shown in the appended design, which i will not explain further, as the proportion and harmony can be judged of from the plan (see vol. i., plate xvii.). first order the first order is in the ionic style. the columns and frieze are adorned with vines containing fruits and foliage, and some figures of children holding spikes of wheat, to signify bread and wine. in the centre of this, the largest order, is faith, represented by the figure of a queen, seated on a throne, holding in her right hand a chalice with the host, and in the other a standard such as is seen in certain ancient medals of the emperors constantine and theodosius. beneath her feet is a world, and behind her, overthrown and bound with chains, a monster with the face of a beautiful woman and the trunk or body of a dragon, to represent heresy, which seems to attract by pleasantness of shape, being at bottom poison and deceit. at one side is the figure of a youth with wings, and a bandage over his eyes, representing intelligence. his hands are shackled, and he is kneeling, as one that surrenders himself captive to faith in all her mysteries, and particularly in this one. corresponding to this figure, on the opposite side, is that of a beautiful woman, likewise kneeling, crossing her hands before her breast, and holding a book, to represent human wisdom, which acknowledges the majesty of the catholic faith, and is subservient thereto. on the right hand of faith is saint peter, seated, holding his keys on high, and on her left saint paul, with naked sword, that is, the preaching of the word of god. high up, about the spring of the vault, is the figure of the holy spirit, assistant in the church. between the six _asientos_ of the base are the four doctors of the church, together with saint thomas and pope urban the fourth, who instituted the festival of the holy sacrament. all these figures are half a yard in height; that is, one half the height of the larger columns belonging to this order. in the six niches that are between the arches, are the figures of six sacraments, in this wise:-- ( ) _baptism_, represented by the figure of a youth holding in one hand a bunch of lilies, signifying purity and innocence, and in the other a beautiful vessel, showing the act of washing the soul, that is the particular virtue of this sacrament. over the arch is a scroll containing the word baptismus. ( ) _confirmation_ is a damsel of spirited mien, armed with a helmet. in one hand she has some vessels of holy oil. her other hand is raised, while with the index finger she expresses firm determination to confess the name of christ. inscribed upon her is the word confirmatio. ( ) _penitence_ holds in her right hand a wand, denoting spiritual jurisdiction, like the wand wherewith they smite the excommunicated at his absolution. in her left hand is a roman javelin, that was the symbol of liberty, to signify the free estate of the captive's soul, and how, through absolution, sin is made a slave; together with the word p[oe]nitentia. ( ) _extreme unction_ is represented by an aged woman, holding a vase whence issueth an olive bough, and in her other hand a candle, as token that this sacrament is a succour to those that be in the last agony. the word inscribed is unctio. ( ) _order_ is a priest with his vestments, holding an incensory, together with a chalice and the host, signifying oration and sacrifice. the word inscribed is ordo. ( ) _matrimony_ is the figure of a youth, holding in one hand a cross with two serpents twined about it, in imitation of mercury's wand. in his other hand he bears a yoke, and the inscription matrimonium. * * * * * the holy sacrament of the eucharist, as being most excellent of all, occupies a loftier place than all these other sacraments. the basement of this order, forming, as it were, a boundary and bordering to this holy edifice of the church, has twelve pedestals beneath the columns, making six and thirty sides, which are adorned with six and thirty scenes, eighteen whereof are taken from the old testament, and the other eighteen from the new testament, or relating to the present state of the church. ( ) the first scene represents how god formed eve from one of adam's ribs. an inscription at the foot of the pedestal says, _humani generis auspicia_. ( ) next to the preceding is an image of our saviour with two angels supporting him by the arms, while from his wounded side issue seven rays of blood, signifying the church and sacraments. the inscription says, _felicior propagatio_. ( ) the tree of life, with adam and eve partaking of its fruit, and the inscription, _perituræ gaudia vitæ_. ( ) a cross adorned with branches and with blades of wheat, surmounted by a chalice and the host, and round about it a few prostrate figures, eating this holy fruit, and the inscription, _vitæ melioris origo_. ( ) the angel with the flaming sword, driving our fathers from paradise, without suffering them to reach the tree of life. the inscription says, _procul, procul esse prophani_. ( ) the parable of the banquet, from which was driven out the man that had no wedding garment. the inscription says, _non licet sanctum dare canibus_. ( ) the stream of water that issued from the rock smitten by the rod of moses, and the thirsty people, drinking. the inscription says, _bibebant de spirituali petra_. ( ) beside the preceding, the figure of christ, from whose side issues a stream of blood, of which some sheep are drinking. the inscription says, _petra autem erat christus_. ( ) the manna which fell from heaven. the inscription says, _manducaverunt et mortui sunt_. ( ) the miracle of the five loaves, with the inscription, _qui manducat vivit in æternum_. ( ) the raven bringing bread and meat to elijah. the inscription says, _non turpat dona minister_. ( ) next to this, an angel conveying a chalice and the host to the saints in the desert, with the inscription, _sacerdos angelus domini est_. ( ) elisha throwing flour in the pot to sweeten the bitterness of the colocynth. the inscription says, _vitæ solamen acerbæ_. ( ) christ turning the water into wine, with the inscription, _vertit tristes in gaudia curas_. ( ) tobias frightening away the devil with the smoke from the liver of a fish. the inscription says, _fumum fugit atra caterva_. ( ) devils flying from an altar containing a chalice and the host, with the inscription, _fugiunt phantasmata lucem_. ( ) lot inebriated, sleeping with his daughters. the inscription says, _de vinea sodomorum vinum eorum_. ( ) a group of virgins prostrating themselves before the sacrament upon the altar, with the inscription, _hoc vinum virgines germinat_. ( ) abraham harbouring the angels and washing their feet. the inscription says, _non licet illotos accedere_. ( ) christ washing the feet of his disciples before a table. the inscription says, _auferte malum cogitationum vestrarum_. ( ) the supper of the paschal lamb, with the inscription, _antiqua novis misteria cedunt_. ( ) the supper of christ, with the inscription, _melioris fercula mensæ_. ( ) the throne of god, before which stands the prophet isaiah, and an angel whose mouth is smitten by a lighted brand. the inscription says, _purgavit filios levi_. ( ) a priest before an altar, in his robes, administering the communion to the christian people. the inscription says, _probet se ipsum homo_. ( ) elijah reclining in the shade of the tree, with an angel bringing him bread and a vessel. the inscription says, _in pace in idipsum_. ( ) a sick man in his bed, with a priest administering the sacrament to him. the inscription says, _dormiam et requiescam_. ( ) habbakuk borne by the angels to the den of lions, to carry food to daniel. the inscription says, _adjutor in opportunitatibus_. ( ) an angel with a chalice and the host, which he administers to the souls in purgatory. the inscription says, _emissit vinctos de lacu_. ( ) noah sleeping beneath the vine, holding a vessel, with his sons gathered about him. the inscription says, _humanæ ebrietatis ludibria_. ( ) christ with a chalice in his hand, and angels round him, holding clusters of grapes, and a cross surrounded with a vine. the inscription says, _calix ejus inebrians quant præclarus est_. ( ) a queen adorned profanely, crowned with a snake. she holds a vessel in her hand, and rides upon a dragon with seven heads, some of which are drooping, as though they were inebriated. the inscription says, _hæreticæ impietatis ebrietas_. ( ) the figure of a virtuous lady wearing a royal crown. she holds a chalice in her hand, and rides in a car borne by the figures of the four evangelists. the inscription says, _ecclesiæ catholicæ veritas_. ( ) the table with the loaves of propitiation, before the tabernacle, with moses and aaron standing beside it, and the inscription, _umbram fugit veritas_. ( ) a custodia, with a chalice and the host, borne by angels. the inscription says, _ecce panis angelorum_. ( ) david and his soldiers, who receive bread from the priest's hand. the inscription says, _absit mens conscia culpæ_. ( ) a priest, administering the sacrament to two persons, each of whom has an angel beside him. the inscription says, _sancta sanctis_. * * * * * and since all sacraments have virtue and efficacy from the passion of christ our saviour, which passion is perpetually commemorated by this holiest of sacraments, i placed upon the summit of the twelve columns belonging to this order twelve child-angels, naked, bearing the signs and instruments of the passion, as voices to announce this sacred mystery. on the tympanums of the arches are angels bearing grapes and ears of wheat, and in the middle of the six sides of the frieze are graven, upon some ovals, the following images and devices, the inscription corresponding to them being on the largest scroll of the architrave. ( ) a garland of vine-tendrils and ears of wheat, and in the midst thereof an open pomegranate, signifying, by the number and cohesion of its grains, the church, guarded within the fortress of this holiest of sacraments. the inscription says, _posuit fines tuos pacem_. ( ) a hand among clouds, extended over a nest of young ravens that have their beaks open and raised, with the inscription _quanto magis vos_. this signifies, that the lord who taketh care to sustain the infidels and pagans, taketh also especial care to sustain his church with abundance of this celestial food. ( ) a fair stalk of wheat, whence issue seven ears of great fatness, with the inscription, _sempiterna satietas_; showing that, not as in the seven years in egypt, but for ever, shall spiritual abundance abide in the church of christ, owing to this holy table of his body and his blood. ( ) a stork upon a nest woven of wheat-ears and vine-tendrils, with the inscription, _pietas incomparabilis_. showing the piety and fatherly love that god affordeth to us in this sacrament. ( ) a hare smelling at a bough and some ears of wheat, with the inscription, _vani sunt sensus hominis_. the hare signifies the senses, which are deceived by the appearance of the bread and wine, unless they be fortified by faith. ( ) a hand bearing a wand, the end whereof is turning to a serpent, with this inscription, _hic vita, hic mors_; because this sacrament is the judgment and condemnation of all that receive it unworthily, but life for such as receive it with a clean spirit. the device has reference to the rod of moses, that gave health to the people of israel, affording them a passage through the midst of the sea, and making streams of sweet water to gush from the rock, but that was ruinous to the egyptians, causing among them terrible sickness and destruction. second order the second order is in the corinthian style, the columns and frieze adorned with foliage in the upper and lower thirds, and the other one with fluted columns. this order contains the holy sacrament in a circular _viril_ ornamented at its ends. round it are the four evangelists with the figures of the lion, bull, eagle, and angel, adorning the majesty of the lord that is within the sacrament, whereof they gave true testimony, according to these words upon a tablet which each one holdeth in his hand:-- saint matthew, _hoc est corpus meum_. saint mark, _hic est sanguis meus_. saint john, _caro mea vere est cibus_. saint luke, _hic est calix novi testamenti_. on the outside are placed these figures, in pairs:--saint justa and saint rufina, patron saints of seville; san isidro and san leandro, archbishops of the same city; san hermenegildo and san sebastian; san servando and san germano, martyrs; san laureano, archbishop of seville, and san carpóforo, priest; saint clement, pope, and saint florence, martyr. on the six running pedestals of the columns of this order are six scenes or figures of ancient sacrifices, symbolic of this holiest sacrifice of the eucharist, as showing how this one is the consummation and perfection of all sacrifices, and that the light thereof dispersed the shadows of the others. and these be in the following wise:-- ( ) the sacrifice of abel. ( ) that of noah, on his leaving the ark. ( ) that of melchisidech. ( ) that of abraham, when he sought to sacrifice isaac. ( ) that of the lamb which was found in the thornbush and placed upon the altar. ( ) solomon's sacrifice at his dedication of the temple. * * * * * on the tops of these columns are twelve figures representing the twelve gifts and fruits of this most holy sacrament, as they are told of by saint thomas in his treatise on this mystery:-- ( ) _the conquest of the devil_, represented by a maiden beautified and adorned with a palm and a cross. the inscription on the pedestal says, _fuga dæmonis_. ( ) _spiritual cheerfulness and delight_, in the form of another maiden, holding a wand wreathed with boughs and tendrils of the vine, and in her other hand some ears of wheat. the inscription says, _hilaritas_. ( ) _purity of soul_, represented by a heart among flames, suspended over a crucible. the inscription, _puritas_. ( ) _self-knowledge_, represented by a figure of reason, holding in one hand a mirror, in which she regards herself, and in the other hand a leafy bough. the inscription says, _cognitio sui_. ( ) _peace, and the appeasing of the wrath of god_, represented by a figure holding in one hand an olive bough, and in the other a cornucopia filled with grapes and wheat. the inscription, _reconciliatio_. ( ) _inward quiet and control of the affections_, represented by a figure holding some poppies in one hand, and in the other a lamp, the lower wick of which is being extinguished. the inscription says, _animi qui est_. ( ) _charity, and profound love for god and for our neighbours_, represented by a figure holding in one hand a lighted heart that has two wings, and with the other pouring from a cornucopia. the inscription says, _charitas_. ( ) _increase of true worth_, represented by a figure holding in one hand a bough of mustard, that is wont to grow and multiply exceedingly from a tiny grain, and in the other hand a half-moon, receiving greater brightness as it waxes. the inscription says, _meritorum multiplicatio_. ( ) _firmness and constancy in well-doing_, represented by the figure of a woman holding an anchor in one hand, and in the other a palm. the inscription says, _constantia_. ( ) _the hope that guides us to our celestial home_, represented by a figure holding in one hand a bunch of flowers (denoting the hope of the fruit that is to come), and in the other hand a star, as one that guideth to a haven. the inscription, _deductio in patriam_. ( ) _resurrection_, represented by the figure of a beautiful woman, holding in one hand a snake, and in the other an eagle; creatures that renew themselves by casting off the slough of their old age. the inscription says, _resurrectio_. ( ) _life eternal_, represented by a figure holding a palm in one hand, and a crown in the other. the inscription says, _vita æterna_. * * * * * the devices contained in this order, and in the middle of the frieze, are as follows:-- ( ) a bunch of grapes upon a wand, surrounded with ears of wheat. the inscription says, _c[oe]lestis patriæ specimen_. this signifies that, as the great bunch of grapes that was borne by joshua and caleb on their shoulders was a token of the fertile land of promise, so the greatness and the sweetness of this admirable sacrament, which is afforded to us in the guise of bread and wine, is the living sign and earnest of the abundance reigning in the kingdom of the blessed. ( ) a hand extending the index-finger, pointing to a chalice and the host, with the inscription, _digitus dei hic est_. this means that the miracle of this holiest of sacraments is the work of the eternal wisdom, that cannot be attained by any wisdom of us humans. ( ) a rainbow, and above it a chalice with the host, and the inscription, _signum f[oe]deris sempiterni_. signifying, that as in the olden time god vouchsafed the rainbow to noah in sign of friendship and alliance, so does he now vouchsafe his own flesh and blood as a true and effective token of his lasting association with mankind. ( ) two rays, crossed, and in their midst an olive bough, with the inscription, _recordabor f[oe]deris mei vobiscum_. these are the words that were spoken by god to noah, when he made the said alliance with him, giving to understand the clemency wherewith god treateth mankind in the lesson of this divinest sacrament, forgetting their errors, and establishing perpetual peace and amity with them. ( ) the pelican feeding her young with the life-blood issuing from her breast. the inscription says, _majorem charitatem nemo habet_. ( ) a dead lion, from whose mouth issueth a swarm of bees, with the inscription, _de forti dulcedo_. giving to understand, that as from the mouth of so brave a creature there issued a substance so sweet as honey, so did the god of vengeance, the brave lion of the tribe of judah, concert such love and peace with man, that he offered his very body for man's food. third order the rest of the third order, as far as the summit of the _custodia_, represents the church triumphant: wherefore was placed in the midst of this order (which is in the composite style) the history of the lamb that is upon the throne, and round about it the four beasts that are full of eyes, as the apocalypse relateth. upon the six continuous pedestals of the columns of this order are graved the following six scenes:-- ( ) the saints who wash their stoles in the blood that issues from the lamb, as is told in the apocalypse. ( ) god the father, with a sickle in his hand, and angels gathering grapes in the vat, and corn in the granary, after winnowing out the chaff; signifying the reward accorded unto men in sowing, and in the harvest of the vine. ( ) the saints in joyful procession, each with his sheaf of wheat. ( ) the virgins, crowned with vine-tendrils and ears of wheat, that follow the lamb. ( ) the five prudent virgins, that with their lighted lamps go in to the feast of the bridegroom. ( ) the banquet of the blessed. * * * * * between the arches of this order are the six hieroglyphs following, with their inscriptions above, upon tablets. ( ) a burning ph[oe]nix, with the inscription, _instauratio generis humani_. ( ) two cornucopias crossed, with a cross in their midst. the cornucopias are full of vine-tendrils and ears of wheat. the inscription says, _felicitas humani generis_. ( ) a kingfisher brooding over her young in a nest of vine-tendrils and blades of wheat, with the inscription, _tranquillitas immutabilis_. this signifies the calm state of the blessed, whereof a token is the nest of the kingfisher, which bird, when it crosses the water, causes all storms to cease. ( ) a car with flames, rising to heaven, with the inscription, _sic itur ad astra_. signifying that this divinest sacrament is the harbinger of those that travel heavenward, in that elijah was so swept away, after god had sent him bread by the angel and the raven. ( ) two dolphins, whose tails are crossed, and in the middle a chalice and the host, with the inscription, _delitiæ generis humani_. by this device is signified the love and the delight bestowed by god on men by means of this sacrament. ( ) an altar adorned with festoons of vine-tendrils and blades of wheat, with flames upon it, and bearing the inscription, _Æternum sacrificium_. fourth order in this order is represented the holy trinity upon a rainbow, surrounded by many rays of splendour, and in the fifth order is a bell, surmounted by a simple cross. thus are all the parts of the _custodia_ adorned with the foregoing beautiful decoration, having regard to their proportions and their symmetry, according to the rules of good architecture, and to the movements and position of the statuary, designed after nature, as was prescribed by the inventor of histories. "_et in his omnibus sensum matris ecclesiæ sequimur, cujus etiam juditium reveremur._" such is the description, written by arfe himself, of this wonderful masterpiece of silver-work. unfortunately, since his time the _custodia_ has been much meddled with by profane hands, and has been subjected to various impertinent "restorations" and "improvements." thus, the original statuette of faith, seated on her throne, has been replaced by another of the virgin, and the twelve child-angels, holding the instruments of the passion, by the same number of figures of a larger size and far inferior workmanship. further, some simple pyramids which crowned the fourth order were foolishly replaced by badly executed statuettes of children, and the egyptian obelisk, resting on four small spheres, which surmounted the whole _custodia_, by an unwieldy statue representing the catholic faith. * * * * * description of the _custodia_ of cordova cathedral (from _córdoba_, by pedro de madrazo) as i have stated in vol. i., p. , the author of this _custodia_ was enrique de arfe, juan de arfe's grandfather. "the base, supported on small wheels placed in the interior, is in the form of a regular dodecagon, each side of which measures a foot. on the twelve-sided plate which forms the base and which has well executed heads of seraphs at each corner, is an order consisting of three tiers. the first, which has projecting and receding angles, leaves, about six sides of the dodecagon, a free space for the handles by which the _custodia_ is raised. the first tier forms a kind of socle with six buttresses, on the surface of which are represented allegorical scenes, alternated in rows with graceful designs in relief, grotesque and pastoral dances, and scenes from bible history relative to the carriage of the tabernacle. this tier is surmounted by a gilded balustrade of elegant design. the bas-reliefs are wrought alternately in gold and silver. "the second tier is formed by a small socle, crowned by a band of leaves and diminutive figures. over this is a gilded balustrade, and finally another and a broader frieze containing gilded figures, together with delicate foliage wrought in dull silver. this second tier grows gradually narrower, and sustains the third, whose base projects, serving as cornice to the frieze of the tier below, and decorated with a gilded balustrade. upon it rises a mass or body with twelve sides, following the same arrangement of projecting and receding angles as the lower tiers. in each of its receding spaces this order contains three compartments, and in each of its salient faces it has a small tower or buttress, which springs from the base and rests upon a delicate plinth carved with a gilded ornamental band. thus, the order we are describing has six salient faces behind the six towers or buttresses, and six spaces containing three open compartments. in these compartments, separated one from another by diminutive buttresses with delicate pinnacles, there is the same number of sunken spaces, one inch deep, on which are represented, in high relief, scenes of the life and passion of our lord. the figures, admirably executed, are two inches high. above this order is a projecting cornice, decorated along its lower part with a band of dull silver. it should be noted, that as the _custodia_ narrows gradually as it rises, the receding spaces grow proportionally larger, thus affording room for the spacious inner order on which is raised the _viril_. this order is formed by a crystal cylinder (containing the host) resting on a base which is also cylindrical, the lower part of which is decorated with a broad hexagonal band, narrower at the top than at the bottom, and wrought with delicate foliage and figures, as are the bands which lie beneath it. above the transparent cylinder enclosing the _viril_ rises a gothic vault, drooping over in the manner of a plume, and resting on the buttresses which fill the projecting spaces on the base of the principal order. these buttresses have a similar arrangement to, and coincide with, the other ones which spring from the base of the third tier of the first order, and are joined one to another by means of fine cross-buttresses surmounted by statuettes. the circular vault which holds the crystal cylinder containing the _viril_, and which resembles that of the rotunda dedicated as a sepulchral chapel by the emperor constantine to the memory of his daughter, saint constance, supports other and finer buttresses, alternated with those beneath; but instead of rising from the salient spaces of the base, these rise from the receding spaces and support another vault, of smooth open-work, beneath which is a graceful statuette of nuestra señora de la asunción. over this vault is a kind of open-work dome, consisting of an effective series of pinnacles and buttresses in the shape of segments of a circle, which bridge over the summits of the pinnacles. upon the dome is a crown surmounted by a statuette of christ triumphant, with the cross. the two vaults--that which encloses the _viril_, and the other one above it, enclosing the image of the virgin--are masked on the outside by arches of elegant design, crowned by an elaborate balustrade. the turrets or buttresses which rise upon the lowest and the principal orders are decorated with numerous statuettes, resting on plinths of exquisite design, covered by open-work canopies. "this masterpiece of art is made of gold, and polished and unpolished silver. the weight is marks.... unfortunately, it lacks its original purity of style, having been restored in the year , when it is probable that certain details were added which now disfigure it." appendix d the imperial crown of the virgen del sagrario, toledo this was the most elaborate and costly crown that had ever been produced in spain for decorating an image of the virgin. the following is a sketch of it:-- [illustration] before it was enlarged to the imperial shape, this crown was executed by a silversmith named fernando de carrión, who finished it in the year , and was paid for his labour , _maravedis_. it then consisted of a gold diadem adorned with rows of pearls, emeralds, rubies, and enamelled devices of various colours, in the style of the renaissance. the superstructure, which converts it into what is known as an imperial crown, was added by alejo de montoya, another silversmith of toledo, who began it in , and completed it twelve years later. the addition consisted of a number of gold statuettes of angels, covered with enamel, measuring in height from two inches to two and a half, distributed in pairs, and supporting decorative devices attached to the body of the crown. from behind these angels sprang gold bands thickly studded with precious stones, and terminating towards their union at the apex of the crown in seated allegorical figures grouped about a globe surmounted by a cross. this globe consisted of a single emerald, clear, perfect both in colour and in shape, and measuring an inch and a half in diameter. the inside of the hoop was covered with enamels representing emblems of the virgin, disposed in a series of medallions, and the dimensions of the entire crown were eleven inches high by nine across the widest part. the crown was examined and reported upon by two goldsmiths of madrid, who declared it to contain the following precious stones:-- two balas rubies, valued at , _maravedis_ twelve rubies, " , " twelve emeralds, " , " fifty-seven diamonds, " , " one hundred and eighty-two pearls, " , " the precious stones were thus valued at a total of , , _maravedis_. besides this, the value of the gold and silver contained in the crown was estimated to amount to , _maravedis_, while , , _maravedis_ were allowed for the workmanship. these figures relate to the part which was made by alejo de montoya only. that which had previously been executed by fernando de carrión was valued at , , _maravedis_, making a grand total, for the whole jewel, of , , _maravedis_. at the present day the intrinsic value of the crown would be from nine to ten thousand pounds sterling. in this splendid specimen of renaissance jewellery was stolen from a cupboard in the cathedral of toledo, sharing thus the fate of many other precious objects which have been entrusted to the slender vigilance or slender probity of spanish church authorities. appendix e gold inlay on steel and iron the inlaying of iron or steel with gold is often thought to be a craft particularly spanish, and to have been inherited directly by the spanish christians from the spanish moors. this work, however, although we may assume it to have been of eastern origin in a period of remote antiquity, was quite familiar to the ancient romans, including, probably, such as made their home in spain. the memoirs of benvenuto cellini contain the following notice of the work in question:-- "i met with some little turkish daggers, the handles of which were of iron as well as the blade, and even the scabbard was of that metal. on these were engraved several fine foliages in the turkish taste, most beautifully filled up with gold. i found i had a strong inclination to cultivate this branch likewise, which was so different from the rest; and finding that i had great success in it, i produced several pieces in this way. my performances, indeed, were much finer and more durable than the turkish, for several reasons: one was, that i made a much deeper incision in the steel than is generally practised in turkish works; the other, that their foliages are nothing else but chicory leaves, with some few flowers of echites: these have, perhaps, some grace, but they do not continue to please like our foliages. in italy there is a variety of tastes, and we cut foliages in many different forms. the lombards make the most beautiful wreaths, representing ivy and vine-leaves, and others of the same sort, with agreeable twinings highly pleasing to the eye. the romans and the tuscans have a much better notion in this respect, for they represent acanthus leaves, with all their festoons and flowers, winding in a variety of forms; and amongst these leaves they insert birds and animals of several sorts with great ingenuity and elegance in the arrangement. they likewise have recourse occasionally to wild flowers, such as those called lions' mouths, from their peculiar shape, accompanied by other fine inventions of the imagination, which are termed grotesques by the ignorant. these foliages have received that name from the moderns, because they are found in certain caverns in rome, which in ancient days were chambers, baths, studies, halls, and other places of a like nature. the curious happened to discover them in these subterranean caverns, whose low situation is owing to the raising of the surface of the ground in a series of ages; and as these caverns in rome are commonly called grottos, they from thence acquired the name of grotesque. but this is not their proper name; for, as the ancients delighted in the composition of chimerical creatures, and gave to the supposed promiscuous breed of animals the appellation of monsters, in like manner artists produced by their foliages monsters of this sort; and that is the proper name for them--not grotesques. in such a taste i made foliages filled up in the manner above mentioned, which were far more elegant and pleasing to the eye than the turkish works. "it happened about this time that certain vases were discovered, which appeared to be antique urns filled with ashes. amongst these were iron rings inlaid with gold, in each of which was set a diminutive shell. learned antiquarians, upon investigating the nature of these rings, declared their opinion that they were worn as charms by those who desired to behave with steadiness and resolution either in prosperous or adverse fortune. "i likewise took things of this nature in hand at the request of some gentlemen who were my particular friends, and wrought some of these little rings; but i made them of steel well tempered, and then cut and inlaid with gold, so that they were very beautiful to behold: sometimes for a single ring of this sort i was paid above forty crowns." appendix f old spanish pulpits the earliest pulpits of the spaniards were similar to those of other christian nations. one of them was the _tribuna_ or _tribunal_, so called, according to saint isidore, "because the minister delivers from it the precepts for a righteous life, wherefore it is a seat or place constructed upon high, in order that all he utters may be heard." the ambo, too, although it is not mentioned by saint isidore, was probably not unknown among the spaniards.[ ] then there were various desks, such as the _analogia_, _legitoria_, or _lectra_, on which the scriptures were deposited in church, or carried in procession, and from which the latter were read aloud by the priest. saint isidore remarks of the _analogium_; "it is so called because the word is preached therefrom, and because it occupies the highest place."[ ] ducange, quoting from old authors, remarks in his glossary that these desks were often adorned with gold and silver plates or precious stones. thus it is extremely probable that tarik's celebrated "table" (see vol. i., pp. _et seq._) was merely some elaborate and bejewelled _analogium_ of the christians; such as was, in fact, the predecessor of the modern lectern or "hand-pulpit." [ ] "ambo, pulpitum ubi ex duabus partibus sunt gradus." ugutio, quoted by ducange. [ ] _originum_, book xv., chap. iv. according to amador de los ríos, sermons in those early times were delivered from the _analogium_ only. towards the twelfth century, the isidorian liturgy was abolished in spain, and the furniture of spanish temples underwent some change. in the same century and throughout the century following, the spanish peninsula was invaded by the order of preachers, while, coinciding with, or closely consequent upon, this movement, the primitive ambo was succeeded by the _jubé_, and wood, as the material of which the pulpit was constructed, by marble, iron, stone, or plaster. two mudejar pulpits of great interest are preserved at toledo, in the church of santiago del arabal (thirteenth century), and in the convent, erected in the reign of pedro the cruel, of santo domingo el real. the substance of these ancient objects is a brick and plaster foundation, with panels of the stucco known as _obra de yesería_, produced from wooden moulds. the pulpit of the church of santiago is traditionally affirmed to be the one from which, in , saint vincent ferrer delivered a sermon to the toledan jews. whether this be so or not, the date of its construction is undoubtedly the second half of the fourteenth century, or early in the fifteenth. the shape is octagonal--a very common form with gothic pulpits. it is divided into four _cuerpos_ or orders, including the sounding-board. the decoration, which is chiefly floral, is a combination of the gothic and the moorish styles. the pulpit of santo domingo el real stands in the refectory of that convent. it dates from the same period as the one belonging to the church of santiago, but unlike this latter, bears no trace of former gilding, painting, or enamelling upon the surface of the stone or plaster. it has three tiers or compartments, and, as in the other pulpit, the decoration consists of leaves and flowers, blended with geometrical patterns and moorish _lacería_. the moorish _mimbar_ or pulpit of the mosque of cordova was very wonderful. according to sentenach, its situation was near the archway leading to the _mihrab_, and on its desk rested the sacred copy of the koran which had belonged to the caliph othman, and which was stated to be stained with his blood. this _mimbar_, sacrificed long years ago to christian barbarism and neglect, was the richest piece of furniture in all that mighty building, seven years of unremitting labour being exhausted by al-hakem's craftsmen in constructing it of the richest and most aromatic woods, inlaid with silver, ivory, gold, and precious stones. ambrosio de morales called it "king almanzor's chair," describing it quaintly as a four-wheeled car of richly-wrought wood, mounted by means of seven steps. "a few years since," he adds, "they broke it up, i know not wherefore. so disappeared this relic of an olden time." appendix g spanish cutlers in former times excellent cutlery, such as knives, scissors, daggers, spearheads, and surgical instruments, was made in spain, at seville, albacete, toledo, valencia, pamplona, ronda, peñíscola, guadix, ripoll, mora, olot, and tolosa. rico y sinobas has given an interesting description of the workshop and apparatus of one of these old spanish cutlers--his graduated set of hammers, weighing from a few ounces to five pounds, his hand-saws, bench-saw, chisels, pincers, files, and drills, his forge, measuring from a yard square to a yard and a half, his two anvils of the toughest iron, the larger with a flat surface of three inches by ten inches, for ordinary work, the smaller terminated by conical points for making the thumb and finger holes of scissors.[ ] the method of tempering and forging practised by these cutlers was much the same as that of the toledo swordsmiths. [ ] _noticia histórica de la cuchillería y de los cuchilleros antiguos en españa_ (_almanaque de el museo de la industria_, madrid, ). rico y sinobas also embodied in his essay the following list of cutlers and cutler-armourers, who manufactured knives, penknives, scissors, parts of firearms, or heads and blades for lances, halberds, and the like. the following is a summary of the list in question:-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- name. | date. | worked at --------------------+---------------------+---------------------------- acacio | th century |? he made spearheads and | | fittings for crossbows. | | aguas, juan de |early in th century|guadix. | | alanis |late th century |? maker of fittings for | | crossbows. | | albacete |late th century |albacete. scissors-maker. | | ambrosio |late th century |mora. maker of large | |scissors for | |sheep-shearing. | | arbell, ramón | th century (?) |olot. knife-maker. | | azcoitia (the elder)|late th century |guipúzcoa (?). a celebrated |and early th |maker of pieces for | |crossbows. | | azcoitia (cristóbal)| th century |? also a maker of pieces for | | crossbows. he was the | | fourth descendant of the | | family who worked at this | | branch of the cutler's | | craft. | | azcoitia (juan) | th century |? perhaps a member of the | | same family. he also made | | pieces for crossbows. | | beson, manuel | th century |madrid. knife-maker. | | bis, francisco | th century |madrid (see vol. i., | |p. ). maker of knives and | |arquebuses. | | blanco, juan | th century |maker of crossbows, and of | |pieces for the same. | | castellanos (the | th century |albacete. scissors-maker. elder) | | | | castellanos (the |late th century |albacete. scissors-maker. younger) |and early th | | | castillo, gregorio |late th century |cataluña (?). | |scissors-maker. | | cerda, miguel de la |late th century |madrid and segovia. he made | |scissors and other | |cutlery. | | criado, juan |early th century |madrid (?). maker of pieces | |for crossbows. | | diaz, pedro |early th century |albacete. scissors-maker. | | escobar, cristóbal |late th century |madrid (?). maker of pieces |and early th |for crossbows. | | escobar, juan | th century |madrid (?). son of the | |preceding, and also a maker | |of pieces for crossbows. | | fernandez manso |late th century |guadalajara. a portuguese, de payba, josé | |naturalized in spain. he | |was a scissors-maker of | |considerable fame. | | fuente, pedro de la |late th century |madrid (?). maker of |or early th |crossbows and their pieces. | | garcía, domingo |late th century |madrid. arquebus-maker and | |cutler. | | garcía de la torre, |early th century |guadalix and alcorcón. teodoro | |cutler. in company with | |manuel beson, he invented a | |method of converting iron | |into steel. | | garijo | th century |albacete. scissors-maker. | | garro, martín |early th century |pamplona. cutler and | |swordsmith. a letter dated | |october st, , records | |that he was paid five | |_escudos_ for making a | |sword, and one _escudo_ for | |a dagger. | | gomez, mateo |late th century |albacete. scissors-maker. | | grajeras | th century |madrid (?). maker of pieces | |for crossbows. | | grande, juan | th century |madrid (?). maker of | |lanceheads. | | gutierrez |late th century |chinchilla. scissors-maker. | | hernandez, juan | th century |madrid (?). maker of pieces | |for crossbows. | | herraez, andres |late th century |cuenca. arquebus-maker and | |cutler. | | herrezuelo (the |late th century |baeza. cutler. elder) |and early th | | | herrezuelo (the |early th century |baeza. younger) | |scissors-maker. | | horbeira, angel |late th century |madrid. cutler; a native of | |galicia, and reputed to be | |one of the best craftsmen of | |his time. he was known as | |_el borgoñon_, and passed | |his early life in flanders. | | hortega |early th century |? maker of pieces for | | crossbows. | | lallabe, juan de |early th century |? cutler, locksmith, and | | maker of surgical | | instruments. | | lastra, juan | th century |madrid (?). maker of pieces | |for crossbows. he was one | |of the latest and most | |celebrated of these | |craftsmen. | | leon |early th century |albacete. scissors-maker. | | llorens, pablo |late th century |olot. cutler. | | marcoarte, simon |late th century |madrid. arquebus-maker and |and early th |cutler. he was the son of | |another craftsman of the | |same name, who settled in | |spain in the reign of | |charles the fifth | |(see vol. i., p. ). | | martinez, juan |early th century |? maker of darts and lances | | for crossbows. | | mendoza, francisco |early th century |trigueros (old castile). and manuel | |cutlers. | | moreno, luis |late th century |madrid (?). maker of pieces |or early th | for crossbows. | | moro, el |late th century |madrid. cutler. |and early th | | | muñoz of getafe | th century and |? maker of pieces for |early th | crossbows. | | Óipa, juan | ? |madrid. maker of crossbows. | | perez de villadiego,| th century |madrid (?). maker of pieces juan | |for crossbows. | | perez, julian |early th century |madrid (?). maker of darts | | and lances for crossbows. | | puebla (the elder) |early th century |madrid. maker of parts of | | crossbows. | | ramirez, juan |late th century |? cutler. he emigrated to | | the city of puebla de los | | angeles, in mexico, where | | he continued to make | | knives, scissors, and | | weapons of good quality. | | renedo (the elder) |early th century(?)|? maker of darts and lances | | for crossbows. | | renedo (the younger)| late th century |? son of the preceding. he | | and early th made the | | same objects as his | | father. | | romero |late th century |albacete. scissors-maker. | | rosel | ? |mora. scissors-maker. | | san josé, brother |late th century |jaen. scissors-maker. antonio | | | | santamaría |late th century |madrid (?). maker of pieces |and early th |for crossbows. | | selva, juan |late th century |cartagena and madrid. cutler | |and iron-founder. | | segura |late th century |mora. scissors-maker. |and early th | | | sierra, juan | th century |albacete. scissors-maker. | | soler, isidro |late th century |madrid. arquebus-maker, | |and early th cutler, and | |author of _an historical | |essay on making arquebuses_. | | sosa | th century |madrid (?). maker of weapons, | |especially the heads of | |lances. | | targarona, |late th century |madrid. arquebus-maker to francisco | |charles the third and | |charles the fourth, and one | |of the most skilful | |craftsmen of his day. | | tijerero, el | ? |toledo. maker of swords and (domingo sanchez) | |scissors. | | torres |early th century |albacete. scissors-maker. | | ucedo |late th century and|? maker of pieces for |perhaps early th | crossbows. | | v.... | th century (?) |toledo (?). scissors-maker. | |the rest of this craftsman's | |name is not known. | | valderas, pedro de | th century |madrid and valladolid. maker | |of pieces for crossbows. | | vicen-perez, pedro |late th century |albacete. scissors-maker. | | vilarasa, antonio |late th century |? cutler and razor-maker. | | ... emt.., julian |early th century |albacete. scissors-maker. | |only a fragment of his name | |has been preserved upon a | |blade. rico y sinobas | |suggests thatthe entire | |surname may have been | |_vicen-perez_. | | zeruantes, |late th century |toledo. maker of blades for francisco | |halberds. | | zamora ("the deaf") |late th century |castile. cutler, |and early th | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- appendix h spanish trade-guilds the _gremios_ of spain were copied from the guilds of france and other countries, and may be traced originally to the _corpora_ and _collegia_ of the romans and byzantines. the earliest which were formed in the peninsula were those of barcelona[ ] and soria, succeeded, not long after, by valencia, seville,[ ] and toledo. prior, however, to the institution of these trade-guilds proper, whose purpose was pre-eminently mercenary,[ ] there existed, in the case of several cities, _cofradías_ or religious brotherhoods, that is, associations of a philanthropic character, composed of tradesmen or artificers who pledged themselves to assist each other in poverty or sickness, or to defray the burial expenses of such members as should die without resources. [ ] see pérez pujol, _condición social de las personas á principios del siglo v_. "the ironsmiths of barcelona," says riaño, "formed an extensive guild in the thirteenth century; in , four of its members formed part of the chief municipal council; this guild increased in importance in the following centuries." [ ] the history of the sevillian trade-guilds begins properly with the fifteenth century, although gestoso states in his _diccionario de artífices sevillanos_ that he has found a few documents which seem to point to their existence in the century preceding. when the spanish christians pitched their camp before this city, prior to their victorious assault upon its walls, the besieging army was divided according to the various trades of its component soldiery: the spicers in one part of the camp, the apothecaries in another, and so forth. it is therefore probable that the sevillian trade-guilds were instituted shortly after the re-conquest. the wages of smiths, shoemakers, silversmiths, armourers, and other craftsmen were decreed by pedro the first in his _ordenamiento de menestrales_. the ordinances of the silversmiths, in particular, are so old that gestoso believes them to have been renewed and confirmed by juan the second, in the year . however this may be, it is certain that the seville guilds were regularly constituted in the reign of ferdinand and isabella. [ ] barzanallana defines the word _gremio_ "as it came to be understood in spain," as "any gathering of merchants, artisans, labourers, or other persons who practised the same profession, art, or office; and who were bound to comply with certain ordinances, applicable to each individual of their number." it is well, however, to distinguish broadly between actual manufacturers or producers (_menestrales de manos_) and merchants or shopkeepers (_mercaderes de tienda y de escriptorio_), who merely trafficked in what was executed by another. the formula of admission to a spanish brotherhood was very quaint in its punctilious and precise severity. a notice of this ceremony, relating to the cofradía of saint eligius, or silversmiths' brotherhood of seville,[ ] is quoted by gestoso from the venerable _regla de hermandad_ or statutes of the members, preserved in a codex dating from the first half of the sixteenth century. it was required that the candidate for admission should be a silversmith, married in conformity with the canons of the church, a man well spoken of among his neighbours, and not a recent convert to the christian faith. the day prescribed for choosing or rejecting him was that which was consecrated to saint john the baptist, coinciding with the festival of saint eligius or san loy, "patron and representative" of silversmiths, and who in life had been a silversmith himself. the regulations of the cofradía decreed the following method of election. "in the chest belonging to the brotherhood shall be kept a wood or metal vessel with space sufficient to contain some fifty beans or almonds; and the said vessel shall be set in our chapter-room, in a spot where no man is. each of the brothers that are present shall next be given one of the beans or almonds, and, rising from his seat, arrange his cloak about him so as to conceal his hands, in order that none may witness whether he drops, or does not drop, the almond or the bean into the vessel. then, with due dissimulation, he shall proceed to where the vessel lies, and if he deem that he who seeks to be admitted as our brother be an honourable man, and such as shall contribute to the lustre of our brotherhood, then shall he drop in a bean or almond, and return to his seat, still covering his hands with his cloak. but if, upon the contrary, he deem that the said candidate be a sinner, and a riotous fellow and bad christian, that should prove a source of evil and vexation to our chapter, or that hath wronged another of our brethren, then shall he not cast in the bean or almond, but secretly reserve the same, and once more seat himself. lastly, when all shall have crossed over to and from the vessel, they shall bear it to the table where the officers sit, and void it in the sight of all the company, and count the beans or almonds; and if the number of these be full, then is it clear that we do receive the other for our _hermano_. but if there be a bean or almond wanting, in that a brother hath retained it in his fingers, then shall our _alcaldes_ speak to this effect. 'señores: here wants a bean or almond' (or two, or any number, as may be). 'within eight days from now let him that kept it back present himself to us, or to any one of us, and give account why he that sought admission to our brotherhood deserves to be rejected.' and if the brother that kept back the bean or almond should not present himself within the appointed time, then shall the brotherhood admit the other: but if he appear, and state a lawful cause against the other's entry, then our _alcaldes_, when this last presents himself to learn their resolution, shall urge him to have patience, in that not all the brothers are content with him, albeit, if such cause consisteth in a quarrel between a brother and the candidate for entry, peace may be brought about between the two, and afterward the _cofradía_ may admit him of their number." [ ] this guild, as all the others, held an annual convocation of its members, and possessed a chapel of its own in the convent of san francisco. it exercised a strict and constant supervision upon the gold and silver work produced throughout the city. on april th, , the inspectors appointed and salaried by the guild visited the shop of antonio de cuevas, and seized an _agnus dei_ and a faultily executed cross, both of which objects were destroyed forthwith. on february th, , they repeated their visit to the same silversmith, and seized an _apretador_, which was likewise broken up. on february th, , they entered the shop of antonio de ahumada, and took away "two rings, a gold _encomienda_, a cross of saint john, some small cocks, a toothpick, and a san diego of silver." similar notices of fines, confiscations, and other punishments exist in great abundance, and may be studied in gestoso's dictionary. see also vol. i., p. , of the present work. similar ceremonies and customs were observed in old toledo (see the ordinances of this city, dated june th, , renewed and amplified in ).[ ] here also the silversmiths agreed to meet and celebrate the festival of their patron saint upon one day in every year, "for ever and for ever" (_para siempre jamás_). on these occasions the image of the saint was carried in procession, and a repast was given to the brothers themselves, as well as to all persons who were "willing to receive it for the love of god." every brother who failed to present himself at this solemnity was fined one pound of candle-wax; but if he were merely unpunctual, and arrived "after the singing of the first three psalms," the fine was only half a pound. a pound of candle-wax was also the statutory tribute for admission to the brotherhood, together with a hundred _maravedis_ and other unimportant sums in cash. the history of the _gremios_ of valencia has been traced in an instructive essay by luis tramoyeres blasco. early in the fifteenth century guilds were established here of nearly thirty trades, including tailors, millers, carpenters, shoemakers, silversmiths, weavers, tanners, dyers, swordsmiths, and bonnet-makers. these guilds developed greatly in the sixteenth century, expanding into powerful and wealthy bodies, who practically controlled the entire commerce and commercial products of their native town. among the _gremios_ instituted at a later date were those of the firework-makers, basket-makers, twisters of silk, stiffeners of dress fabrics, bell-founders, and painters of chests and boxes, each of these corporations being enrolled by law, and possessing a code of regulations for the government and guidance of its members. sometimes, however, owing to diminution in its trade, a guild became extinct, as happened with the _guadamacileros_ (see vol. ii., pp. _et seq._), and with the clothmakers, of whom, in , but three remained in all valencia. or else a _gremio_ would purposely amalgamate with, or merge insensibly into, another. thus in the tailors and the makers of trunk-hose united in a single corporation, just as, at other times, the glovers and the parchment-dressers, the clog-makers and the shoemakers. [ ] the foremost in importance of the _gremios_ of toledo was that of the silk-weavers (_arte mayor de la seda_), whose earliest ordinances date from a.d. . interesting particulars of the old toledan _gremios_ generally will be found in the municipal archives of this city, in the _ordenanzas para el buen régimen y gobierno de la muy noble, muy leal é imperial ciudad de toledo_ (reprinted in ); in martín gamero's _history of toledo_; and in the count of cedillo's scholarly monograph, _toledo in the sixteenth century_. those of the valencian guilds which possessed the greatest influence and resources, and enjoyed the highest privileges from the city or the crown, were called _colegiados_. among them were the velvet-makers, hatters, bronze-founders, wax-makers, confectioners, dyers, and makers of silk hose. the earliest to obtain this coveted and honourable title were the booksellers, in , followed by the wax-makers in , the confectioners in , the velvet-makers also in this year, and others in succession, terminating with the dyers in , the hatters in , the bell-founders in , and the makers of silk stockings in . according to tramoyeres, most of the valencian trade-guilds owned a building in fee-simple, and often gave the title of their craft to the entire street in which that edifice was situated. nor did the _gremios_, in their evolution from the simpler and less mercenary form of brotherhood or _cofradía_, wholly abandon the religious ceremonies of their prototype. in almost every instance the guild erected and maintained a chapel within its private _domicilio_, chose a particular saint to be its patron, and held, with fitting pomp and liberality, a yearly celebration of that patron's holy-day. on these occasions masses and other services were said or sung, and the embroidered banner of the guild, together with the image (which was often of silver) of its tutelar saint, was carried in procession through the streets of this bright city of the south, abounding at all seasons in flowers and sunshine, and famed, from the remotest days of spanish history, for the splendour and munificence of her public festivals. our earliest record of the formal attendance of the _gremios_ of valencia at one of her _fiestas_, goes back to the visit to this capital of king pedro the second, in , when the guilds were marshalled in military fashion, company by company, each headed by its pennon "_á la saga dels primers_," that is, next to the group or company immediately in front of it. in , upon the visit of another monarch, juan the first, who was accompanied by his queen, violante, a more elaborate character was given to the welcome. jongleurs and dancers were hired to perform, while several of the _gremios_ constructed decorative scenes or allegorical tableaux on a platform or a waggon, which was wheeled along the street in slow procession, surrounded by the marching members of the guild. one of these structures represented the winged dragon or _drach-alat_ which figures so conspicuously in the records of valencia (see vol. i., p. ), and was attacked and overcome in mimic combat by a body of knights armed cap-à-pie. the mariners of the port built two large galleys, also moved on wheels and simulating an attack, and the _freneros_ or bit-makers presented a gathering of folk disguised as savages. nor was the bullfight--that most characteristic of spanish sports--omitted from the entertainment, judging from the following entry in the city archives: "item. sien aemprats los prohomens carnicers a procurar e haver toros e fer per sos dies feta la dita entrada joch ab aquells specialment en lo mercat com sia cert quel senyor rey se agrada e pren plaer de tal joch." a typical _fiesta_ and procession of these trade-guilds is described by tramoyeres. "formed in two long lines, the members of the guild advanced along the tortuous and narrow highways of the town, adorned with tapestries and altars. each _gremio_ was preceded by a band of cymbal-beaters, pipers, and jongleurs, sometimes accompanied by a _comparsa_ allusive to the ceremony now being celebrated. next came the standard of the master-craftsmen and apprentices, each group of whom attended its _divisa_ or distinguishing emblem. close after followed the banner of the craft in general, carried by one or two of the _oficiales_, who made display of their dexterity and strength by supporting the staff of the banner upon their shoulder, the palm of the hand, or the under-lip. the cords of the banner were held by the officers of the guild, denominated _mayorales_, _clavarios_ and _prohombres_; behind these came the masters, and last of all, a triumphal car on which were represented scenes relating to the craft. thus, in the year , at the commemoration of the second centenary of the canonization of saint vincent ferrer, the _gremios_ showed particular ingenuity and novelty in these devices." don marco antonio ortí, who wrote an account of the festival in question, thus describes a few of them. "the millers were preceded by a waggon drawn by four mules and covered with boughs and flowers. on it was the imitation of a windmill, wheel and every other part, contrived so cunningly that although the wheel went round at a great speed, the artifice which caused it to revolve was kept from view, and in the time that the procession lasted, it ground to flour a whole _caliz_ of wheat." another invention, says the same chronicler, was that of the masons. "the scene devised by these was a triumphal car, handsomely adorned, on which was borne the great tower (of the cathedral),[ ] imitated so skilfully that it seemed to have been rooted from its foundation, and replanted in the car aforesaid; and so enormous was its size that a special spot required to be chosen in which to set it up. this was in the garden of la punta; and when the tower was finished and ready to be taken forth, a breach for its passage had to be opened in the garden wall. it even contained a peal of bells, which rang by turning round and round, and this invention of the bells, besides its ingenuity, was rarely fitted to this festival, seeing that the clock-bell of the cathedral (that is the greatest of them all) was given, when it was baptized, the name of san vicente's bell, as well as of saint michael the archangel; whence the tower itself is called the micalet, this, in the language of valencia, being the diminutive for michael. it were impossible to imagine the stir and the applause excited in all quarters of the city by the passage of this tower." [ ] that is, the ponderous structure known as the miguelete, which stands unfinished to this day. the same writer describes the decorative car or waggon of the flax-weavers. "upon it were a woman seated beneath a canopy, weaving at a frame, and representing santa ana, the child jesus making _cañillas_, and an aged man, for san antonio, dressed as a hermit, with a live sucking-pig at his side. before these went our lady riding on a jennet, with a child in her arms, her right hand held by a man of venerable age representing saint joseph. this artifice was symbolic of the weavers' trade, receiving for this reason great applause, as well as for the lavish decoration of, and curious details that were in, the car." tramoyeres further explains that the guild which took first place in the procession was that which had been most recently created, the oldest and most honoured coming last. at valencia this proud position was held from the remotest period by the clothmakers; but from time to time, when these for any cause were absent from the festival, their place was taken by one or other of two companies almost as ancient and as honourable--the tanners or the tailors. each guild selected an official dress or livery, distinguished from the others by its colour or design:--the tailors, purple and white; the weavers, rose with black sleeves; the cutlers, crimson with green sleeves and sprinkled with golden roses; the millers, white with crimson-striped sleeves; the silversmiths, crimson with silver trimming; and so forth. their banners, too, were quite in harmony with the rich apparel of the vain _agremiados_. according to an author of the seventeenth century, these flags were "not of war, but of a different workmanship, and greatly larger. all are of damask, most being coloured crimson, and the poles sustaining them, and terminated by an image of the sainted patron of the guild, are longer than the longest pike of war. truly, a splendid show these banners make, displayed with fringes of drawn gold, and shields embroidered with the same material." the image in which the pole of the banner concluded was not, however, invariably that of a saint, or of a saint alone. in the case of the cask-makers it was a golden tun surmounted by a cross, with figures of saint helen and the emperor constantine standing on either side of it. that of the armourers was a bat (the _rat-penat_ or "winged rat" contained in the _escudo_ of valencia); that of the cloth-shearers, a pair of scissors with a golden crown and the image of saint christopher; of the fishermen, a boat containing saint peter and saint andrew; of the clothmakers, a sphere inscribed with the name of jesus; of the stonemasons, a silver millwheel and a silver image of the virgin. similarly, each _gremio_ displayed upon its coat-of-arms some kind of emblem such as the implement, or implements, associated with its trade:--the silversmiths, a square and compass; the carpenters, a hatchet and a saw; the lock-smiths, a pair of hammers and an anvil. quaintly instructive are the dispositions of the guilds relating to apprenticeship. the _maestro_ of a trade, described by the count of torreánaz as "the principal worker in the workshop," agreed to feed, clothe, and instruct his apprentice or _discípulo_, and treat him generally as a member of his own family. he was permitted to punish his apprentice for misconduct, but not to employ excessive physical violence; and a law of jayme the first decreed that if the apprentice lost one or both of his eyes from a blow inflicted by his master, the latter was to "make good the injury" (_sia tengut del mal que li haura feyt_). the number of apprentices allowed in any one workshop was often (and subsequently to the fifteenth century, nearly always) regulated by the law. the first disposition of this kind discovered by tramoyeres dates from the year , and refers to the shoemakers, whose apprentices might not outnumber three to each _maestro_.[ ] similarly, by provisions issued at a later date, the mattress-makers and the builders were allowed no more than two apprentices, and the silk-weavers three, although sometimes the master might admit an extra _aprenent_ or so, on payment of a certain sum per head.[ ] the term of the apprenticeship was also often fixed by law. in most of the trades it was four years; but in the case of the makers of ribbons and of boxes it was five years; while stocking-makers were apprenticed for six, and wax-makers and confectioners for eight years. [ ] the count of torreánaz quotes an earlier instance, relative to another city, from the shoemakers' ordinances of burgos, confirmed by the emperor alfonso in a.d. . these laws decreed, obviously with the purpose of limiting the number of apprentices, that every master-craftsman who engaged an apprentice was to pay two thousand _maravedis_ "for the service of god and of the hospital." similar legislation, lasting many centuries, was in force elsewhere, for larruga says that at valladolid, although the city produced fourteen thousand hats yearly, most of the master-hatters had no apprentices in their workshops, and only one _oficial_. [ ] _e.g._, the silk-weavers (statute of ). "que ningun collegial de dit collegi puixa matricular francament mes de tres aprenents y si volgués tenirne mes, hatja de pagar á dit collegi deu lliures, moneda real de valencia per cascú dels que excedirá de dit numero." before the father or the guardian of a lad could sign his papers of apprenticeship, it was required (during and after the sixteenth century) to prove before the guild, by means of his certificate of baptism, or on the declaration of witnesses, that he was the child of parents who were "old christians," and not the offspring of moor, jew, slave, convert, or (in the fierce expression of the stocking-makers) "any other infected race." still more absurd and savage was an ordinance, dated , of the shoemakers, prohibiting any master of this trade from admitting to apprenticeship in any form, "a black boy, or one of the colour of cooked quince, slave or moor ... so as to avoid the harm which might befall our brother shoemakers from the ridicule that would be stirred among the populace, if they should see in our processions and other public acts, a slave, or the son of a black slave, or a lad of the colour of cooked quince, or a moor; as well as the rioting and scandals that would be caused by the spectacle of creatures of this nature mixing with decent, well-dressed people." these statutes are selected from the mass of local legislation which concerned valencia only. turning to spanish guilds at large, the study of these institutions throws considerable light upon the customs of the spanish nation in the past, and more especially upon the social and financial standing of the older spanish craftsman. as in other countries, the principal and primal object of the _gremio_ was to organize a system of defence against the military and nobility, or even against the crown. presently, however, and long before their evolution is completed, errors become apparent in the statutes or proceedings of these bodies which denote, very instructively and very plainly, the typical defects or weaknesses of the spanish character. foremost of all was thriftlessness. although it is a fact that several of the spanish guilds owned houses or even land, none of them (except the silversmiths of two or three large towns) were really affluent;[ ] and indeed, in a country racked by incessant foreign wars or civil strife, there was every reason why they should not be affluent. yet, notwithstanding this, in celebrating any kind of public festival, the poor _agremiado_ made no scruple to vie in prodigal disbursements with the moneyed aristocracy, clothing himself in fanciful and costly stuffs,[ ] constructing shows and spectacles on wheels, raising elaborate altars in the streets, contracting for expensive services, performances, and tableaux. more than once, the _gremios_ were obliged to borrow funds to celebrate the festival of their patron saint.[ ] so also with regard to dress. the costumes of the guildsmen of valencia have been already noticed. an equal recklessness and foppery prevailed in other spanish towns; for instance, at barcelona, where, on a visit of ferdinand and isabella in , the silversmiths formed part of the procession "dressed in the richest manner, with robes and mantles all covered with silver, and some of them with bonnets that were all of silver plate with jewels and silver foliage, while others wore silver chains about their necks." [ ] it is not often, for instance, that we meet with notices of spanish craftsmen such as miguel jerónimo monegro, a silversmith of seville, who at his death, towards the middle of the sixteenth century, was in a position to bequeath the following money and effects: , _maravedis_ to his servant, catalina mexia, _maravedis_ to juan ortiz, "a boy that was in my house, that he may learn a trade," _maravedis_ yearly to his slavewomen, juana and luisa, and a black mule to his executor, hernando de morales.--gestoso, _diccionario de artífices sevillanas_, vol. ii., p. . [ ] this did not happen only at valencia. the cortes assembled at valladolid in complained that it was "tolerable that costly stuffs should be worn by lords, gentlemen, and wealthy persons; but such is become our nation, that there is not an hidalgo, squire, merchant, or _oficial_ of any trade, but wears rich clothing; wherefore many grow impoverished and lack the money to pay the _alcabalas_ and the other taxes owing to his majesty." fernandez de navarrete stated, in , that "the wives of common _mecánicos_ (_i.e._ craftsmen) furnish their dwellings more luxuriously than titled personages of the realm were wont to furnish theirs some few years ago," and that hangings of taffeta or spanish _guadamecíes_ were now regarded with contempt, being replaced, even in the homes of the moderately well-to-do, by sumptuous fabrics of florence and milan, and by the costliest brussels tapestry.--(_conservación de monarquías_, p. ). [ ] larruga, in vol. xviii. of his _memorias_, inserts an account of the heavy debts incurred by the _gremios_ of valladolid, upon the celebration of various of their festivals. two of the most conspicuous faults among the spanish race are pride and envy. yet these defects may be explained without much puzzling, and, in a measure, pardoned. spaniards, through all the process of their national development, have clung by preference to the calling of the soldier or the priest; that is, the only occupations which directly dissipate the revenue of the commonwealth. since, therefore, they were thus inclined from earliest antiquity, as well as tutored by a crafty priesthood to believe that might or violence alone is right, the haughtiness of the spanish people is a logical, and indeed inevitable, outcome of their history. moreover, side by side with this erroneous theory that the only prowess and decorum of a people must consist in armed aggressiveness, as well as in a truculent and militant intolerance in matters of religion (or rather, of superstition), there arose the equally as mischievous and erroneous theory that the arts of peace were venal, despicable, and effeminate, or, in the current phrase of our contemporaries, "unworthy of a gentleman." "the spaniards," wrote fernández de navarrete, "are so proud-hearted that they do not accommodate themselves to servile labour." therefore this people chose their favourites and heroes in a semi-savage freebooter; never in a craftsman of gigantic merit, like the elder berruguete, or juan de arfe, or alonso cano. sometimes, as happened with the _reja_ of the chapel royal of granada, they did not even trouble to record the surname of her best artificers. these men, in fact, exceptions to her universal rule, were coldly looked upon, or even persecuted.[ ] abundant proof is yet extant of this humiliation of her merchants, craftsmen, shopkeepers, as distinguished from her soldiery and clergy, gentry and nobility. undoubtedly, beneath such scorn the former of these groups were sensitive to their position, and all the more acutely sensitive because of their inherent spanish pride. in fact, so sensitive were they, that now and then the crown esteemed it prudent to appease their wounded vanity by certain declarations or emoluments. thus, the _repartimiento de sevilla_ tells us that in the year alfonso the tenth rewarded several craftsmen of his capital of seville with the title of _don_, "a dignity," says amador, "rarely bestowed at that time."[ ] in charles the fifth resolved, in favour of the corporation of _artistas-plateros_ or "artist-silversmiths," that the masters of this craft, together with their wives, might dress in silk, "in that it was an art they exercised, and not an office" (gestoso, _diccionario de artífices sevillanos_, vol. i., p. lx.), while philip the fourth decreed that they should not be forced to contribute to the equipment of his troops, but should only be invited to contribute, _just as with the nobles_. nevertheless, rico y sinobas points out (_del vidrio y de sus artífices en españa_) that philip the fifth and ferdinand the sixth, on founding the royal glass factory of san ildefonso, did not dare to ennoble the castilian workmen. [ ] the treatment of distinguished craftsmen by the spanish church was often sheerly villainous. a document, inserted by zarco del valle among his collection of _documentos inéditos para la historia de las bellas artes en españa_, p. , and in the handwriting of "maestre" domingo (see vol. i., pp. , ), states that after making the choir-_reja_ for toledo cathedral, "so richly wrought, that in the elegance and rarity thereof it far surpasseth all that has been witnessed in our time, whether in his majesty's dominions or abroad," and expending on it "all the money i had earned in my youth," this eminent _rejero_ found himself by now "owing a great quantity of _maravedis_, seeing that i am utterly without resources," concluding by an appeal to the archbishop to "take heed how that i shall not perish through such poverty, and my wife and children in the hospital." in another document the same artificer complains that in producing the aforesaid _reja_, he had sacrificed "not only my labour, but my property to boot, having been compelled to sell my house and my inheritance to compensate me for my losses," adding that the cathedral authorities had violated their engagement with him. in answer to a series of petitions such as this, the archbishop tardily gave orders for the payment to domingo of a lump sum of fifteen thousand _maravedis_ and a pension for the rest of his life of two silver _reales_ of castilian money, "to aid him to support himself." this was in a.d. . by death had ended the miseries of the master-craftsman, and again we find his widow and children knocking at the archbishop's door, pleading that "extreme is our necessity," and declaring that domingo had succumbed overburdened with debt, _affirming on his deathbed that the cathedral owed him three thousand ducats, being half the value of a reja he had made_. in answer to this terrible appeal, the thrifty prelate ordered that _since it was found to be true that master domingo had lost his maravedis in making the rejas of the choir_, his widow and children should receive a daily pension of one _real_, and that a suit of clothes should be given to each of his sons and his two daughters. [ ] so rarely, that salazar de mendoza affirms in his book upon _castilian dignities_ that this "high prenomen" (_alto prenombre don_) might properly be used by none but kings, _infantes_, prelates, and the _ricos-homes_ of the realm. in a.d. , fernández de navarrete complained of the tendency prevailing among the spaniards generally to usurp the title _don_. "nowadays in castile," he wrote (_conservación de monarquías_, p. , etc.), "exists a horde of turbulent and idle fellows that so style themselves, since you will hardly find the son of a craftsman (_oficial mecánico_) that does not endeavour by this trick to filch the honour that is owed to true nobility alone; and so, impeded and weighed down by the false appearance of _caballeros_, they are unsuited to follow any occupation that is incompatible with the empty authority of a _don_." some of the reasons why these rogues or _pseudonobles_ (as fernández de navarrete called them), attempted to pass for _hidalgos_ or "sons of somebody," are disclosed by townsend, writing a century and a half later. "numerous privileges and immunities enjoyed by the _hidalgos_ or knights, sometimes called _hijos dalgo_, have contributed very much to confirm hereditary prejudices to the detriment of trade. their depositions are taken in their own houses. they are seated in the courts of justice, and are placed near the judge. till the year , their persons, arms, and horses were free from arrest. they are not sent to the common jails, but are either confined in castles or in their own houses on their parole of honour. they are not hanged, but strangled, and this operation is called _garrotar_, from _garrote_, the little stick used by carriers to twist the cord and bind hard their loading. they cannot be examined on the rack. they are, moreover, exempted from the various taxes called _fechos_, _pedidos_, _monedas_, _martiniegas_, and _contribuciones reales_ and _civiles_: that is, from subsidies, benevolence, and poll tax, or taille paid by the common people, at the rate of two per cent., in this province, but in others at the rate of four. they are free from personal service, except where the sovereign is, and even then they cannot be compelled to follow him. none but the royal family can be quartered on them. to conclude, the noble female conveys all these privileges to her husband and her children, just in the same manner as the eldest daughter of the titular nobility transmits the titles of her progenitors. "the proportion of _hidalgos_ in the kingdom of granada is not considerable; for out of six hundred and fifty-two thousand nine hundred and ninety inhabitants, only one thousand nine hundred and seventy-nine are noble; whereas, in the province of león, upon little more than one-third that population, the knights are twenty-two thousand. in the province of burgos, on four hundred and sixty thousand three hundred and ninety-five inhabitants, one hundred and thirty-four thousand and fifty-six are entitled to all the privileges of nobility; and in asturias, of three hundred and forty-five thousand eight hundred and thirty-three, nearly one-third enjoy the same distinction."--(_journey through spain in the years and _: vol. iii., pp. , .) "i bestow the name of craftsmen in silver (_artífices plateros_), not upon all who handle silver or gold, but only upon such as draw, and grave, and execute in relief, whether on a large or small scale, figures and histories from life, just as do the sculptors." these words are quoted from a book, the whole of which was written with the aim of proving that certain classes of spain's older craftsmen were less abject than the rest.[ ] it is not so long ago that the expression _viles artesanos_ ("vile artisans") was banished from the legal phraseology of spain. "that prejudice," wrote laborde, "which regards the mechanic arts as base, is not extinguished in spain, but only abated: hence it happens that they are neglected or abandoned to such unskilful hands that they are wonderfully backward in these matters. the influence of this cause is striking: in catalonia, laws, customs, and opinions are favourable to artisans, and it is in this province that these arts have made the greatest progress." [ ] licentiate gaspar gutierrez de los ríos, _noticia general para la estimación de las artes y la manera en que se conocen las liberales de las que son mecánicas y serviles_. madrid, . i again have occasion to mention this curious work in my chapter on spanish tapestries. townsend commented as follows on what he called the _national prejudice_ against trade. "whilst the jews were merchants, and the mechanic arts were left either to the moors or to the vilest of the people, the grandees or knights were ambitious only of military fame. after the conquest of granada, the moors continued to be the principal manufacturers, and excelled in the cultivation of their lands. when these, with the jews, were banished, a void was left which the high-spirited spaniard was not inclined to fill. trained for many centuries to the exercise of arms, and regarding such mean occupations with disdain, his aversion was increased by his hatred and contempt for those whom he had been accustomed to see engaged in these employments. he had been early taught to consider trade as dishonourable; and whether he frequented the theatre, or listened to the discourses of the pulpit orators, he could not fail to be confirmed in his ideas. even in the present day, many, who boast their descent from noble ancestors, had rather starve than work, more especially at those trades by which, according to the laws, they would be degraded, and forfeit their nobility."--(_journey through spain in and _, pp. , .) laborde endorsed these assertions by uncharitably remarking that "the spaniard had always fortitude enough to endure privations, but never courage enough to encounter work." in our time judgments of a still severer kind have been passed upon the spaniards by various of their own countrymen--among others, unamuno, ganivet, and pompeyo gener. it is evident, too, that the cause of the relentless exclusion, by the spanish guilds, of moors, moriscos, jews, or converts--men who, owing to the unsubstantial taint of heresy, were hated and derided by the spanish nation almost to a man--resided also in this morbid sensitiveness. had not the moorish prisoner been formerly considered as the merest chattel, legally equivalent to a beast of burden?[ ] how, then, should he be ever equalled with the christian spaniard? these haughty and extravagant notions operated, in the seventeenth century, to bring about the general ruin of spanish trades and manufactures. bertaut de rouen wrote at this time:--"l'acoûtumance qu'avoient les espagnols de faire travailler les morisques, qui estoient libres parmi eux, et les mores esclaves, dont il y a encor quelques-uns qu'ils prennent sur leurs costes et sur celles d'afrique, les a entretenus dans la faineantise et dans l'orgueil, qui fait qu'ils dédaignent tous de travailler. ce qui achève de les y plonger, c'est le peu de soucy qu'ils prennent de l'avenir, et l'égalité du menu peuple et de tous les moindres marchands et artisans qu'ils nomment _officiales_, avec les gentilshommes, qui demeurent tous dans les petites villes." [ ] it is stated in the fuero of nájera (a.d. ) that the price of the blood of a moorish slave was twelve _sueldos_ and a half, while the fuero viejo of castile (book ii., tit. iii., ley iv.) contains the significantly contemptuous phrase, "if a man demand of another a beast or a moor" (_si algún ome demanda á otro bestia ó moro_). the countess d'aulnoy wrote in ;--"there are here (at madrid) a large number of turkish and moorish slaves, who are bought and sold at heavy prices, some of them costing four hundred and five hundred _escudos_. until some time ago the owners of these slaves possessed the right to kill them at their pleasure, as though they had been so many dogs; but since it was remarked that this usage tallied but poorly with the maxims of our christian faith, so scandalous a license was prohibited. nowadays the owner of a slave may often break his bones without incurring censure. not many, however, resort to so extreme a chastisement." in the same century the countess d'aulnoy recorded comical instances of the pride of the tradesmen of madrid. "one morning," she says, "we stopped awhile in the plaza mayor to await the return of a servant whom my aunt had sent with a message to some place not far away. just then i saw a woman selling some slices of salmon, crying them aloud and proclaiming their freshness in tones which positively molested the passers-by. presently a shoemaker came up (i knew him to be such, because they called him the _señor zapatero_), and asked for a pound of salmon; since here they sell everything by the pound, even to coal and firewood. 'you have not been through the market,' cried the woman who sold the fish, 'because you fancy that my salmon is cheap to-day; but let me tell you that it costs an _escudo_ the pound.' furious that his poverty should thus be hinted at in public, the shoemaker exclaimed in angry tones: 'it is true that i was not aware of the price of fish to-day. had it been cheap, i would have bought a pound of it; but since you say it is dear, give me three pounds.' with these words, he held out his hand with the three _escudos_, jammed his hat upon his eyebrows (tradesmen in this town wear small hats, and persons of quality hats of great size), and then, twisting the ends of his mustachios, and clapping his hand to his rapier, the point of which bobbed upward, carrying with it a fold of his ragged cloak, caught up his purchase and strode home, looking at us with an arrogant air, as though he had performed some heroic deed and we had witnessed it. yet the drollest part of it all was that beyond doubt the fellow had no money left at home, but had spent his week's wages upon the salmon, so that his choleric and haughty act would keep his wife and children famishing for all those days, after supping once upon abundant fish. such is the character of this people; and there are gentlemen here who take the feet of a fowl and hang them so as to show beneath the hem of their cloak, to make it appear as though they really bore a fowl. but hunger, in truth, is all they carry with them. "you never see a shopman here who does not clothe himself in velvet, silk, and satin, like the king; or who is not the owner of a mighty rapier, which dangles from the wall, together with his dagger and guitar. these fellows work as little as they may, for, as i said, they are by nature indolent. only in case of extreme necessity do they work at all, and then they never rest, but labour even throughout a feast-day; though when they have finished what was needed to procure them money, they deliver the product of their toil, and with its value relapse into fresh idleness. the shoemaker who has two apprentices, and who has only made one pair of shoes, hands to his lads a shoe apiece and makes them walk before him as though they were his pages; he that has three apprentices is preceded by all three; and when occasion rises, the master-_zapatero_ will hardly condescend to fit upon your feet the shoes which his own hands had put together." it seems that the shoemakers of madrid were distinguished for their insolence and vanity above the rest of her tradespeople. in bertaut de rouen wrote of the two _corrales_ or theatres of this town, that they were "toujours pleines de tous les marchands, et de tous les artisans, qui quittant leur boutique s'en vont là avec la cappe, l'épée, et le poignard, qui s'appellent tous _cavalleros_ jusques au _çapateros_; et ce sont ceux qui décident si la comedie est bonne ou non, et à cause qu'ils la sifflent ou qu'ils l'applaudissent, et qu'ils sont d'un costé et d'autre en rang, outre que c'est comme une espèce de salve, on les appelle _mosqueteros_, en sorte que la bonne fortune des autheurs dépend d'eux." the foregoing narratives sound absurd, and are particularly prone to be considered so from being of foreign authorship. their tenor, notwithstanding, is supported by the following declarations, gravely set down in writing by a spaniard, within some half a dozen years of the visit to madrid of the countess d'aulnoy. the name of this author is alonso nuñez de castro, and the title of his work (published towards the close of the reign of philip the fourth), _el cortesano en madrid_. "what man," demands this _madrileño_ of a bygone century, "eminent in any of the arts, has belonged to other nations, but has sought in madrid the applause and gain which his native country would not, or could not, bestow upon him? thus, either he in person, or else his master-works, visit with frequency this court of ours, wherein they meet a better fate than in their birthplace, since only at madrid is properly esteemed the value of illustrious effort. let london manufacture as she may her famous cloths, holland her cambrics, florence her satins, india her castors and vicunas, milan her brocades, italy and the netherlands the statues and oil-paintings which seem to breathe the very life of the original: our court enjoys these products one and all, proving hereby that other nations generate artists for madrid, who is, in sooth, the supreme court of courts, seeing that she is served by all, yet in her turn serves none. "yet not at slight expense does she enjoy this sovereignty, showering upon other hands her gold and silver, that they may recreate her mouth with choicest drinks and viands, her nostrils with delicious essences, her eyes with wondrous works of painting and of statuary, her hearing with the skill of world-renowned musicians, her luxury with expensive fabrics and with precious stones; albeit these disbursements mark her, not as prodigal, but as prudent in discovering the proper use of gold, together with the fitting aim and purpose of all riches. who was possessor of more gold than midas?--seeing that not he alone, but all he laid his hand upon, was gold; or who so wretched?--seeing that he was powerless to keep himself alive on gold, though all he touched was golden. truly that man is rich that maketh gold to minister to his wants, and he a miserable pauper that to gold himself is slave, not knowing how to turn its uses to his good. therefore let other peoples accumulate wealth at ease, heaping up the gold wherewith madrid repays their ministration to her needs. whereas her courtiers prove possession of their gold, in that they amassed it formerly, those foreigners show the evil and the mischief of their own by jealously confining it with lock and key: nay, who shall even tell if it be theirs, seeing that they enjoy it not, although they seem to be the lords thereof? "you will declare that other courts enjoy the same conveniences with less expense, because their magistrates are stricter to restrain the tradesman from establishing his prices at caprice. truly, it may happen that elsewhere the price of foods and luxuries be less than in madrid; yet it is certain that madrid makes fair comparison in cheapness with the other cities of castile. nay, more, without there seeming to be cause, her courtiers daily find that by a marvel articles are cheaper here than in the soil which generated them, or in the town where they were wrought. the fact that in comparison with other kingdoms madrid is in some ways the dearer, proves that she hath the money for rewarding labour; and that in other capitals the sweat of the artificer is worthless, because money is worth more. always have i remarked that the province or the realm that is awarded the name of _happy_, because all things are purchasable there at next to no expense, is wrongly titled so, since here is evidence, either that money lacks, or that there is no purchaser."[ ] [ ] to further show the extravagant way of thinking and behaving of the spaniard of the seventeenth century, the same author sets aside the sneering objection justly made by foreign writers to the river manzanares at madrid--namely, that it has no water--by remarking with exquisite complacency, that here precisely lies the crowning merit and advantage of the manzanares over rival streams; in that it amuses people without endangering their lives. in the reigns of philip the fourth and charles the second, a favourite promenade of the madrid aristocracy was the waterless channel of this river, in which, according to this work, "coaches and carriages do duty for a gondola, and form a pleasant imitation of the boats and palaces of venice." in the eighteenth century, when better sense prevailed among the statesmen and economists of spain, the greedy and corrupt administration of her guilds began to be awarded greater notice. among the enlightened and progressive spaniards who outspoke their minds upon this theme, were florez estrada and the count of campomanes. these, among others of less mark, saw and proclaimed that the harm inflicted by the _gremios_ in some directions was incalculable, while the good they were supposed to bring about in others was rather nominal than real.[ ] apart, however, from the judgment uttered by these two authorities, men of acknowledged probity and consequence who held the public ear, as well as by the patriotic jovellanos in his spirited appeal in favour of the _libre ejercicio de las artes_, a number of causes, such as the propagation of the principles of individual liberty by the french revolution, contributed to give the _gremios_ an archaic air, and finally to bring about their downfall. the views concerning them which gradually filled the popular mind, prior to their extinction as an act of government in the year ,[ ] are well expressed by townsend. "in all the trading companies or _gremios_," wrote this traveller, "religious fraternities are formed, some incorporated by royal authority and letters patent, others by connivance of the crown, but both in violation of the laws. [ ] the object avowedly pursued by campomanes was not, however, the absolute suppression of the spanish trade-guilds, but merely their reconstruction upon a sounder basis. he still believed that admission to a guild should be preceded by a formal period of apprenticeship, as well as that the title and the privileges of the master of a trade should be hereditary. an instance of the grossly fraudulent methods employed by the _gremios_ in order to retain the privilege of manufacture in a certain family, is quoted by larruga (_memorias_, vol. ii., p. ), who states that the silk-cord makers of madrid conferred the title of _master-craftsman_ on a babe only twenty-two months old. [ ] barzanallana says that the earliest sign of a movement in the direction of emancipating the spanish people from the thraldom of the _gremios_ is contained in the royal _cedula_ of may th, , abolishing several of the noxious prerogatives which had hitherto been enjoyed by the families of master-craftsmen. a further crown decree, dated the same month and year, empowered the audiencias and chancillerías to authorize persons to pursue a craft (provided they were reasonably competent) without the necessity of approval from the _gremios_ and their _veedores_. three years later, the same monarch (charles the fourth) suppressed the _gremios_ and _colegios_ of the silk-twisters, and declared this craft to be open to all such persons, of either sex, as wished to practise it. in it was permitted to all foreigners who should be competent in any art or industry (except jews) to establish themselves in spain or her dominions, nor were they to be molested in their religious theories if they should happen not to be roman catholics. at a later time the cortes annulled, or very nearly so, the _ordenanzas_ of the _gremios_, and allowed the exercise of any lawful trade or craft to everybody, spaniards and foreigners alike, without the requisite of special license or examination, or approval by the officers of the guilds (decree of june th, ). this measure was revoked in , but again became law in , and two years before this latter date was issued the decree of queen maría cristina prohibiting associations which, under the semblance of a _gremio_, should aim at converting any craft or office into a monopoly. the spanish _gremios_ still exist, but all their sting has departed. to-day they may be said to spring from the natural and beneficial interdependence of persons working together in the same groove, and seeking mutual support by means of peaceable association. thus the abuses which rendered them so terrible and evil in the olden time are fortunately now no more. "every fraternity is governed by a mayor and court of aldermen, who make laws, sit in judgment on offenders, and claim in many cases exemption from the common tribunals of the country. none but the members of these communities may exercise mechanic arts, or be concerned in trade; and to be admitted as a member is both attended with a heavy fine, and entails upon each individual a constant annual expense. "this, however, is not the greatest evil, for the mayor and officers, during their year of service, not only neglect their own affairs, but from vanity and ostentation run into expenses, such as either ruin their families, or at least straiten them exceedingly in trade. "these corporations, being established in the cities, banish, by their oppressive laws, all the mechanic arts from towns and villages. in the cities likewise they tend only to monopoly, by limiting the numbers in every branch of business, and fixing within unreasonable bounds the residence of those who are concerned in trade. this they do either by assigning the distance between shop and shop, under pretence that two shops vending the same commodities must not be so near together as to interfere, or by assembling all the mechanics of the same profession, such as silversmiths, and confining them to one street or quarter of the city, under the plausible pretext that thus the proper magistrate may with ease pay attention to their work, and see that the due standard be observed.[ ] [ ] this custom was borrowed from the east, and explains why, in many of the older spanish cities, a number of their streets have taken their title from the trades that formerly were plied in them, or (in some instances) that still are so. especially was this the case at valencia and toledo. in the latter capital there are, or used to be, the streets, _plazas_, or _barrios_, of the silversmiths, armourers, bakers, old-clothes vendors, potters, esparto-weavers, dyers, chairmakers, and many more. martín gamero, in his excellent _history of toledo_ (introduction, p. ), says that in the centre of the city were located the quiet crafts, such as those of the jewellers, silversmiths, chandlers, and clog-makers, as well as the shops of the silk, brocade, and tissue-vendors. noisy trades, such as the swordsmiths', tinsmiths', boiler-makers', chairmakers', and turners', were practised on the outskirts of the town. "in many cases the various _gremios_ bear hard upon each other. thus, for instance, the carpenter must not employ his industry on mahogany, or any other wood but deal, nor must he invade the province of the turner. the turner must confine his ingenuity and labour to soft wood, and must not presume to touch either ivory or metals, even though he should be reduced to poverty for want of work. the wheeler, in similar distress, must not, however qualified, extend his operations beyond the appointed bounds, so as to encroach on the business of the coach-maker, who is equally restrained from either making or mending either cart or waggon wheels. the barber may shave, draw teeth, and bleed, but he must not fill up his leisure time with making wigs.[ ] as mechanics are obliged to keep exactly each to his several line, so must shopkeepers confine themselves to their proper articles in trade, and under no pretence must the manufacturer presume to open magazines, that he may sell by retail. [ ] colmeiro has published _memoriales_ presented by the hatters of zaragoza, in which they pray to be allowed to line, by their own hands, or by those of their wives, the hats which they had manufactured, instead of being required to give up this finishing and accessorial process to the makers of silk cord.--_historia de la economía política en españa_, and _biblioteca de los economistas españoles de los siglos xvi., xvii., y xviii_. "but neither are these abuses the only evils which call for reformation. many corporations have been impertinently meddling, and have absurdly bound the hands of the manufacturer by regulations with respect to the conduct of his business and the productions of his art, such as, being too rigidly observed, would preclude all improvements, and would be destructive to his trade, by giving to foreigners a manifest advantage in favour of their merchandise.[ ] [ ] this meddlesomeness almost exceeds belief. it was at its worst, perhaps, in the reign of ferdinand and isabella, who decreed that the wicks of candles were to be made of the same kind of tow, and horse-shoes and nails to be of the same weight in every part of their dominions. it was required that machines, which might have been to great advantage moved by mules or horses, should only be worked by the hand of man, however lengthy and exhausting this might prove. the count of torreánaz, who quotes these ridiculous dispositions from the _libro de bulas y pragmáticas_ of juan ramírez, further recalls that, as late as the middle of the eighteenth century, costly woven stuffs of seville and valencia used to be confiscated because, although the ground of the fabric was of a colour which the law allowed, the flowers or other devices which formed the decoration were of a forbidden shade. on one occasion the chief lady-in-waiting of the queen was prohibited from wearing a dress which she had ordered from a weaver of valencia, because the flowered pattern was contrary to the _ordenanzas_. "the incorporated fraternities in the kingdoms of castile and aragon are , , and their corporate expenses amount to , , reals. their revenue is not altogether consumed in feasting, nor in salaries to officers, nor in pensions to their widows, nor yet in lawsuits, which are said to be both numerous and expensive; but considerable sums are expended for religious purposes, in procuring masses to be said, either for departed spirits and the souls in purgatory, or for the benefit of the fraternity in which each individual has a proportionable interest. for this reason, these communities enjoy the protection of the ecclesiastical courts, to which, in cases of necessity, they frequently appeal. "the chartered corporations claim their exclusive privileges by royal grant, and on this plea they resist a formation, not considering, as count campomanes with propriety remarks, the essential condition of these grants, _sin perjuicio de tercero_, or that nothing therein contained shall be to the _prejudice of others_, or injurious to the citizens at large." appendix i classes of pottery made at alcora (from riaÑo's _industrial arts in spain_) towards the middle of the eighteenth century:-- vases of different shapes. small pots (chinese fashion). teapots and covers (chinese fashion). cruets, complete sets (chinese style). entrée dishes. salt-cellars (chinese style). _escudillas_ (bowls), of constantinople. _barquillos_ (sauce bowls), chinese style. bottles (in the chinese manner). cups, plates, and saucers of different kinds, with good painted borders in imitation of lace-work (_puntilla_). some were designed in the chinese manner, and especial care was taken with fruit-stands, salad-bowls, and dishes. trays and refrigerators. a document, discovered by riaño, and dated , says that in that year the following kinds of pottery were manufactured at alcora:-- _figures of demi-porcelain._ figures of tritons. " of soldiers (two sizes). " of soldiers, one-third of a _palmo_ high. " of the four seasons (two sizes). " of dancers. " of tritons in the form of children. " with brackets. " of different animals. " of gardener and female companion in the dresden style. dancing figures in the german style. figures of neptune. " of shepherd and shepherdess. " of the moorish king, armenius. " of the four parts of the world (two sizes). " of peasant and his wife. small figures holding musical instruments. figures representing different monarchies. " representing historical personages. " representing the history of alexander the great (two sizes). " representing martius curtius (two sizes). " of elephants. " of a man mounted on an elephant. " representing chinese figures. " of heliogabalus. " of a general on horseback. " of a grenadier supporting a candlestick. large figures representing julius cæsar. figures representing the different costumes worn in spain, on brackets. groups of chinese figures. snuff-boxes, sugar-basins, inkstands. rabbits, horns, and pug-dogs for holding scent. small scent-bottles. needle-cases. large vases with foot and cover. brackets. walking-stick handles. knife handles. _figures of white biscuit china._ figures representing spanish costumes (two sizes). groups of two figures. large and small figures of the four parts of the world. figures of the four seasons (two sizes). we find also, says riaño, the following figures of painted and glazed porcelain:-- four seasons (two sizes). groups of two figures. figure of a moorish king. " of musicians and huntsmen. " of peasants. " of chinese. small figures of a gardener and female companion. figures of soldiers in the german style. from to , continues riaño, the following kinds of pottery were made at alcora:-- hard paste porcelain (french). porcelain of three different kinds called spanish. porcelain of pipeclay (english). blue pipeclay porcelain. marbled pipeclay porcelain. _bucaros_, painted and gilt. strasburg ware. porcelain painted _en froid_. marbled and gilt wares, hitherto unknown. _porcelain (frita)._ porcelain painted with gilt lines. " painted without gold. " (_frita_), canary colour. boxes in relief. " plain. porcelain (_frita_), painted with marble wares. plain boxes of the same kind. porcelain (_frita_), of blue and brown ground. cups and saucers of a similar kind. _biscuit porcelain._ figures. vases. pedestals. white porcelain (_frita_) cups of different kinds. " porcelain, ornamented and plain. boxes with busts. boxes with ornamentations in relief. vases for holding flowers, plates, etc. large figures of the four seasons. flower vases with rams' heads. plain boxes. boxes with ornaments in relief. _white porcelain._ plates, cups, etc. figures of different kinds. _painted porcelain._ cups, saucers, plates, etc. cream-pots. plain snuff-boxes, or in the shape of a dog. fruit-stands in relief. bibliography the following is a fairly complete list of the works i have consulted for the preparation of these volumes. abdÓn de paz. _la españa de la edad media._ academia de san fernando, real. _colección de antigüedades arabes de granada y córdoba_; vols. alba, duchess of berwick and. _catálogo de las colecciones expuestas en las vitrinas del palacio de liria._ alderete. _antigüedades de españa._ alzola y minondo, pablo. _el arte industrial en españa._ bilbao, . amador de los rÍos. _el arte latino-bizantino en españa y las coronas visigodas de guarrazar._ madrid, . antÓn, francisco. _estudio sobre el coro de la catedral de zamora_; . argote de molina. _nuevos paseos históricos, artísticos, económico-políticos por granada y sus contornos._ arphe y villafaÑe. _varia conmensuración para la escultura y arquitectura._ seventh edition; madrid, . _arte en españa, el_; vols. _arts italiens en espagne, les, ou histoire des artistes italiens qui contribuerent à embellir les castilles._ rome, . balsa de la vega. _las industrias artísticas en madrid_ (lace, etc.). articles published in _el liberal_, . barrantes. _barros emeritenses._ madrid, . bertaut de rouen. _journal du voyage d'espagne._ paris, . birch, samuel. _history of ancient pottery._ london, . bock. _die kleinodien des heil. römischen reichs deutscher nation, nebst den kroninsignien böhmens, ungarns, und der lombardei._ vienna, . _geschichte der liturgischen gewänder des mittelalters._ bonn, . bonsor, georges. _les colonies pre-romaines de la vallée du bétis._ paris, . bourgoing, jean-franÇois de. _nouveau voyage en espagne._ vols.; paris, . breÑosa y castellarnau. _guía y descripción del real sitio de san ildefonso._ madrid, . caballero infante, francisco. _aureos y barras de oro y plata encontrados en el pueblo de santiponce._ seville, . campos munilla, manuel. _mosaicos del museo arqueológico provincial de sevilla._ . capmany y montpalau, antonio. _memorias históricas sobre la marina, comercio, y artes de la ciudad de barcelona._ madrid, . carrasco y sÁinz, adolfo. _catálogo de los recuerdos históricos existentes en el museo de artillería._ part i.; madrid, . cascales, francisco. _discursos históricos sobre murcia._ murcia, . cean bermudez, juan agustin. _descripción artística de la catedral de sevilla._ seville, . _diccionario de las bellas artes en españa._ cedillo, count of. _toledo en el siglo xvi._ madrid, . clonard, count of. _memorias para la historia del traje español_; published in the _memorias de la real academia de la historia_, vol. ix. madrid, . _conferencias leidas en el ateneo barcelonés sobre el estado de la cultura española y particularmente catalana, en el siglo xv._ barcelona, . cole, alan s. _ornament in european silks._ london, . contreras, rafael. _recuerdos de la dominación de los arabes en españa._ granada, . cox. _l'art de décorer les tissus._ cruzada villaamil. _los tapices de goya._ madrid, . danvila y collado. _trajes y armas de los españoles._ madrid, . davillier, baron. _recherches sur l'orfévrerie en espagne._ paris, . _les arts decoratifs en espagne au moyen âge et à la renaissance._ paris, . _nota sobre los cueros de cordoba, guadameciles de españa_, etc. (spanish edition.) gerona, . diaz y perez, nicolÁs. _historia de talavera la real._ madrid, . dozy. _histoire des musulmans d'espagne._ leyden, . dupont-auberville. _l'ornement des tissus._ paris, . echeverrÍa. _paseos por granada y sus contornos_. vols.; granada, . eguilaz yanguas, leopoldo. _reseña histórica de la conquista del reino de granada por los reyes católicos._ granada, . errera, madame isabelle. _collection d'anciennes Étoffes_ (catalogue). brussels, . fernandez y gonzalez, francisco. _estado social y político de los mudéjares de castilla._ madrid, . florez. _españa sagrada._ ( nd edition). madrid, . ford, richard. _handbook for travellers in spain._ vols. london, . gayangos, pascual de (edited by). _history of the mohammedan dynasties in spain._ london, . (annotated by). _chronicle of rassis the moor._ madrid, . gayet. _l'art persan._ gestoso y perez, josÉ. _documentos relativos á la historia de la armería de sevilla._ seville, . _ensayo de un diccionario de los artífices que florecieron en sevilla desde el siglo xiii al xviii inclusive._ vols.; seville, . _historia de los barros vidriados sevillanos desde sus orígenes hasta nuestros días._ seville, . _curiosidades antiguas sevillanas._ seville, . goblet d'alviella, comte. _la migration des symboles._ paris, . gÓmez moreno, manuel. _apuntes que pueden servir de historia del bordado de imaginería en granada_ (published in the magazine _el liceo de granada_; th year, no. ). _guía de granada._ granada, . gÓngora. _antigüedades prehistóricas de andalucía._ madrid, . granada, ordinances of. _titulo de las ordenanças que los muy ilustres y muy magníficos señores granada mandaron que se guarden para la buena governacion de su república. las quales mandaron imprimir para que todos las sepan y las guarden._ . _ordenanzas que los muy ilustres y muy magnificos señores granada mandaron guardar, para la buena governacion de su republica, impressas año de . que se han buelto a imprimir mandado de los señores presidente, y oydores de la real chancilleria de esta ciudad de granada, año de . añadiendo otras que no estauan impressas. impressas en granada. en la imprenta real de francisco de ochoa, en la calle de abenamar. año de_ . guillen robles, francisco. _málaga musulmana._ málaga, . gutierrez de la hacera, pascual ramon. _descripción general y cronológica de españa._ vols.; madrid, . hÜbner. _inscriptiones hispaniæ latinæ._ berlin, . _inscriptionum hispaniæ latinarum supplementum._ berlin, . jones, owen. _the alhambra._ london, . lane-poole, stanley. _the art of the saracens in egypt._ london, . _the moors in spain._ london, . larruga. _memorias políticas y económicas sobre los frutos, comercio, y minas de españa._ madrid, . le breton, gaston. _céramique espagnole. le salon en porcelaine du palais royal de madrid et les porcelaines de buen retiro._ paris, . lecea y garcia. _recuerdos de la antigua industria segoviana._ segovia, . lopez de arenas, diego. _carpintería de lo blanco y tratado de alarifes._ ( rd edition.) madrid, . madrazo, pedro de. _córdoba._ barcelona, . martorell y peÑa, juan. _apuntes arqueológicos de, ordenados por salvador samper y miquel._ barcelona, . medina, pedro de. _primera y segunda parte de las grandezas y cosas notables de españa._ alcalá de henares, . menendez y pelayo, marcelino. _historia de las ideas estéticas en españa._ madrid, and following years. morales, ambrosio de. _la crónica general de españa del maestro florián de ocampo, continuada con el libro de las antigüedades de españa._ moreno de vargas, bernabÉ. _historia de la ciudad de mérida._ merida, ; reprinted at merida, . murguÍa, manuel. _el arte en santiago durante el siglo xviii., y noticia de los artistas que florecieron en dicho ciudad y centuria._ madrid, . _museo español de antigüedades_ (many articles in the). madrid, and following years. _noticia de la fábrica de espadas de toledo que por tantos siglos existió hasta fines del xvii en que acabó, y del método que tenían aquellos artífices armeros para forjarlas y templarlas, aceros de que usaban, y otras particularidades que las hicieron tan famosas en todo el mundo como apetecidas al presente, y de la que por el rey n.s. que dios gue. se estableció en esta ciudad año de ; por francisco de santiago palomares escriuano mayor de primeros remates de rentas decimales de toledo y su arzobispado._ ms. in the library of the royal academy of history, madrid; in the volume inscribed _varios de historia_, , e, . _ordenanzas de la muy noble é muy leal cibdad de sevilla é su tierra, assi de las tocantes al cabildo y regimiento della, que se contienen en la primera parte, como de todos los oficios mecánicos, de que es la segunda parte. impressas con mucha diligencia en la dicha cibdad de sevilla por juan varela de salamanca, vezino della. acabáronse de imprimir á catorze dias del mes de febrero, año de nuestro redemptor iesu christo de mil quinientos é veynte y siete años ( )._ the second edition was published, also at seville, in . _ordenanzas para el buen regimen y gobierno de la muy noble, muy leal é imperial ciudad de toledo._ reprinted by the town council. toledo, . ortega rubio. _los visigodos en españa._ madrid, . osma, guillermo j. de. _azulejos sevillanos del siglo xiii._ madrid, . _los letreros ornamentales en la cerámica morisca del siglo xv._ pÉrez de villa-amil. _españa artistica y monumental._ paris, - . pÉrez villaamil, manuel. _artes é industrias del buen retiro._ madrid, . picatoste, felipe. _ultimos escritos._ _estudios sobre la grandeza y decadencia de españa._ pigal. _collection de costumes des diverses provinces de l'espagne._ paris, about . ponz, antonio. _viaje de españa._ vols.; madrid, . ramÍrez de arellano, rafael. _ciudad real artística._ ciudad real, . riaÑo, juan facundo. _the industrial arts in spain_ (south kensington museum art handbooks). london, . ricord, tomÁs. _noticia de las varias y diferentes producciones del reyno de valencia, etc.: segun el estado que tenían en el año ._ valencia, . rodrÍguez villa, antonio (edited by). _la corte y monarquía de españa en los años de y ._ madrid, . sanpere y miquel. _la plateria catalana en los siglos xvi y xv_ (article published in the _revista de ciencias históricas_; vol. i.). _las costumbres catalanas en tiempo de juan i._ gerona, . sempere. _historia del lujo en españa._ madrid, . simonet, francisco javier. _descripción del reino de granada, sacada de los autores arábigos._ granada, . stirling, william. _annals of the artists of spain._ london, . strabo. _geography._ street. _some account of gothic architecture in spain._ london, . swinburne, henry. _travels through spain._ london, . townsend, joseph. _journey through spain._ vols.; london, . valladar, f. de paula. _guía de granada._ granada, and . van de put. _hispano-moresque ware of the fifteenth century._ london, . vargas y ponce. _correspondencia epistolar en materias de arte._ collected by cesáreo fernández duro. madrid, . villa-amil y castro. _antigüedades prehistóricas y célticas de galicia._ lugo, . _arqueología sagrada._ lugo, . viÑaza, count of la. _adiciones al diccionario de cean bermudez._ _goya._ viollet-le-duc. _dictionnaire raisonné du mobilier français de l'époque carlovingienne à la renaissance._ wallis, henry. _the oriental influence on the ceramic art of the italian renaissance._ london, . young, arthur. _tour in catalonia._ dublin, . zarco del valle. _documentos inéditos para la historia de las bellas artes en españa._ madrid, . index abd-al-azis, i. . abd-er-rhaman the first, ii. . abd-er-rhaman the second, ii. ; iii. . abd-er-rhaman the third, ii. . aben-said, i. ; ii. , . abolais, ii. _et seq._, . abreviador, the casa del, iii. . abu-said, iii. . _adargas_, i. , . addison, lancelot, ii. _et seq._, , (note). alberoni, cardinal, iii. (note). albuquerque, the inventory of the dukes of, i. , , , , ; ii. , . alcaicería of granada, the, i. ; ii. _et seq._ _alcarrazas_, ii. _et seq._ alcázar of seville, the, ii. _et seq._, , , , , , . alcora, pottery of, ii. _et seq._ alcoy, cloths of, iii. . aleman, cristóbal, ii. . _aleros_, ii. , . _alfarge_ ceilings, ii. _et seq._ alfonso the second, iii. . alfonso the third ("the great"), i. , (note); ii. ; iii. . alfonso the sixth, i. (note), ; ii. , ; iii. . alfonso the ninth, ii. . alfonso the tenth ("the learned"), i. , , , ; ii. , ; iii. , , , , , . alfonso the eleventh, i. ; iii. , . alfonso the eleventh, the chronicle of, i. , , , , (note). alfonso the thirteenth, i. (note). alfonso the first of aragon, ii. . algeciras, the siege of, i. . al-hakem the first, ii. ; iii. . al-hakem the second, ii. . alhambra, the, ii. , , , _et seq._, , , _et seq._, _et seq._, , , . _aliceres_, ii. . al-jattib, i. (note), , . _aljofar_, i. ; iii. _et seq._, . al-khattib, iii. , . almagro cardenas, ii. (note). almagro, lace of, iii. . al-makkari, i. , ; ii. , , ; iii. , , , , . al-manzor, i. ; ii. . _almexía_, iii. . almohades, the, ii. ; iii. . almoravides, the, iii. . almotalefes, iii. _et seq._ altar-screens (see _retablos_). alvarez de colmenar, i. (note), ; ii. , , , (note), ; iii. _et seq._, . amador de los ríos, josé, i. , , ; ii. (note). amador de los ríos, rodrigo, i. , , , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , , , ; iii. , . amphoræ, ii. , . _analogia_, iii. , . ancheta, ii. . andino, cristóbal de, i. _et seq._ angels, the cross of, i. _et seq._, . apocalypse, the codex of the, i. . _arabian nights, the_, ii. , (note). aranda, the count of, ii. , _et seq._ _arca santa_ of oviedo, the, i. . arenys de mar, lace of, iii. . arenys de munt, lace of, iii. . arfe, antonio de, i. . arfe, enrique de, i. , ; iii. . arfe, juan de, i. , _et seq._; iii. , . argote de molina, ii. . armouries of spain, private, i. , . armoury, madrid, the royal, i. , , (note), _et seq._, (note), (note), _et seq._, _et seq._, , , , , . arnao de flandes, ii. . _arquetas_, i. _et seq._ "arras cloths" (see _paños de ras_). _artesonados_, ii. , _et seq._ ash shakandi, iii. , . augusta, cristóbal de, ii. . _axorcas_, i. , . _azulejos_ (see tiles). _baculi_, ivory, ii. , . balconies, spanish, i. _et seq._ balearics, slingers of the, i. , . bâle, the council of, iii. , (note). balsa de la vega, iii. . _banyolenchs_, iii. (note). barcelona, silk of, iii. _et seq._ _barros saguntinos_ (see "saguntine ware"). _barros tarraconenses_ (see "saguntine ware"). bartholomew, master, i. _et seq._ barzanallana, iii. (note), (note). bayan almoghreb, i. . becerra, ii. . becerriles, the, i. , . bedclothes, spanish mediæval, ii. (note). benvenuto cellini, iii. _et seq._ berruguete, i. ; ii. , , , . bertaut de rouen, i. , , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , , , (note), , ; iii. , , , , , , , (note), , , . boabdil el chico, i. , _et seq._; iii. , . bocairente, cloths of, iii. . bonsor, ii. , . bourgoing, ii. , , , ; iii. , _et seq._ bowles, william, i. _et seq._, (note), (note), _et seq._; ii. (note), _et seq._, , . brihuega, cloths of, iii. , (note). brims of wells (see _brocales_). _brinquiños_, ii. , . british museum, the, ii. ; iii. . brocade, iii. , (note). _brocales_, ii. , . bronzes, moorish, i. _et seq._ brun, sigismund, ii. . _búcaros_, ii. , . buckram, iii. , . buen retiro, pottery of the, ii. , _et seq._ buonaparte, joseph, ii. . _burel_, iii. . cadalso, glass of, ii. . _cadinas_, iii. (note). campomanes, count, iii. , . _candil_, the, i. , . cannon, early spanish, i. _et seq._ cano, alonso, ii. , . _cántigas de santa maría_, the, i. . capmany, iii. , (note), . carpentry, artistic, ii. _et seq._ _carpintería de lo blanco_, ii. , . _carpinteros de lo blanco_, ii. . carrión, fernando de, iii. , . casa de los tíros, granada, the, ii. , . casiri, iii. , . cataluña, cloths of, iii. (note). cataluña, lace of, iii. _et seq._ catherine of lancaster, iii. , . cato, i. . cean bermudez, i. , (note), ; ii. , , _et seq._, , (note); iii. , (note). cedillo, count of, iii. (note), (note). celosías, ii. , _et seq._ celtiberians, the, i. , . _cendal_, iii. , . chair-makers of granada, the, ii. _et seq._ _chamelot_, iii. , , . charles the second, i. , , ; ii. ; iii. , , , (note). charles the third, i. , (note); ii. , , ; iii. . charles the fourth, ii. ; iii. (note). charles the fifth, i. , , , _et seq._, , , ; ii. , , ; iii. , , , , , , , , . chests, makers of, ii. . _ciclaton_, iii. , . cid, the, ii. . cid, the chronicle of the, i. . cid, the poem of the, i. , (note); ii. (note). cisneros, cardinal, iii. . ciudad real, ii. . clemencin, iii. , . clonard, count of, i. , , , , (note), ; ii. (note), (note), (note); iii. (note). cloostermans, ii. _et seq._ cloth of gold, iii. . cloths, spanish, iii. _et seq._ cluny, the museum of, ii. ; iii. . coaches, spanish, i. . _cofradías_, iii. _et seq._ commercial company of extremadura, the, iii. . compañia real de comercio y fábricas de granada, the, iii. _et seq._ _contrayes_, iii. . contreras, ii. . _cordellate_, iii. . cordova, cloths of, iii. . cordova, embroiderers of, iii. _et seq._ "cordova leathers," ii. , . cordova, _rejeros_ of, i. , . cordova, the council of, iii. . cordova, the mosque of, ii. , , . cordova, the ordinances of, ii. , . covarrubias, ii. , ; iii. . crossbows, spanish, i. _et seq._ crosses, iron, i. . crown of spain, tapestries of the, iii. _et seq._ _cueros de córdoba_, ii. _et seq._ cunninghame graham, i. , , (note), (note); ii. (note), (note). _cursi_, the, ii. . _custodia_ of cordova, the, iii. _et seq._ _custodia_ of seville, the, iii. _et seq._ _custodias_, i. _et seq._ cutlers, spanish, iii. _et seq._ dagobert, i. , . dancart, ii. , . danis, juan, ii. , . d'aulnoy, countess, i. _et seq._; ii. (note), ; iii. , , , , , _et seq._ davillier, baron, i. , , (note); ii. , , , , , , _et seq._; iii. . diago, ii. , . diodorus siculus, i. . diptyches, ivory, ii. _et seq._ dolfin, ii. , . domingo, "maestre," i. , ; iii. , (note). doncel, guillermo, ii. , . _don quixote_, i. (note); iii. . dozy, ii. (note), . _drach-alat_, the, iii. . drury fortnum, iii. . ducange, iii. . duque y cornejo, ii. . echeverría, father, i. . eder, ii. . edrisi, i. ; ii. ; iii. , . egilona, i. , . eguilaz yanguas, ii. ; iii. , (note). el nubiense, iii. . embroidery, spanish, iii. _et seq._ ena of battenberg, princess, iii. . enguera, cloths of, iii. . _entalladores_, ii. , , . escolano, ii. , . escorial, the, i. . eximenes, ii. , , . ferdinand and isabella, i. , _et seq._, , ; ii. , , , (note), , ; iii. , , , , , (note), , , . ferdinand the catholic, i. , _et seq._; ii. ; iii. (note). ferdinand the first, i. (note); ii. , , , . ferdinand the second, ii. . ferdinand the third (san fernando), i. , , , , ; ii. ; iii. . ferdinand the sixth, iii. , . ferdinand the second of aragon, i. . fernandez de navarrete, iii. (note), , (note), (note), _et seq._ fernandez y gonzalez, iii. (note). fez, iii. . florez estrada, iii. . floridablanca, count of, ii. ; iii. , . fonseca, i. , . fonts, baptismal, ii. , . ford, i. , , (note), , (note); ii. (note), (note), , , , . fortuny, i. ; ii. , , . fouquet, ii. . foz, manuel, iii. , , , . francés, juan, i. _et seq._ francis the first, iii. (note). frisleva, cristóbal, i. . fuero viejo of castile, the, iii. (note). gamero, martin, iii. , (note). ganivet, iii. . garcía llansó, ii. (note), , , (note), . gates, bronze, i. . gayangos, pascual de, i. , , , , ; ii. ; iii. , (note), (note). gelmirez, bishop, i. , . gener, pompeyo, iii. . george, master, i. . gestoso, i. , (note), (note), (note), (note), (note), (note); ii. (note), (note), _et seq._, _et seq._, (note) _et seq._, _et seq._, (note) _et seq._, , , , ; iii. , _et seq._, (note), , . giralda, the, i. (note), , , ; ii. , . goblet d'alviella, iii. (note). gomez moreno, ii. , , (note), , (note); iii. . gonzalo de cordova, i. , . goya, i. ; iii. . goyeneche, juan, ii. . granada, cloths of, iii. _et seq._ granada, silk of, iii. _et seq._ granada, the alcaicería of, iii. _et seq._ granada, the ordinances of, i. , (note), , , , (note), ; ii. _et seq._, . _granas treintenas_, iii. . gricci, ii. , . guadalajara, cloths of, iii. , _et seq._ guadalete, the battle of, i. . _guadamacileros_, iii. . _guadamacileros_ of cordova, the, ii. , . _guadameciles_, ii. _et seq._ guarrazar, the treasure of, i. _et seq._ guise, duke of, iii. . gutierrez, pedro, iii. _et seq._, , . hannibal, i. . harness for horses, war, i. , . henry, master, ii. , . henry the first, i. . henry the second, iii. (note). henry the eighth of england, iii. . hernández, gregorio, ii. , . herranz, francisco, ii. . hita, archpriest of, i. . hixem, ii. . hübner, ii. . hurtado de mendoza, ii. , . ibn abdo-l-haquem, i. . ibn alwardi, i. , . ibn batutah, ii. , . ibn hayyan, i. , . ibn hud, iii. , . ibn khaldoun, ii. ; iii. , , . ibn said, ii. , ; iii. _et seq._ illiberis, i. , . inlay on steel and iron, gold, iii. _et seq._ inns, furniture of spanish, ii. _et seq._ irving, washington, i. ; ii. , . isabel farnese, i. ; ii. . isabella the catholic, i. ; ii. , (note); iii. , , , . isabella the second, i. . isidore, saint, i. (note), , , (note), , ; ii. , . jacquemart, ii. . _jaeces colgantes_, i. , . jaen, cloths of, iii. . jayme the first of aragon ("the conqueror"), i. _et seq._; ii. , ; iii. , , , (note), . jewellery in spain, roman, i. , . jewellery, moorish, i. _et seq._ jewellery, morisco, i. _et seq._ jones, owen, ii. , (note). jovellanos, iii. . juana, doña, iii. . juan of aragon, i. ; ii. . juan the first, i. ; iii. , , , . juan the second, i. , (note); iii. . juni, juan de, ii. , . kersey, iii. . keys of seville, the, i. _et seq._ keys, spanish, i. _et seq._ laborde, i. _et seq._, _et seq._, , , , ; ii. _et seq._, (note), _et seq._, , , , , , , , , , ; iii. _et seq._, , _et seq._, _et seq._, , , _et seq._, , , , (note), _et seq._, _et seq._ lace, spanish, iii. _et seq._ la granja (or san ildefonso), the glass factory of, ii. _et seq._; iii. . la higueruela, the battle of, i. . lalaing, iii. . lambot, diodonet, ii. . la milanesa, iii. , . la moncloa, the porcelain factory of, ii. , . lampérez, vicente, ii. ; iii. (note). lamps, roman, i. _et seq._ lamps, ware, ii. . lane-poole, stanley, ii. , ; iii. (note), (note). la payessa, joseph, iii. , . larruga, ii. , , , , ; iii. (note), (note), , (note), (note), (note), , (note). lasteyrie, i. . _latticinio_, ii. , . _lazo_-work doors, ii. , _et seq._ leather, spanish decorative, ii. _et seq._ lefort, iii. . lenger, antoine, iii. . león, the synod of, iii. . lerma, duke of, i. , , , . _libros de pasantía_, i. , . locks and keys, i. . lope de vega, i. ; ii. (note). lopez de arenas, diego, ii. _et seq._, . lugo, exhibition of, i. . luis de león, fray, iii. (note). luna, alvaro de, i. , . lustred pottery, hispano-moresque, ii. _et seq._ machuca, pedro, ii. . madrid, the gremios of, iii. , , (note). madrid, the national museum, ii. , , , , _et seq._, ; iii. . majolica ware, ii. , . _manillas_, i. . _mantilla_, the, iii. _et seq._ marckwart, the brothers, i. . maría cristina, queen, iii. (note). maría de padilla, iii. . marineus siculus, i. ; ii. , , ; iii. . marmol, ii. . martial, i. . martinez de la mata, iii. . martinez guijarro, fernan, ii. , . martinez montañes, ii. . martin hume, ii. (note). martin of aragon, i. ; iii. . mary of england, ii. . maskell, ii. _et seq._ _medias lanas_, iii. (note). medina del campo, cloths of, iii. . medina, pedro de, i. ; ii. . mélida, ii. , (note). mena, alonso de, ii. . menandro, vicente, ii. . mena, pedro de, ii. , . mendez silva, i. , ; ii. , . mendoza, the _guión_ of cardinal, i. . micerguillo, i. . _mimbar_ of the mosque of cordova, the, iii. . _mimbar_, the, ii. . mines, gold and silver, in spain, i. _et seq._ mines of spain, the iron, i. . miquel y badía, ii. (note), (note); iii. , , , , , , , (note), (note), . moawia, ii. . mocarabes, ii. . mohammed the third of granada, i. . mondejar, the marquis of, i. . monistrol, the marquis of, ii. . montague, lady mary wortley, iii. (note). monte-fuerte, the marquis of, iii. (note). montoya, alejo de, iii. , . montserrat, ii. . monzón, the cortes of, iii. . morales, ambrosio de, i. , , (note); ii. (note), , , , (note), , , ; iii. . morel, bartolomé, i. _et seq._ morella, cloths of, iii. . moriscos, the, ii. (note); iii. . moriscos, the expulsion of the, i. _et seq._ mosaic-work, spanish, ii. _et seq._ müntz, iii. , (note), , (note), . murcia, cloths of, iii. . murcia, silk of, iii. _et seq._, _et seq._ muza, i. , , . muzquiz, miguel de, iii. (note). nails, decorative, i. , . napoleon, i. (note). navagiero, iii. . nebrija, ii. . ney, marshal, i. . nuevo baztán, the glass-factory of, ii. _et seq._ olivares, damian de, iii. . olivares, the count-duke of, iii. . ollery, ii. . onteniente, cloths of, iii. , . "opening images," ii. , . order of preachers, the, iii. . ordinances of barcelona, the, iii. . ordinances of burgos, the, iii. (note). ordinances of cordova, the, ii. , . ordinances of granada, the, i. , , , ; ii. _et seq._, , _et seq._, , ; iii. , _et seq._, , . ordinances of seville, the, ii. _et seq._; iii. (note). ordinances of toledo, the, ii. ; iii. , . ortiz de zúñiga, i. , . ortiz, lorenzo, iii. , , . osma, ii. _et seq._, , (note), , _et seq._, (note), . othman, the caliph, iii. . pacheco, ii. . palencia, cloths of, iii. . _pallia aquilinata_, iii. . _pallia leonata_, iii. . _pallia rotata_, iii. , . _palmillas_, iii. . pannemaker, william, iii. , . _paños de ras_, iii. , , . _pardillos_, iii. . _passo honroso_, the, i. . pedro the cruel, i. ; ii. , ; iii. , , , . pedro the second, iii. . pedro the fourth of aragon, i. _et seq._; iii. . pelayo, i. . petronius, i. . philip the first, i. , . philip the second, i. , , , (note); ii. , , , ; iii. , , , , , , . philip the third, i. ; iii. . philip the fourth, i. , ; iii. , , , . philip the fifth, i. ; ii. ; iii. , . pinheiro da veiga, ii. ; iii. , _et seq._ pisano, francesco niculoso, ii. , , _et seq._ pizarro, i. _et seq._ plato, i. . pliny, i. , , ; ii. (note), (note). poblet, the monastery of, ii. . _poem of the cid_, the, ii. (note). polybius, i. . ponz, ii. , . porous pottery, ii. _et seq._ _porrón_, the, ii. . potosi, the silver mines of, i. . pottery, prehistoric spanish, ii. _et seq._ _primavera_, iii. . procaccini, iii. , . processional crosses, spanish, i. , ; iii. , . procopius, i. . _psephosis fsefysa_, ii. . ptolemy, i. . puente del arzobispo ware, ii. _et seq._ pulgar, hernando del, ii. , . pulpits, iron, i. _et seq._ pulpits, old spanish, iii. _et seq._ _punto de oro_, iii. . _rácimos_, ii. . ramírez de arellano, i. , , _et seq._, ; ii. , , (note), (note), (note), ; iii. , (note), . ramírez, sancho, ii. . rapiers, i. _et seq._ rassis, iii. _et seq._ reboul, iii. , (note). recared, i. . recceswinth, i. . _red flandés_, iii. . _rejas_, i. _et seq._ _relicarios_, i. _et seq._ renaissance, the, i. _et seq._ _reposteros_, ii. (note); iii. _et seq._, . _retablo_ of gerona cathedral, the, i. , . _retablos_, ii. _et seq._ _ret catalá_, iii. . riaño, i. , , , , , , , (note) _et seq._, , , , , , , (note), , , , , , (note); ii. _et seq._, , , , , , , , , , , , , , _et seq._, , , , , ; iii. , , , (note), _et seq._, , , (note), , (note), , , _et seq._ ricord, ii. , (note); iii. , , . rico y sinobas, ii. , _et seq._, , (note); iii. . riotinto, the mines of, i. . roderick, i. , ii. . rodrigo, maese, i. ; ii. . roldan, pedro, ii. , , . rosmithal, i. ; iii. (note). roulière, jean, iii. , . rubens, iii. . sagrado, diego de, ii. . saguntine ware, ii. _et seq._ saint ferdinand (_see_ ferdinand the third). saint isidore, ii. , , , _et seq._; iii. , . saint isidro, diamonds of, ii. , . saint vincent ferrer, iii. , , . _samit_, iii. , . sanchez, martin, ii. , , , . sancho the fourth, iii. . sancho the great, i. . sandoval, cardinal, iii. , . san fernando, cloths of, iii. . san isidro, the burial chest of, ii. . san miguel in excelsis, the legend of, iii. _et seq._ santa barbara, the tapestry factory of, iii. _et seq._, . santa isabel, the tapestry factory of, iii. _et seq._, . santiago cathedral, the treasure of, i. _et seq._ santiago, jet-work of, iii. _et seq._ santas creus, the monastery of, ii. . sculpture in wood, spanish, ii. _et seq._ segovia, cloths of, iii. _et seq._, . segovia, woollens of, iii. _et seq._ sentenach, iii. . sepúlveda, the fuero of, iii. . serrano fatigati, iii. , . seville, the ordinances of, i. ; ii. _et seq._ shields, spanish, i. , , _et seq._ ships, silver, i. , . silk, spanish, iii. _et seq._ _sillerías_, ii. _et seq._ silos, the chronicle of the monk of, ii. (note). sisenand, i. . sit, ventura, ii. . soria, cloths of, iii. . south kensington museum, the, ii. , (note), , , , , ; iii. . stalactite decoration, ii. . stirling, i. . strabo, i. , , , . street, i. (note), . stuck family, the, iii. . superstitions, andalusian, i. , . susillo, ii. . swinburne, i. , , , (note), (note), (note), (note), , (note); ii. (note), (note), (note), , , , , , , , , , (note); iii. (note), , , , , (note). swinthila, i. , . swords, spanish, i. _et seq._, , _et seq._ swords, spurious spanish, i. , . symonds, john addington, i. ; ii. . _tabis_, iii. , . _takcht_, the, ii. . talavera de la reina, pottery of, ii. , _et seq._, _et seq._ talavera de la reina, silk of, iii. . talavera de la reina, the silk-factories of, iii. _et seq._ tapestry, spanish, iii. _et seq._ _tardwahsh_, ii. (note). tarik, i. , , , . tarik's "table," i. _et seq._; iii. . _tartaricas_, iii. , . tavira de durango, cloths of, iii. . teniers, iii. . testaments, the codex of the, ii. (note). thimbles, moorish, i. , . throne of don martin, the silver, i. , , . tiles, spanish, ii. _et seq._ _tinajas_, ii. _et seq._, , ; iii. . _tiraz_, iii. , , _et seq._, . tirso de molina, i. . toledo, silk of, iii. _et seq._ toledo, the ordinances of, ii. . toledo, the trade-guilds of, iii. . torreánaz, the count of, iii. (note), , (note), , (note). torre del oro, the, ii. , . townsend, i. , (note), , , (note); ii. , (note), , , (note), , , ; iii. , , (note), (note), _et seq._, (note), , , , (note), , (note), _et seq._ trade-guilds, spanish, iii. _et seq._ tramoyeres blasco, luis, iii. _et seq._ triptych reliquaries, i. _et seq._ turismund, i. . ulloa, martin de, iii. _et seq._, unamuno, iii. . valencia, cloths of, iii. . valencia, lace of, iii. _et seq._ valencia, silk of, iii. , _et seq._ valencia, the trade-guilds of, iii. _et seq._ valencia, woollens of, iii. , . valencia de don juan, the count of, iii. , (note), , . valladar, ii. (note). valladolid, the council of, iii. . van der goten, adrian, iii. . van der goten, cornelius, iii. . van der goten, francisco, iii. . van der goten, jacob, iii. , . van der goten, jacob (the younger), iii. . van eyk, iii. . vargas y ponce, iii. (note). vargüeños, ii. . vaucanson, iii. _et seq._ _veintiseiseno_, cloths, iii. . _velarte_, iii. . velazquez, i. , ; iii. . _velón_, the, i. , . vergara, cloths of, iii. . vermay, jan, iii. . victory, the cross of, i. , . vigarny, philip, ii. _et seq._ villa-amil y castro, i. (note), (note), ; ii. ; iii. _et seq._ villalpando, francisco de, i. , , . villamediana, the count of, iii. (note). viollet-le-duc, i. ; ii. (note). virgen del sagrario, toledo, the, crown of the, iii. _et seq._ virgen del sagrario, toledo, the mantle of the, iii. , . "virgin of battles," the, ii. . visigothic jewellery, i. _et seq._ wallis, ii. , , , , . washington irving, i. ; ii. , . weathercocks, moorish, i. . witiza, i. . woollens, spanish, iii. _et seq._ xelizes, iii. _et seq._ young, arthur, ii. , ; iii. , . yusuf of granada, i. (note). zafra, hernando de, ii. . zaragoza, cloths of, iii. . zaragoza, silk of, iii. , . zarco del valle, i. (note), (note), (note); ii. (note), (note), (note); iii. , . * * * * * printed by neill and co., ltd., edinburgh. * * * * * * transcriber's note: the original spelling and minor inconsistencies in the spelling and formatting have been maintained. inconsistent hyphenation and accents are as in the original if not marked as a misprint. the table below lists all corrections applied to the original text. p. : cortes of monzon -> monzón p. : _almexia_ -> _almexía_ p. : edging of the same; -> edging of the same;" p. : al-makkari, al-kattib -> al-khattib p. : in the form of a scarf. -> in the form of a scarf." p. : il est en indiennne. -> indienne. p. : qui croist assez prés -> près p. : près de deux cens -> cent p. : qui est une espece -> espèce p. : ses habitans -> habitants p. : il y avoit autresfois -> autrefois p. : quatre heures aprés -> après p. : chalons, beziers, and rheims -> reims p. : it to the church. -> it to the church." p. : invitation john vergoten -> dergoten p. : madrid, the pardo -> prado p. : journal du voyage d espagne -> d'espagne p. : de rubans à l'extremité -> l'extrémité p. : sur la tête attachée -> attachés p. : autre les divers dégrés -> degrés p. : elle ne depasse -> dépasse p. : inscription, _aeternum_ -> Æternum p. : sebastian. early -> early. p. : madrid. cutler; a native -> native of p. : early life in flanders -> flanders. p. : sosa, -> sosa p. : maxims of our christain -> christian p. : through the market, -> through the market,' p. : that they were "toûjours -> "toujours p. : in the royal _cédula_ -> _cedula_ p. : die kleinodien des heil -> heil. p. : nation, nebst den kroninsignen -> kroninsignien p. : la buena gouernacion -> governacion p. : que los mvy ilvstres -> muy ilustres p. : mandaron gvardar -> guardar p. : gouernacion -> governacion p. : se han bvelto -> buelto p. : iii. , -> p. : granada, cloths of, -> granada, cloths of, iii. p. : juni, juan de, , . -> juni, juan de, ii. , . p. : sepulveda -> sepúlveda p. : _et seq._; iii. -> _et seq._, p. : (note), -> (note); ii. p. : veintiseseno -> vientiseiseno note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see -h.htm or -h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h/ -h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h.zip) project gutenberg has the other two volumes of this work. volume i: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/ volume iii: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/ transcriber's note: text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). the ligature oe is represented by [oe]. the signs cross and dagger have been marked as [cross] and [dagger]. a carat character is used to denote superscription. a single character following the carat is superscripted (comp^a). multiple superscripted characters are enclosed by curly brackets (example: delineav^{it}). [=a] represents a letter (in this instance a lower case "a") with a macron above it. [illustration: _frontispiece_ saint francis] the world of art series the arts and crafts of older spain by leonard williams corresponding member of the royal spanish academy, of the royal spanish academy of history, and of the royal spanish academy of fine arts; author of "the land of the dons"; "toledo and madrid"; "granada," etc. in three volumes, illustrated volume ii chicago a. c. mcclurg & co. edinburgh: t. n. foulis american edition published october , contents of volume two pages furniture - ivories - pottery - glass - list of illustrations _volume two_ furniture plate page st francis of assisi; toledo cathedral _frontispiece_ i. mediæval chair ii. gothic chair iii. spanish _arcón_ or baggage-chest iv. _arca_ of cardinal cisneros v. armchair; museum of salamanca vi. chair and table; salamanca cathedral vii. chairs upholstered with _guadameciles_ viii. the sala de la barca; alhambra, granada ix. door of the hall of the abencerrajes; alhambra, granada x. moorish door; detail of carving; hall of the two sisters, alhambra, granada xi. door of the salón de embajadores; alcázar of seville xii. the same xiii. alcázar of seville; façade and principal entrance xiv. door of the capilla de los vargas, madrid xv. mudejar door; palacio de las dueñas, seville xvi. _celosía_; alhambra, granada xvii. carved _alero_ xviii. carved _zapatas_; casa de las salinas, salamanca xix. carved _zapatas_; museum of zaragoza xx. _alero_ and cornice of carved wood; cuarto de comares, alhambra, granada xxi. "elijah sleeping"; statue in wood, by alonso cano xxii. saint bruno, by alonso cano; cartuja of granada xxiii. saint john the baptist; san juan de dios, granada xxiv. choir-stalls; santo tomás, avila xxv. carved choir-stall; toledo cathedral xxvi. choir-stalls; burgos cathedral xxvii. choir-stalls; san marcos, león xxviii. detail of choir-stalls; león cathedral xxix. choir-stalls; plasencia cathedral xxx. detail of choir-stalls; convent of san marcos, león xxxi. "samson"; carved choir-stall; león cathedral xxxii. "esau"; carved choir-stall; león cathedral xxxiii. _retablo_; seville cathedral xxxiv. _retablo_ of seville cathedral; detail of carving xxxv. detail of _retablo_; museum of valladolid xxxvi. detail of _retablo_; chapel of santa ana; burgos cathedral ivories xxxvii. ivory box; madrid museum xxxviii. ivory casket; pamplona cathedral xxxix. ivory box; palencia cathedral xl. hispano-moresque ivory casket; royal academy of history, madrid xli. ivory crucifix; madrid museum xlia. back view of same xlii. byzantine crucifix xliii. "the virgin of battles"; seville cathedral xliv. spanish mediæval _baculus_ xlv. "a tournament" xlvi. ivory diptych; the escorial pottery xlvii. amphoraic vases and other pottery; museum of tarragona xlviii. dish; museum of granada xlix. hispano-moresque _tinaja_ l. coarse spanish pottery (modern) li. door of the mihrab; cordova cathedral lii. mosaic of the patio de las doncellas; alcázar of seville liii. andalusian non-lustred ware; osma collection liv. _cuenca_ tiles; alcázar of seville lv. altar of the catholic sovereigns; alcázar of seville lvi. the gate of wine; alhambra, granada lvii. tiles of the decadent period lviii. hispano-moresque lustred plaque lix. hispano-moresque lustred vase; alhambra, granada lx. hispano-moresque lustred vase; madrid museum lxi. lustred tiles; osma collection lxii. hispano-moresque lustred ware; osma collection lxiii. hispano-moresque lustred ware; osma collection lxiv. hispano-moresque lustred ware; osma collection lxv. hispano-moresque lustred ware; osma collection lxvi. hispano-moresque lustred ware; osma collection lxvii. hispano-moresque lustred ware lxviii. dish; osma collection lxix. an _alfarería_ or potter's yard; granada lxx. talavera vase lxxi. ornament in porcelain of the buen retiro lxxii. room decorated with porcelain of the buen retiro; royal palace of aranjuez lxxiii. porcelain of the moncloa factory glass lxxiv. vessels of cadalso glass lxxv. vessels of catalan glass lxxvi. glass of the factory of san ildefonso lxxvii. glass of the factory of san ildefonso furniture whether the primitive iberians ate as well as slept upon their cave or cabin floor, or whether--as some classics call upon us to believe--they used a kind of folding-chair (_dureta_) and (more advanced and comfort-loving than the andalusian rustics of this day) devoured their simple meal from benches or supports constructed in the wall, is not of paramount importance to the history of spanish furniture. the statements of those early authors may be granted or rejected as we please; for not a single piece of furniture produced by prehistoric, or, indeed, by roman or by visigothic spain, has been preserved. but if we look for evidence to other crafts, recovered specimens of her early gold and silver work and pottery show us that roman spain grew to be eminently roman in her social and artistic life. this fact, together with the statements of saint isidore and certain other writers of his day, would seem to prove that all the usual articles of roman furniture were commonly adopted by the subjugated tribes, and subsequently by the visigoths;--the roman eating-couch or _lectus triclinaris_, the state-bed or _lectus genialis_, the ordinary sleeping-bed or _lectus cubicularis_, made, in prosperous households, of luxurious woods inlaid with ivory, or even of gold and silver; lamps or candelabra of silver, copper, glass, and iron[ ]; the _cathedra_ or chair for women, the _bisellium_ or seat for honoured guests, the _solium_ or chair for the head of the house, the simpler chairs without a back, known as the _scabellum_ and the _sella_, and the benches or _subsellia_ for the servants. further, the walls were hung with tapestries or rendered cheerful by mural painting; while the fireplace[ ] and the brasier (_foculus_) have descended to contemporary spain. [ ] documents, quoted by the count of clonard, of alfonso the second, san genadio, froylan, and the infanta urraca. [ ] according to miquel y badía, the _focus_ of the romans is the present _clar de foch_ of cataluña; "a square platform of brick or stone raised somewhat from the ground, surrounded by a bench (_escó_), and large enough to serve for roasting beasts entire." swinburne wrote from reus in ;--"we here for the first time saw a true spanish kitchen, viz., an hearth raised above the level of the floor under a wide funnel, where a circle of muleteers were huddled together over a few cinders." advancing to a period well within the reach of history, we find that early in the middle ages spain's seigniorial mansions and the houses of the well-to-do were furnished in a style of rude magnificence. roman models, derived from purely roman and byzantine sources through the visigoths, continued to remain in vogue until the tenth or the eleventh century.[ ] then, as the fashion of these declined, the furniture of christian spain was modified in turn by moorish, gothic, and renaissance art; or two of these would overlap and interact, or even all the three. during the middle ages the furniture of the eating, sleeping, and living room which formed the principal apartment in the mansion of a great seignior, was very much the same throughout the whole of christian europe. viollet-le-duc has described it in the closest detail. the dominant object, looming in a corner, was the ponderous bed, transformed into a thing of beauty by its costly canopy and hangings.[ ] throughout the earlier mediæval times the spanish bedstead was of iron or bronze. wood, plain at first, then richly carved, succeeded metal towards the fourteenth century, and with this change the bed grew even vaster than before. often it rose so high above the level of the flooring that the lord and lady required a set of steps to clamber up to it. these steps were portable, and sometimes made of solid silver.[ ] i quote herewith a full description of a mediæval spanish bed, extracted from an inventory of the princess juana which was made upon her marriage with the count of foix, in . the same bed had formerly belonged to juana's mother, the princess martha, at her marriage with king juan the first. it had "a velvet canopy with lions of gold thread, and a dove and a horse confronting every lion. and each of the lions and doves and horses bears a lettering; and the lettering of the lions is _estre por voyr_, and that of the doves and horses _aay_, and the whole is lined with green cloth. _item_, a counterpane of the said velvet, with a similar design of doves and lions, and likewise lined with green cloth. _item_, three curtain-pieces of fine blue silk, with their metal rings and cords of blue thread. _item_, three cushion-covers of blue velvet, two of them of large size, bearing two lions on either side, and four of them small, with a single lion on either side, embroidered with gold thread; with their linen coverings. _item_, a cloth of a barred pattern, with the bars of blue velvet and cloth of gold upon a red ground; which cloth serves for a state-chair or for a window, and is lined with cloth. _item_, another cloth made of the said velvet and cloth of gold, which serves for the small chair (_reclinatorio_) for hearing mass, and is lined with the aforesaid green cloth. _item_, two large linen sheets enveloping the aforesaid canopy and counterpane. a pair of linen sheets, of four breadths apiece, bordered on every side with a handbreadth of silk and gold thread decoration consisting of various kinds of birds, leaves, and letters; and each of the said sheets contains at the head-end about five handbreadths of the said decoration. _item_, four cushions of the same linen, all of them adorned all round with about a handbreadth of the aforesaid decoration of birds, leaves, and letters. _item_, two leather boxes, lined with wool, which contained all these objects. _item_, five canvas-covered cushions stuffed with feather, for use with the said six coverings of blue velvet bearing the said devices. _item_, three large pieces of wall tapestry made of blue wool with the same devices of lions, horses, and doves, made likewise of wool, yellow and of other colours. _item_, five carpets made of the aforesaid wool, bearing the same devices. _item_, three coverlets of the same wool, and with the same devices, for placing on the bed. _item_, a coverlet of red leather bearing in its centre the arms of the king and the infanta. _item_, another coverlet made of leather bars and plain red leather. _item_, a woollen coverlet with the arms of the infanta."[ ] [ ] the _codex of the testaments_, preserved in oviedo cathedral, contains some valuable illustrations of spanish furniture of the tenth century. greatly interesting, too, is the chair of san raimundo ( th century) preserved at roda in aragon. it is of the "scissors" or folding form (_sella plicatilis_, ducange), and the arms are terminated by heads of animals. [ ] the early nomenclature of the clothes and other fittings of a spanish bed is bewildering. we find in common use the canopy (_almocalla_, _almuzala_; arabic, _al-mokalla_, i.e. "haven of refuge in all winds"--not always, possibly, a judicious term in the case of a _cama de matrimonio_ or "marriage-bed"); the cloth-lined skins for chilly weather (_alifafe_, _alifad_; arabic _al-lifafh_), such as king juan the first of aragon provided for his daughter ("two leathers of morocco for the bed." _archive of the crown of aragon; registro , fol. _); the parament or _dosal_; the _galnapé_ or topmost of the bedclothes proper ("_un lecho con guenabe_"; fuero of cáceres, a.d. ); the counterpane (_fatel_, _fatol_, _alfatel_, _facel_, _farele_, _fateye_, _fatiro_; arabic _fatla_); the linen sheets (_izares_, _lentros_, _lentos_, _lintes_, _lincas_, _linteáminas_, or _lencios_); and the mattress, pillow, and bolster, called, all three of them, _plumazo_, _plumario_, or _plumaco_. nearly or quite identical in meaning with these last are _cúlcita_ and _almadraque_. _cúlcita_ is corrupted into _colcedra_, _cocedra_, _conzara_, _colotra_, and other more or less barbaric variations; while _almohada_, _almuella_, _travesera_, _almofadinha_, _faseruelo_, and _aljamar_ also signify a pillow or a cushion. [ ] "e due haber encara héla entegrament, ses vestitz é ses joyes é un leyt ben garnit del misllors apereylltz que sien en casa, é _una_ _escala d'argent_ é una cortina." fuero of jaca, a.d. , quoted by abad y la sierra and the count of clonard. [ ] sanpere y miquel; _las costumbres catalanas en tiempo de juan i._, pp. , . another corner of the room was occupied by the dining-table,[ ] spread at meal-times with a cloth denominated by saint isidore the _mappa_, _mápula_, _mapil_, _mantella_, or _mantellia_; and laid with the _mandíbulas_ or "jaw-wipers" (_i.e._ napkins; see du cange), plates (_discos_), dishes (_mensorios_, _messorios_, or _misorios_), spoons (_cocleares_, _culiares_), though not as yet with forks,[ ] cups of various shapes and substances, with or without a cover (_copos_, _vásculos_, and many other terms), the water-flagon (_kana_, _mikana_, _almakana_), the cruet-stand (_canatella_), and the salt-cellar (_salare_). [ ] miquel y badía believes that the spaniards abandoned the roman usage of reclining at their meals towards the sixth century. [ ] forks were not introduced till later. it has even been questioned whether they were known in spain as late as the sixteenth century. but ambrosio de morales mentions one in , while another is recorded in as belonging to the monastery of san jerónimo de valparaiso, near cordova. (see vol. i., p. .) this table also served to write upon, while in its neighbourhood would stand the massive sideboard, piled with gold and silver plate, and vessels of glass or ivory, wood or alabaster. besides the bed and table in their several corners, the chamber would contain a suitable variety of chairs and stools, mostly surrounding the capacious fireplace. members of the household also sat on carpets spread upon the floor. the great armchair of the seignior himself was more ornate than any of the rest, and was provided somewhat later with a lofty gothic back (plates i. and ii.). a chair with a back of moderate height was destined for distinguished visitors. the back of ordinary chairs reached only to about the sitter's shoulder, and coverings of cloth or other stuffs were not made fast, but hung quite loosely from the wooden frame. this usage lasted till the sixteenth century, when the upholsterers began to nail the coverings of the larger chairs and benches. owing to the oriental influence brought back from the crusades, the furniture of europe, not excluding spain, grew ever more elaborate and costly, while further, in the case of this peninsula, the native moorish influence operated steadily and strongly from toledo, seville, cordova, valencia, and elsewhere. tapestries of eastern manufacture (_alcatifas_) were now in general use for decorating floors and walls. the bed grew more and more gigantic, and its clothes and curtains more extravagantly sumptuous, until the florid gothic woodwork harmonized with canopies and curtains cut from priceless skins, or wrought in gold and silver thread on multicolor satin and brocade. and at the bed's head, like some jewel marvellously set, rested, in every noble home, the diptych or the triptych with its image of the saviour or the virgin mary. under the influence of the renaissance this love of luxury continued to increase among the royal and the noble families of spain. in an inventory of the estate of doña juana, sister of philip the second, mentions a silver balustrade, weighing one hundred and twenty-one pounds, for placing round a bed. the inventory ( ) of the dukes of alburquerque contains a great variety of entries relative to the furniture and chamber-fittings of the period. we find here mentioned, turkey carpets and the celebrated spanish ones of alcaraz, linens of rouen, green cloth of cuenca, toledo cloths, hangings of arras and elsewhere, tablecovers of damask and of velvet, gold-fringed canopies (_doseles_) of green or crimson velvet or brocade, a "canopy for a sideboard, of red and yellow toledo cloth, with the arms of the la cuevas in embroidery, together with stripes and bows, and repetitions of the letter i (for _isabel giron_, the duchess), also embroidered fringes of the same cloth, and cords of the aforesaid colours." we also read of a _sitial_ or state-chair of crimson satin brocade, and "a small walnut table covered with silver plates, bearing the arms of my lord the duke and of my lady the duchess, and edged with silver stripes."[ ] the bedstead, fitted with hangings of double taffeta and scarlet cloth, was no less sumptuous than the other objects. [ ] this kind of furniture was prohibited by a sumptuary pragmatic of . "no silversmith or other craftsman, or any person whatsoever, shall make, or cause to be made, or sold, or sell himself or purchase, whether openly or privately, buffets, writing-desks, chests, brasiers, pattens, tables, letter-cases, _rejillas_ or foot-warmers, images, or any other object that has silver fittings, whether the silver be beaten, stamped, wrought in relief, carved, or plain." _suma de todas las leyes_ (a.d. ), p. . [illustration: i mediÆval chair (_carved with the arms of castile and león_)] a popular and even an indispensable piece of furniture in every mediæval spanish household was the _caja de novia_ or "bride's chest." the use of this, as well as of a smaller kind of box, was common both to moors and christians. no matter of what size, these objects were essentially the same. they served innumerable purposes; were made of all dimensions--from the tiniest casket (_arcellina_, _capsula_, or _pyxide_; see vol. i., p. _et seq._) to the ponderous and vast _arcón_,--and almost any substance--ivory or crystal, mother-of-pearl or glass, gold, silver, copper, silver-gilt, jasper, agate, or fine wood; and we find them in every part of the peninsula, from the dawn of the middle ages till very nearly the end of the eighteenth century. [illustration: ii gothic chair (_ th century_)] according to the marquis of monistrol, the larger boxes or _arcones_ constitute by far the commonest article of spanish furniture all through the earlier portion of this lengthy period. the same authority divides them broadly into seven classes, thus:-- ( ) burial-chests. ( ) chests for storing chasubles, chalices, candelabra, and other objects connected with the ceremonies of the church. ( ) archive-chests, for storing documents. ( ) chests for storing treasure (_huches_). ( ) brides' chests. ( ) chests for storing arms. ( ) _arcones-trojes_, or chests of common make, employed for storing grain in country dwellings or _posadas_. the decorative richness of these quaint _arcones_ varies according to their date of manufacture, or the purpose they were meant to serve. commonly, in the earliest of them, dating from the sixth or seventh century, the iron clamps or fastenings form the principal or only ornament. such are reported to have been the two chests which the cid campeador loaded with sand and foisted as filled with specie on his "dear friends" rachel and vidas, the jewish though trustful usurers of burgos, in return for six hundred marks of gold and silver. tradition says, moreover, that the chest now shown at burgos as the "coffer of the cid" is actually one of these. it is certain that the archives of the cathedral have been deposited in this chest for many centuries. evidently, too, it dates from about the lifetime of the cid, while the rings with which it is fitted show it to have been a kind of trunk intended to be carried on the backs of sumpter-mules or horses. after the roman domination in this country, the latin term _capsa_ was applied to every kind of chest; but at a later age sepulchral chests or coffins were denominated _urns_, in order to distinguish them from _arcas_ and _arcones_, which were used for storing clothes or jewellery. excellent examples of spanish mediæval burial-chests are those of doña urraca, preserved in the sagrario of the cathedral of palencia, and of san isidro, patron of madrid. the former, mentioned by painstaking ponz, and by pulgar in his _secular and ecclesiastical annals of palencia_, is of a plain design, and really constitutes a coffin. the sepulchral chest of san isidro, dating from the end of the thirteenth century, or the early part of the fourteenth, and kept at madrid in a niche of the _camarín_ of the parish church of san andrés, is in the romanic style, and measures seven feet six inches in length. it has a gable top, and is painted in brilliant colours on plaster-coated parchment, with miracles effected by the saint, and other scenes related with his life; but much of the painting is effaced. another interesting sepulchral chest would probably have been the one presented in by ferdinand the first, together with his royal robe and crown,[ ] to the basilica of saint john the baptist at león, to guard the remains of saint isidore. this chest was covered with thick gold plates studded with precious stones, and bore, in enamel and relief, the figures of the apostles gathered round the saviour, and medallions containing figures of the virgin, saints, and martyrs. according to ambrosio de morales, the gold plates were torn off by alfonso the first of aragon, who replaced them by others of silver-gilt. the same monarch, regardless of the church's fierce anathema pronounced on all who dared to touch her property,[ ] is accused by his chronicler of having appropriated a box of pure gold studded with gems, enshrining a crucifix made of the true cross, and which was kept in some town or village of the kingdom of león. doubtless as a chastisement for alfonso's impiety, this precious box was captured from him by the moors at the battle of fraga. [ ] describing how the monarch made these presents to the church when lying at the point of death, the _chronicle of the monk of silos_ says: "_exuit regalem clamydem, qua induebatur corpus et deposuit gemmatam coronam, qua ambiebatur caput_." [ ] the formula is worded thus: "_quisquis ille fuerit qui talia commiserit, sit maledictus coram deo et angelis ejus, mendicitas et lepra prosapiam teneat suam et extraneus persistat a sancta communione, quatenus cum juda, christi proditore, ardendus permaneat in æterna damnatione._" among the reliquary chests, the oldest specimen extant in spain is the _arca santa_ of oviedo cathedral. this object, which is purely byzantine in its style, is believed to have been made at constantinople. it was improved by alfonso the sixth, who added _repoussé_ plates to it, with arabic ornamentation in the form of meaningless inscriptions of a merely decorative character, but which are interesting as showing the kinship existing at this time between the spanish christians and the spanish moors. equally important is the coffer which was made by order of don sancho el mayor to enshrine the wonder-working bones of san millan, and which is now at san millan de la cogulla, in the province of la rioja. the author of this chest, which dates from a.d. , is vaguely spoken of as "master aparicio." the chest itself consists of a wooden body beneath a covering of ivory and gold, further enriched with statuettes and studded with real and imitation stones. it is divided into twenty-two compartments carved in ivory with passages from the life and miracles of the saint, and figures of "princes, monks, and benefactors," who had contributed in one way or another to the execution of the reliquary. i have said that the "coffer of the cid" was made for carrying baggage. a very interesting spanish baggage-chest, although more modern than the cid's by several centuries, is now the property of señor moreno carbonero (plate iii.). this very competent authority believes it to have belonged to isabella the catholic, and says that it was formerly the usage of the sovereigns of this country to mark their baggage-boxes with the first quartering of the royal arms and also with their monogram. such is the decoration, consisting of repeated castles and the letter y (for ysabel), upon this trunk. the space between is painted red upon a surface thinly spread with wax. strips of iron, twisted to imitate the girdle of saint francis, are carried over all the frame, surrounding the castles and the letters. this box was found at ronda.[ ] [ ] to keep the dust or rain from entering these trunks, they were covered, when on the march, with stout square cloths called _reposteros_, which were often richly worked and bore the owner's arms or monogram. the same word subsequently came to mean the tapestried or other decorative cloths displayed in spain on gala days from balconies of public edifices, or the mansions of the aristocracy; but dictionaries which were printed at the close of the eighteenth century still define the _repostero_ as "caparison, a square cloth with the arms of a prince or lord on it, which serves to cover a led-horse, or sumpter-horse." [illustration: iii _arcÓn_ (_ th century_)] a handsome _arcón_, dating from the same period as this baggage-chest of isabella the catholic, namely, the end of the fifteenth century, is stated by its owner, don manuel lopez de ayala, to have belonged to cardinal cisneros (plate iv.). the material is wood, covered inside with dark blue cloth, and outside with red velvet, most of the nap of which is worn away. the dimensions are four feet six inches in length, two feet in height, and twenty inches in depth. the chest, which has a triple lock, is covered with _repoussé_ iron plates representing twisted columns and other architectural devices, combined with gothic thistle-leaves. a coat of arms is on the front. such is an outline of the history of these spanish chests. most of the earlier ones are cumbersome and scantily adorned. then, as time proceeds, we find on them the florid gothic carving, unsurpassed for purity and charm; then the renaissance, with its characteristic ornament of urns, and birds, and intertwining frond and ribbon; and finally, towards, and lasting through the greater portion of, the eighteenth century, the tasteless and decadent manner of baroque. yet even in the worst and latest we descry from time to time a flickering remnant of the art of moorish spain. [illustration: iv _arca_ of cardinal cisneros] these spanish moors, obedient to the custom of their fellow-mussulmans throughout the world, employed but little furniture. they loved, indeed, bright colours and ingenious craftsmanship, but rather in the adjuncts to their furniture than in the furniture itself; in costly carpets, or worked and coloured leather hung upon the wall,[ ] or spread upon their _alhamies_ and _alhanías_; in fountains bubbling in the middle of their courts and halls; in doors, and ceilings, and _celosías_ exquisitely carved, and joined with matchless cunning; in flower-vases placed in niches; in bronze or silver perfume-burners rolling at their feet; but not (within the ordinary limit of the term) in furniture. upon this theme the reverend lancelot addison discourses very quaintly. "the host here," he wrote of "west barbary" in , "is one cidi caffian shat, a grandee, reported to be an andalusian, one of the race of the moors bansht (_sic_) spain.... we were called to a little upper room, which we could not enter till we had put off our shoes at the threshold: not for religion, but cleanliness, and not to prevent our unhallowing the floor, but defiling the carpets wherewith it was curiously spread. at the upper end of the room was laid a velvit cushion, as large as those we use in our pulpits, and it denoted the most honourable part of the room. after we had reposed about an hour, there was brought in a little oval table, about twenty inches high, which was covered with a long piece of narrow linnen; and this served for diaper.[ ] for the moors, by their law, are forbidden such superfluous utensils as napkins, knives, spoons, etc. their religion laying down the general maxim, that meer necessaries are to be provided for; which caused a precise moor to refuse to drink out of my dish when he could sup water enough out of the hollow of his hand." [ ] the wood-carving and decorative leather-work of older spain will be described a little later on. as to the use of decorated leather by the moors, in the small chamber of the alhambra opening into the mirador of daraxa, and known as the sala de los ajimeces, is a bare space about nine feet in height, which runs the whole way round beneath the copious ornament of the remainder of the wall. contreras says that the moorish sultans used to hang these spaces with decorated leathers, tapestry, and armour. sometimes the tapestry or leather would be worked or painted with hunting-scenes (_tardwahsh_--the chase of the lion, panther, or wild boar), or even with portraits of the sultans. among these latter is the celebrated painting on the ceiling of the hall of justice, executed, as are its companions at each side of it, upon a leather groundwork with a plaster coating. [ ] i think this shows why to this day a spaniard who professes to be an educated person will often wipe his or her mouth upon the tablecloth. not many weeks ago i saw the elegantly dressed daughter of a spanish member of parliament perform this semi-oriental feat in an hotel at granada. montaigne would judge this _señorita_ with benevolence; not so, i fear, my compatriots. similarly, it is considered rude in spain to stretch yourself; but not to spit upon the dining-room floor, or pick your teeth at table. the same author proceeds to relate his experiences at bed-time. "having supp'd and solaced ourselves with muddy beverage and moresco music, we all composed ourselves to sleep: about twenty were allotted to lodge in this small chamber, whereof two were christians, three jews, and the rest moors; every one made his bed of what he wore, which made our english constitutions to wish for the morning." [illustration: v armchair (_ th century. museum of salamanca_)] among the mussulmans all this has undergone no change. do we not find their present furniture to be identical with that of distant centuries?--a characteristic scarcity of portable articles of wood; the isolated box (_arqueta_ or _arcón_) which serves the purpose of our clumsier chest of drawers or wardrobe;[ ] carpets and decorated leathers; the tiny, indispensable table; the lack of knives and spoons; ornaments to regale the eye rather than commodities which the hand might seize upon and utilize? such was, and is, and will continue to remain mohammedan society throughout the world; and these descriptive passages of life in seventeenth-century morocco might have been penned with equal truth in reference to the spanish muslim of a thousand years ago. [ ] mr. cunninghame graham, visiting a caid's house in present-day morocco, noted, as the only furniture, "leather-covered cushions, the cover cut into intricate geometric patterns; the room contained a small trunk-shaped box." the furniture of the moorish mosques was also of the scantiest. "they are," to quote once more from lancelot addison's amusing little brochure, "without the too easy accommodations of seats, pews, or benches. the floor of the giámma is handsomely matted, and so are the walls about two feet high. if the roof be large and weighty, it is supported with pillars, among which hang the lamps, which are kept burning all the night." at one point of his expedition the reason for such paucity of furniture was vividly expounded to our tourist. a moor indignantly exclaimed to him that it was "a shame to see women, dogs, and dirty shoes brought into a place sacred to god's worship, and that men ... should have chaires there to sit in with as much lascivious ease as at home."[ ] [ ] _west barbary_, p. . nevertheless, a pulpit in the mosque, and a seat of some kind in the palace or the private house, were not to be dispensed with. we learn from ibn-khaldoun and many other writers, that the throne of the mussulman sultans was the _mimbar_, _takcht_, or _cursi_. each of these objects was a wooden seat. the first of the sultans to use a throne was moawia, son of abu-sofyan. the princes who came after him continued the same usage, but displayed a constantly increasing splendour in the decoration of the throne. this custom spread, in course of time, from east to west throughout almost the whole dominion of the muslims. the beni-nasr princes of granada are also known to have used a throne, but this is believed to have consisted simply of some cushions piled one upon another. this inference is drawn by eguilaz yanguas and other arabists from the old _vocabulary_ of fray pedro de alcalá, who renders a "throne" or "royal seat" by _martaba_, a word equivalent to "cushion." [illustration: vi chair and table (_ th century. salamanca cathedral_)] cushions, too, became symbolic, even with the christian spaniards, of a seat of honour; both because they lent themselves to rich embroidery or leather-work, and because they raised their occupant above the level of the persons seated positively on the carpet or the floor. in the painting on the ceiling of the hall of justice in the alhambra, ten men are congregated in mohammedan costume, each of them seated on a cushion. some writers, including argote de molina, diego hurtado de mendoza, and hernando del pulgar, believed these figures to be actual portraits of the sultans; others maintain that they depict the _mizouar_ or royal council. in either case, however, the cushion here is clearly an honourable place. we have, besides, abundant evidence that the spanish christians viewed the cushion with as marked a liking as their rivals. alvarez de colmenar relates that at the very close of the seventeenth century the spanish women sat at meals in moorish fashion. "un père de famille est assis seul à table, et toutes les femmes, sans exception, mangent par terre, assises sur un carreau avec leurs enfants, et leur table dressée sur un tapis étendu." the same work says elsewhere that "lorsque les dames se rendent visite, elles ne se donnent ni siège ni fauteuil, mais elles sont toutes assises par terre, les jambes en croix, sur des tapis ou des carreaux."[ ] [ ] _annales d'espagne et de portugal_, vol. iii., pp. , . therefore, until two centuries ago, the women of christian spain were suffered to take their seat on cushions of brocade or damask. only the men made use of stools or chairs, according to their rank. to "give a chair" (_dar silla_) to a visitor of the male sex was to pay him a valued courtesy;[ ] and even now the wife of a grandee of spain goes through the honourable though irksome ceremony, at the palace of madrid, of "taking the cushion." [ ] "hónrale el sr roberto, alma del rey, y _le ha dado silla_, y le tuvo á su lado." lope de vega's comedy, _the key of honour_. [illustration: vii chairs upholstered with _guadameciles_ (_ th century_)] another usage with the spaniards of the seventeenth and immediately preceding centuries was the "dais of honour" or _estrado de cumplimiento_. this was a platform very slightly raised, and separated by a railing from the rest of the room. the curious manuscript discovered by gayangos, descriptive of court-life at valladolid in , contains the following account of one of the occasions when the queen, following a common custom of a sunday, dined alone, in sight of all the aristocracy. "the table was laid upon the dais (_estrado alto_), beneath a canopy of brocade that overhung the whole of it. the queen sat at the head of the table, and three ladies, standing, waited on her; two uncovering the dishes as they came,[ ] and the third carving. the dishes were brought from the dining-room door by the _meninos_, who handed them to the ladies. other ladies of the royal household, wives or daughters of grandees, stood leaning against the wall in company with gentlemen who, on such occasions, sue for leave beforehand to attend on lady so and so, or so and so. commonly there are two such cavaliers to every dame. if the queen asks for water, one of these ladies takes it to her, kneels, makes an obeisance, kisses the goblet, hands it to her majesty, and retires to her appointed place. behind the queen was one of her chamberlains. many of the englishmen were witnessing the meal. they always put the english first on such occasions; and as they are such hulking fellows (god bless them!) i, who was at their back, scarce noted anything of what was passing, and only saw that many plates went to and fro." [ ] the covers would be fastened by a lock and key, as a defence, not against poison, but against theft. "a little afterwards don federico de cardona, who had gone out to see how matters were proceeding, returned, bearing a large silver vessel, the cover of which was secured by a lock and key, as is the custom in spain."--countess d'aulnoy's _travels_. as late as the year , townsend, in his "directions to the itinerant in spain," recommends (vol. i., p. ) that the vessel to boil the traveller's meat should be provided with a cover and a lock. solid and expensive furniture continued to be used in spain throughout the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries; the ponderous chest, the ponderous brasier, ponderous stools, ponderous armchairs with massive nails and coverings of velvet or of decorated leather (plates v., vi., and vii.). upon the wall, the tapestry of earlier times was often replaced by paintings of a sacred character, or family portraits. the comedy titled _la garduña de sevilla_, written about the middle of the seventeenth century by alonso del castillo solorzano, describes the interior of a rich man's dwelling of this period. "upstairs rufina noted delicate summer hangings, new chairs of moscovy cowhide, curiously carved buffets, and ebony and ivory writing-desks; for marquina, though a skinflint towards others, was generous in the decoration of his own abode.... when dinner was over, he took her to a room embellished with fine paintings, and with a bed whose canopy was of some indian fabric.... paintings by famous masters were plentifully hung about the house, together with fine italian hangings, various kinds of writing-desks, and costly beds and canopies. when they had visited nearly all the rooms, they opened the door of one which contained a beautiful altar and its oratory. here were a great array of costly and elaborate roman vessels, agnuses of silver and of wood, and flowers arranged in various ways. this chamber, too, was full of books distributed in gilded cases." [illustration: viii the _sala de la barca_ (_before the fire of . alhambra, granada_)] a characteristic piece of spanish furniture was at this time the solid-looking cabinet known as the _vargueño_, so denominated from the little town of vargas, near toledo, formerly a well-known centre of their manufacture. these cabinets, whose origin, according to the marquis of monistrol, may be traced to a fifteenth-century form of _huche_, or chest provided with drawers for guarding articles of value, and which opened in the centre, are commonly made of walnut. the front lets down upon a massive wooden rest supported by the legs, and forms a folding writing-table containing at the back a number of drawers or compartments for storing documents, or other things of minor bulk. the woodwork of these cabinets is often without carving; but generally in such cases their bareness is relieved by massive and elaborately ornamented iron fastenings and a decorative key. the ordinances of granada tell us that in the making of defective furniture had grown to be a scandal in that town. the cause, it seems, was partly in the wood itself, proceeding from the sierra de segura, pinar del duque, and the sierra de gor. "divers of our carpenters and joiners cut their walnut and other woods while yet the moon is crescent, whereby the wood decays and spoils. others there be that make and sell chairs, desks, beds, and other furniture of green unseasoned wood which warps and loosens, insomuch that within some days the article is worthless. therefore we order that all walnut wood and other woods for making furniture be only cut at the time of the waning moon, and be not used until they shall have seasoned thoroughly, so as not to warp; and that they be approved by the inspectors of this trade, under a penalty of six thousand _maravedis_ for each of the aforesaid ordinances that be not complied with." [illustration: ix door of the hall of the abencerrajes (_alhambra, granada_)] the municipal laws of the same city relative to the "chair-makers who make hip-chairs to sit in, and leather-covered chests," were cried, in and , "in the street of the chairmakers and carpenters." fettered by irksome regulations of this kind, we cannot wonder that the arts and crafts of christian spain were fated to decline.[ ] owing to the "false and faulty workmanship" prevailing in granada, it is provided by these statutes that the wood employed in making chairs must be bought by the manufacturers in public auction only, held "in the little square where dwell the chairmakers." it must be thoroughly dry and free from flaws, and of sufficient stoutness to sustain the decorative marquetry. the chair which lacks these requisite conditions must be seized and burnt. the four nails which fasten the seat of the chair to the legs must traverse the frame completely and be hammered back upon the other side, unless the surface of the chair be inlaid, in which case they need not pass completely through. the leather for the seats and backs of chairs must be good in quality and well prepared and dressed, besides being strongly sewn with flaxen thread. chairs of all sizes must bear the official city mark, stamped by the authorities at a charge of one _maravedi_ for each of the large chairs and a _blanca_ for each of the small. [ ] the purpose of these spanish city laws was in its essence unimpeachable; namely, to guard the intensely ignorant christian populace--the same which fugitive moriscos of the kingdom of valencia had readily prevailed upon to barter tons of brass and pewter trash for sterling gold and silver coin--from being imposed upon by manufacturers and merchants. but the power of discriminating between a genuine or well-made object and a piece of counterfeit or worthless rubbish is, among all peoples, better sought for and developed by experience than by legislation; and there was something noxiously prosaic in a code of city ordinances which forbade the craftsman to prepare his own design, or choose his own material, or establish his own prices. how violently, or at least how primitively, hostile to the sense of art must not have been these christian sons of spain to need--or think they needed--so impertinent and tyrannous a system of protection! makers of the leather-covered chests are ordered to use the hides of horses, mares, or mules, and not the hides of oxen, cows, or calves, because, if covered with this latter, "the chests grow moth-eaten and are destroyed much sooner." the craftsman who transgresses this command must lose the faulty piece of furniture, and pay four hundred _maravedis_, while under a further penalty of two hundred _maravedis_ the hinges must be fixed inside the chest, and not to its exterior. [illustration: x moorish door, detail of carving (_hall of the two sisters, alhambra, granada_)] i have omitted hitherto all mention of the furnishing of humbler spanish houses in the olden time. the following passage from the ordinances of granada shows us, referring to an inn, an unpretentious lodging of about four hundred years ago:-- "_item._ if the innkeeper have a parlour or alcove that fastens with a lock, and therein a bed of the better class, with hangings round about it, and a canopy above, and on the bed a counterpane, friezed blanket, and pillows; also a bench with its strip of carpet or striped benchcloth, a table with its service of tablecloths and all that be needful, besides a lamp of brass or ware, all of the best that he is able to provide--for such a bed and room he may demand twelve _maravedis_ each day; whether the room be taken by one guest, or two, or more."[ ] [ ] _ordenanza de mesoneros_, titulo . nor was the spanish inn more comfortable in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries than in the sixteenth. "on entre d'ordinaire dans les hôtelleries par l'écurie, du moins dans de certaines provinces; on vous mène dans quelque chambre, où vous trouvez les quatre parois, quelquefois un bois de lit; pour chandelle on allume un grand nombre de petites bougies, qui font assez de lumière pour voir ce que vous mangez; et afin que l'odeur and la fumée de tant de bougies n'incommode pas, on vous apporte, si vous le souhaitez, un brasier de noyaux d'olives en charbon. quand on monte, on trouve au haut de l'escalier, la _señora de la casa_, qui a eu le tems de prendre ses beaux habits de dimanche pour vous faire honneur et s'en faire à elle-même." (alvarez de colmenar, in .) it is interesting to compare these passages with lancelot addison's account of a morocco inn towards the middle of the seventeenth century; bearing in mind that _fonda_, the current spanish term for _hostelry_, is common both to spain and to morocco:-- "in later years, every town of traffic hath erected a sort of inns called _alfándach_, which affords nothing but house-room for man and beast, the market yielding provision for both. those that farm these _fandáchs_ cannot exact above a blankil a night both for man and beast, which is in sterling money about two pence. the horses lodging costing equally with his rider's."[ ] [ ] _west barbary_, p. . similarly, the keeper of the older spanish inn was not allowed by law to traffic in provisions. "nothing but house-room" was available for wayfarers, and the weary visitor, as soon as ever he arrived, must sally forth to do his marketing. [illustration: xi door of the _salon de embajadores_ (_alcázar of seville_)] "quand on arrive aux hôtelleries, fut il minuit passé, l'on n'y trouve rien de prêt, non pas même un pot sur le feu. l'hôtel ne vous donne que le couvert et le lit, pour tout le reste, il le faut envoyer chercher, si vous ne voulez prendre la peine d'y aller vous-même. on donne l'argent nécessaire, et l'on va vous chercher du pain, du vin, de la viande, et généralement tout ce que l'on souhaite, si tant est qu'on le puisse trouver. il est vrai que cette coutume a son bon côté. "le prix de toutes ces choses est réglé, l'on sait ce qu'il faut payer, et un hôte ne peut pas friponner. on vous apprête votre viande, et l'on donne une réale et demie, ou deux réaux pour le _servicio_, comme ils parlent, et autant pour le lit, ce qui revient environ à quinze sous de france. si l'on se trouve dans quelque grande ville, on aura une nappe grande comme une serviette, et une serviette grande comme un mouchoir de poche; dans d'autres endroits il faut s'en passer. "les lits ne sont pas fort ragoutans; quelque matelas, ou quelque paillasse, ou tout au plus une couverture de coton; à la campagne il faut passer la nuit sur le carreau, ou bien sur quelque botte de paille, qu'on doit avoir soin de faire bien secouer, pour en chasser la vermine." the statements in this passage relative to the lack of food in spanish hostelries are confirmed, nearly a century later, by townsend, who records that on reaching a certain village his first proceeding was to turn his steps, not to the _fonda_ or _posada_ where he would engage his bed, but to the butcher's, wine-seller's, and so forth, "to see what was to be had, as i had travelled all day fasting." it is beyond the province of this work to dwell upon the foreign taste in furniture which invaded spain from france upon the advent of the bourbon dynasty, and so i limit my notice of the eighteenth century to quoting from laborde the following comprehensive passage:-- "if the spaniards," this traveller wrote in , "take many precautions against heat, they take scarcely any against cold; it is very uncommon to find doors or windows that shut close, and the rooms are very little and very ill-warmed. the use of chimneys even is very uncommon, and only prevails in the houses of such spaniards as have travelled. brasiers of copper or silver are generally employed, which are set in the middle of the apartment, filled with burning charcoal, and round which the family place themselves. [illustration: xii door of the _salon de embajadores_ (_alcázar of seville_)] "the beds in spain are hard. they are only made of mattresses, more or fewer, laid on paillasses which rest upon a boarded bottom; for neither sacking nor feather beds are known. no bolsters are used, but in their place little, short, flat pillows are heaped up, sometimes to the number of six or eight. the sheets are in general short and narrow; and napkins scarcely as big as a small pocket handkerchief. "the furniture of the houses is usually very simple. the floor is covered with a matting of _esparto_ in winter, and of rushes or palm leaves in summer. a matting of the same kind, a painted cloth, or painting in panels, covers the walls from the floor to the height of four or five feet; above, the wall is bare, painted white, and adorned with pictures of saints and a kind of ornamented metal chandeliers; these are covered with a glass, surrounded with a border of gilt ornaments; and a little branch of gilt copper proceeds from them forming zig-zags or festoons, on which the candles are placed; they are called cornucopias; they are from one to three feet in height, and give the apartment the air of a coffee room, or billiard room. mirrors are placed between the windows, and a lustre of clear glass in imitation of crystal is suspended from the middle of the handsomest saloons. the chairs have straw bottoms; in some provinces, as murcia, andalusia, and valencia, they are of different heights; those on one side of the room being of the common height, and the others one third lower. the latter are intended for the ladies. in some of the principal cities one also sees chairs and sofas of walnut wood, the backs of which are bare, and the seats covered with damask; usually crimson or yellow. "luxury begins, however, to show itself in these objects. in the chief cities many hangings are of painted paper or linen; even hangings of brocades, of one and of three colours, and of various other kinds of silk; large and beautiful mirrors, and a number of sofas may be seen. the houses of the grandees in madrid are magnificently furnished, but usually with more cost than taste. hangings of silk, velvet, and damask, adorned with rich fringes and gold embroidery, are very common, and the seats are of corresponding magnificence. many houses in barcelona, cadiz, valencia, and madrid are decorated with equal study and elegance. "the custom of painting the walls is of late introducing itself into spain. they are covered with representations of men and animals, with trees, flowers, landscapes, houses, urns, vases, or history pieces, divided into compartments, adorned with pillars, pilasters, friezes, cornices, and arabesques; the effect of the whole is often very agreeable. this kind of decoration was imported from italy."[ ] [ ] vol. v., pp. - . [illustration: xiii alcÁzar of seville (_façade and principal entrance_)] in this account we clearly trace each various and successive influence that had permeated older spain, leaving her, at the close of every period, a nation that produced illustrious artists, but never a nation deeply versed in, or devoted to, the arts. the beds and brasiers of these modern spaniards were derived from ancient rome; their general dearth of comfortable furniture, together with the lower, and therefore more humiliating, seats for women, from the spanish moors; the typically ponderous hangings from mediæval spain herself; the fresco wall-paintings, such as may still be seen in many a spanish country home, from classic or renaissance italy; and the finicking gilt, rococo cornucopias from france; while the use of mirrors and of lustres in hideous combination with straw-bottomed chairs, almost reminds us of the days of visigothic barbarism. leather _guadamacilería_, or the art of decorating leather with painting, gilding, and impressions in relief, is commonly believed to have crossed from africa to spain at some time in the middle ages. according to duveyrier, the word _guadamecí_ or _guadamecil_ is taken from ghadames, a town in barbary where the craft was practised long ago; but covarrubias gives it an origin directly spanish, supposing that the title and the craft alike proceeded from a certain town of andalusia. however this may be, the preparation of these leathers grew to be a most important industry in various parts of spain, and spread, as time went on, to italy, france, and other european countries.[ ] [ ] "spain lays claim to the invention of the art of gilding leather; it is asserted that, after being discovered there, the secret was carried to naples by peter paul majorano."--laborde, vol. v., p. . in the peninsula, the principal centres of this work were cordova, seville, lerida, barcelona, ciudad real, and valladolid. cordova, however, was so far ahead of all the rest that leathers decorated in this style were known throughout the world as _cueros de córdoba_, or "cordova leathers." another name for them is said to have been _cordobanes_; but possibly the application of this latter word was less restricted. bertaut de rouen wrote in the seventeenth century of ciudad real:--"c'est une ville située dans une grande plaine, et dont l'enceinte est assez grande, qui estoit mesme fort peuplée autrefois, mais elle est quasi deserte à present. il ne luy reste plus rien sinon que c'est là où l'on appreste le mieux les peaux de _cordouan_, dont on fait les gans d'espagne. c'est delà aussi d'où elles viennent pour la pluspart à madrid. j'en achetay quelques-unes." [illustration: xiv door of the capilla de los vargas (_madrid_)] in alfonso the ninth presented the town of castro de los judíos to león cathedral and its bishop, confirming at the same time the tribute which the jews who occupied that town were bound to render upon saint martin's day in every year, and which consisted of two hundred _sueldos_, a fine skin, and two _guadamecís_. this tribute had existed since the reign of ferdinand the first: that is, towards the middle of the preceding century.[ ] [ ] count of clonard; _memorias para la historia del traje español_. none of these primitive leathers now exist, and consequently the details of their workmanship have perished with them. ramírez de arellano mentions two small coffers in the cluny museum, which date from about the fourteenth century and are decorated with the forms of animals cut from leather and overlaid on velvet. other _guadamecís_, though not of the oldest, are in the south kensington museum. "the earliest _guadamecileros_," says ramírez de arellano, speaking particularly of this art at cordova, "were accustomed to imitate brocade upon their leathers, employing beaten silver together with the colours red, green, blue, black, white, and carmine, applied in oils, or sometimes (although the law prohibited this) in tempera. gold was not used till , when charles the fifth confirmed the ordinances of this industry. the leather-workers tanned the hides themselves, stamping the pattern from a wooden mould, and then (if we may call it so) engraving on them. the hides were those of rams. the spaces between the decoration were either coloured red or blue, or simply left the colour of the skin; or else the pattern would be wrought in colours on the natural hide. gold, which at a later epoch almost totally replaces silver, was introduced between and , and was applied as follows. the artists smeared with oil the parts they wished to figure in raised or sunk relief, and laid the beaten gold upon the oil. they then applied a heated iron or copper mould; the pattern in relief was stamped; and the gold, superfluous shreds of which were wiped away with lint, adhered upon the leather. the irons required to be moderately hot, because if overheated they would burn the hide, or, if not hot enough, the fixing of the gold would not be permanent." [illustration: xv mudejar door (_palacio de las dueñas, seville_)] the importance of this industry in spain may be judged of from the fact that towards the close of the middle ages the _guadamacileros_ of seville occupied nearly the whole of an important street--the calle placentines. similarly, at cordova they filled the quarter of the city known as the ajerquía. "so many _guadamecíes_ are made here," wrote ambrosio de morales, "that in this craft no other capital can compare with her; and in such quantities that they supply all europe and the indies. this industry enriches cordova and also beautifies her; for since the gilded, wrought, and painted leathers are fixed upon large boards and placed in the sun in order to be dried, by reason of their splendour and variety they make her principal streets right fair to look upon." we owe to rafael ramírez de arellano most valuable and recent information respecting this ancient spanish-moorish craft.[ ] he has discovered the names of nearly forty _guadamacileros_ who lived and worked at cordova, principally in the sixteenth century. it is not worth while to repeat these names alone, but one or two particulars connected with a few of them are interesting. in four of these artificers, named benito ruiz, diego de san llorente, diego de ayora, and anton de valdelomar, signed a contract to prepare the cut and painted _guadamaciles_ for decorating a palace at rome. this contract, which is most precise and technical, is published in no. of the _boletín de la sociedad española de excursiones_. the only further notice which señor ramírez de arellano has discovered relating to any of these four craftsmen, tells us that nine years after the signing of the document just mentioned, diego de ayora leased some houses in the calle de la feria for a yearly rental of twenty-two ducats and three pairs of live hens. [ ] _boletín de la sociedad española de excursiones_, nos. , ; art. _guadamacíes_. another interesting contract is dated april th, . by it the _guadamacilero_ andrés lopez de valdelomar agreed, in company with hernando del olmo of marchena, and with francisco de gaviria and francisco delgado, painters, of cordova, to make a number of pieces of _guadamecí_ for the duke of arcos. the work was to be terminated by july of the same year. valdelomar was to receive from the duke's agent three _reales_ for each piece, and the painters two _reales_ and a half; this money to be paid them by instalments as the work proceeded. [illustration: xvi _celosÍa_ (_alhambra, granada_)] on august th, , before the mayor of cordova and the two inspectors of this trade, pedro de blancas was officially examined and approved in "cutting, working, and completing a _guadamecí_ of red damask with gold and silver borders on a green field, and a cushion with green and crimson decoration and faced with silver brocade." the ordinances of cordova also tell us much about this industry. the oldest of these city laws which deal with it are dated . those of were ratified by a crown pragmatic early in the seventeenth century, and at this later date we learn that the craft had much declined, the leather being by now "of wretched quality, the colouring imperfect, and the pieces undersized." the ordinances published in the sixteenth century provide that every applicant for official licence to pursue this craft and open business as a _guadamacilero_, must prove himself, in presence of the examiners, able to mix his colours and design with them, and to make a canopy together with its fringe, as well as "a cushion of any size or style that were demanded of him; nor shall he explain merely by word of mouth the making of the same, but make it with his very hands in whatsoever house or place shall be appointed by the mayor and the overseers of the craft aforesaid." it was also provided by these ordinances that the pieces of leather were to be dyed, not with brazil-wood, but with madder, and that their size, whether the hide were silvered, gilt, or painted, was to be strictly uniform, namely, "the size of the primitive mould," or "three-quarters of a yard in length by two-thirds of a yard, all but one inch, in width." the standard measures, made of iron and stamped with the city seal, were guarded under lock and key; and the ordinances of establish the penalty of death for every _guadamacilero_ who shall seek, in silvering his wares, to palm off tin for silver. [illustration: xvii carved _alero_] these leathers served a great variety of purposes, public or private, sacred or profane. they were used upon the walls and floors of palaces and castles, as table-covers, counterpanes, bed-hangings, cushions, curtains for doors, linings for travelling-litters, coverings of chests and boxes,[ ] and seats and backs of chairs and benches (plate vii.). in churches and cathedrals, especially throughout the sixteenth century, we find them used as tapestry and carpets,[ ] altar-fronts (such as one which is preserved in the chapel of san isidro in palencia cathedral), or crowns for images of the virgin.[ ] as time advanced, gold and a coat or so of colour was succeeded by elaborate painting. thus painted, they were often cut into the forms of columns, pilasters, or friezes in the plateresco or renaissance style,[ ] until the growing popularity of wall-pictures, together with the importation of french fashions at the death of charles the second, crippled and ultimately killed the decorative leather industry of spain. [ ] the _poem of the cid_ tells us of the two chests, covered with red _guadamecí_, which the hero filled with sand to cheat the jewish money-lenders:-- "_con vuestro consejo bastir quiero dos archas. incamosla d'arena, cá bien serán pesadas, cubiertas de guadamecí é bien enclavadas; los guadamecís bermeios é los clavos bien dorados._" nevertheless, the "coffer of the cid" at burgos (see p. ) does not appear to have been thus fitted. [ ] the same usage obtained in morocco. lancelot addison wrote in that on the first day of their "little feast" the moors across the strait "spread the floor of their giammas with coloured leather."--_west barbary_, p. . [ ] an inventory of effects belonging to the hospital of san josé at jerez de la frontera mentions, in , "clothes and trimmings for the image of our lady. a crown of gilded _guadamecí_."--gestoso, _diccionario de artífices sevillanos_, vol. i., p. xxii, _note_. [ ] a hall, says ramírez de arellano, would often be embellished by surrounding it with arches wrought of leather in relief and superposed on leather. as a rule the arches were gilt and silvered, and rested upon pilasters or columns. when pilasters were used, their centres would be ornamented with italian devices such as flowers, trophies, imitated cameos, and foliage. landscapes with a far horizon and no figures, known as _boscaje_ or _pintura verde_ were painted on the space between the arches, so that the general effect was that of a pavilion with arches on all sides, displaying everywhere a wide expanse of fertile country. the arches rested on a broad bordering of _guadamecíes_, and running round the lower part was a _zócalo_ or socle, commonly made of tiling. such is the kind of decoration which was most in vogue in spain throughout the latter half of the sixteenth century; that which was exported to rome; and that which was commissioned by the duke of arcos. carpentry and wood-carving the artistic carpentry of older spain produced as its most typical and striking monuments, three groups of objects which may be included generally under furniture. these are the _celosía_ or window-lattice, the door of _lazo_-work, and the _artesonado_-ceiling which adorns a hall or chamber, corridor or staircase. [illustration: xviii carved _zapatas_ (_casa de salinas, salamanca_)] these happy and effective styles of decoration came originally from the east. their passage may be traced along the coast of africa from egypt into spain; and they flourished in spain for the same reason which had caused them to flourish at cairo. "when we remember," says professor lane-poole, "how little wood grows in egypt, the extensive use made of this material in the mosques and houses of cairo appears very remarkable. in mosques, the ceilings, some of the windows, the pulpit, lectern or koran desk, tribune, tomb-casing, doors, and cupboards, are of wood, and often there are carved wooden inscriptions and stalactites of the same material leading up to the circle of the dome. in the older houses, ceilings, doors, cupboards, and furniture are made of wood, and carved lattice windows, or meshrebiyas, abound. in a cold climate, such employment of the most easily worked of substances is natural enough; but in egypt, apart from the scarcity of the material, and the necessity of importing it, the heat offers serious obstacles to its use. a plain board of wood properly seasoned may keep its shape well enough in england, but when exposed to the sun of cairo it will speedily lose its accurate proportions; and when employed in combination with other pieces, to form windows or doors, boxes or pulpits, its joints will open, its carvings split, and the whole work will become unsightly and unstable. the leading characteristic of cairo wood-work is its subdivision into numerous panels; and this principle is obviously the result of climatic considerations, rather than any doctrine of art. the only mode of combating the shrinking and warping effects of the sun was found in a skilful division of the surfaces into panels small enough, and sufficiently easy in their setting, to permit of slight shrinking without injury to the general outline. the little panels of a cairo door or pulpit may expand without encountering enough resistance to cause any cracking or splitting in the surrounding portions, and the egyptian workmen soon learned to accommodate themselves to the conditions of their art in a hot climate."[ ] [ ] _the art of the saracens in egypt_, pp. , . [illustration: xix carved _zapatas_ (_museum of zaragoza_)] these valuable and interesting observations apply with equal justice to the decorative woodwork of the spanish muslims. a further point of interest lies in the fact that window-grilles and ceilings of the kind referred to, grew to be extremely fashionable through the whole peninsula. carried by moorish or mudejar craftsmen far beyond the frontiers of the mussulman sultans of this european land, we find to-day surviving specimens in every part of spain--most of them, it is true, in sultry andalus; but many also in the old seigniorial mansions of castile, or even in the cold and humid towns and cities of cantabria. the man who did this kind of work was not a common carpenter. such work was largely practical and prosaic, but also it was largely decorative and poetical. probably, both in his own and in his customer's regard, the decorative quality was set before the practical. therefore, beyond the dry, comparatively facile details of technique, this workman studied, with an artist's reverence and zeal, the inner, subtler, sweeter mysteries of line and form; harmonies of curve and angle; patterns, now geometrical, now floral, now these two combined with magic ingenuity; steeping himself in the æsthetic sense; making, indeed, his work the literal fact or fitting of prosaic application that was indispensable; but also, and as if upon some loftier initiative of his own, a miracle of art for people of a later day to come and stand before and wonder at. [illustration: xx _alero_ and cornice of carved wood (_cuarto de comares, alhambra, granada_)] indeed, whether because our lord had practised it, or from some other motive, carpentry was always well esteemed among the spaniards. the ordinances of seville eulogize it, in conjunction with its sister-work of masonry and building, as "a noble art and self-contained, that increaseth the nobleness of the king and of his kingdom, that pacifieth the people, and spreadeth love among mankind, conducing to much good."[ ] the same ordinances divide these honourable craftsmen into half a dozen classes and sub-classes; carvers or _entalladores_, carpenters who kept a shop (_carpinteros de tienda_), _carpinteros de lo prieto_, and _carpinteros de lo blanco_. the latter are the class we are considering here, and these, in turn, were subdivided into _lazeros_ or makers of _lazo_-work, _non-lazeros_ or those who did not make it, and _jumetricos_ or _geómetricos_. the statutory examination was severe in all these branches. thus, the _lazero_-carpenters of seville were required to make a chamber of octagonal _lazo_-work, including its pendentives at the corners; while the wood-carvers of the same city were required to be experienced draughtsmen and to make and carve "artistic altar-screens with decorated columns, pedestals for images, and tabernacles (_i.e._ the part of an altar where the cibory and the host are kept), as well as tombs and chambranles with their covering, tabernacles of the utmost art (_de grande arte_), and rich choir-stalls." [ ] _"es noble arte, complida en sí; è acrescienta la nobleza del rey y del reyno, si en ella pararen mientes, como deuen; è pone paz en el pueblo y amor entre los omes, onde es carrera para muchos bienes."_--_ordenanzas de sevilla_, part , p. . nor was the making of artistic ceilings, doors, and window-gratings carried out exclusively by men of moorish blood. tutored by these, the christians practised it with great success. prominent among these last we find, early in the seventeenth century, the name of diego lopez de arenas, a christian-spaniard and a native of marchena, who held the licensed title of master-carpenter and lived for many years at seville.[ ] in a lucky moment it occurred to lopez de arenas to write and publish for the benefit of his fellow-craftsmen a book upon this decorative oriental woodwork that had passed into the spanish national life. this book, _carpintería de lo blanco_,[ ] appeared at seville in , and fresh editions were printed at the same city in , and at madrid in . as in the ordinances of granada, seville, and toledo, arabic terms, too copious and too complicated for elucidation here, are constantly repeated in this book.[ ] much of the general information which we gather from it is, however, of great interest. thus, we are told that with the spanish artists, as in egypt, the wood most often used, no doubt as being the cheapest, was pitch pine, parcelled and put together in the most elaborate decorative schemes. such was the characteristic _alfarge_[ ] ceiling of the moorish, morisco, and spanish-christian _carpintero de lo blanco_. its many fragments were secured upon the frame by long, small-headed nails, or by these nails combined with glue. if we observe the ceilings from close by, as when, for instance, they are taken down to be restored, the workmanship appears to be coarse, inaccurate, and hasty; the myriad pieces to be clumsily and loosely joined; the nails to be driven in without method, or even awry. nevertheless, this false effect betrays the calculating genius of the craftsman. he planned his work for contemplation by a certain light and at a certain elevation; and therefore, as the ceiling is removed again to its appointed distance, it seems to re-create itself in proud defiance of an error of our own, and grows at once to its habitual delicacy, harmony, and richness. [ ] gestoso finds no record of him in the city archives; but from a rough portrait of arenas prefixed to his treatise, we judge that he was born about the year . [ ] arenas himself defines a _carpintero de lo blanco_ as "he who prepares and works upon the wood employed in building; also, he who fashions tables, benches, etc., in his workshop." [ ] "his language abounds in arabic words and phrases of uncertain origin, whose meaning (since he wrote for men familiar with this work) he makes no effort to explain."--editor's introduction to the third edition of _carpintería de lo blanco_. [ ] arabic _al-farx_, a carpet, piece of tapestry, or anything that covers and adorns. [illustration: xxi "elijah sleeping" (_statue in wood, by alonso cano_)] i have said that the decoration of these ceilings is sometimes floral, sometimes geometrical, sometimes a combination of the two.[ ] sometimes the wood is plain, or sometimes silvered, gilt, or painted. sometimes it is employed alone, or sometimes variegated and inlaid with plaster points and patches. by far the commonest motive is the _lazo_--an ornamental scheme composed of infinite strips that turn, and twist, and intersect, describing in their mazy passage many polygons. one of these polygons determines, in a way, the scheme of the entire ceiling, which is denominated as consisting of "a _lazo_ of eight," "of ten," "of twelve," etc., from this particular. the most attractive and most frequent is the scheme "of eight." among the decorative details used to brighten and enhance the _lazo_ proper are _mocarabes_ or wooden lacery for relieving cubes and joists or surfaces, and _rácimos_ or "clusters"; that is, hollow or solid wooden cones or prisms, disposed along the side and centre panels of the ceiling like (in arenas' ingenious phrase) the buttons on a jacket, and contributing to the massive aspect of the whole. these clusters, too, were sometimes in the stalactite and sometimes in a simpler form, and show, both in the quantity and richness of their ornament, a limitless diversity. [ ] this mingled decoration is extremely common; and may be studied in our country, in the carved panels at south kensington which are believed to proceed from the pulpit of the mosque of kusun; or in the thirteenth-century panels of the tomb of es-salih ayyub. [illustration: xxii saint bruno (_by alonso cano. cartuja of granada_)] magnificent spanish-moorish, spanish, and mudejar ceilings still exist in spain. such are the marvellous domed ceiling in the hall of comares (or of ambassadors) in the alhambra, those of the castle of the aljafería at zaragoza and of the archbishop's palace at alcalá de henares, the arab _alfarge_ ceilings in the churches of san francisco and santiago of guadix, that of the hall of cortes in the audiencia of valencia, that of the sala capitular of toledo cathedral, that of the chapel of the holy spirit of the cathedral of cuenca (considered by many to be the finest _artesonado_ ceiling in all spain), or those of the churches of jesus crucificado, el carmen, and san pablo at cordova. the ceiling of the sala de la barca, in the moorish palace of the alhambra, was almost totally destroyed by fire in , but a good photograph had previously been taken, and i reproduce it here (plate viii.). one of the later _artesonado_ ceilings is at cordova, in the parish church of santiago. covered with a _bóveda_ or vault of cane, it is in excellent preservation, and was made in by the master-carpenter alonso muñoz de los ríos, who received for his labour fourteen thousand _reales_.[ ] the _artesonado_ ceilings which diego lopez de arenas tells us in his treatise that he made for the church, the choir, and the _sobreescalera_ of the monastery of santa paula at seville, as well as a ceiling which he made for the church of mairena, are all extant to-day. other remarkable examples of this craft are the ceilings of the rooms constructed to the order of, and which were actually occupied by, charles the fifth, within the precincts of the old alhambra. upon these half-italian, half-morisco ceilings and their frieze we read the words, "_plus oultre_"; and the inscription, "_imperator cæsar karolus v. hispaniarum rex semper augustus pius f[oe]lix invictissimus_." in one of the same apartments, known as the "chamber of the fruits," the ceiling has octagonal _artesones_ of superb effect, though even richer is that of what is called the second sala de las frutas, conspicuously influenced by italian art, and believed by gómez moreno to have been designed by pedro machuca and executed by juan de plasencia. [ ] cordova was a famous centre of this craft for many centuries. ramírez de arellano has found and published a notice relative to lope de liaño and garcía alonso, two artificers of this city who signed, on january th, , a contract with the prior of the monastery of the holy martyrs to build a ceiling for one of the chapels of the same. the document, which is quoted _in extenso_ in the _boletín de la sociedad española de excursiones_ for november, , abounds in technical expressions, many of them partly or entirely moorish. the same writer publishes the names (hitherto completely unrecorded) of thirteen other artist-carpenters who worked at cordova in the latter half of the sixteenth century and early in the seventeenth. the craft, in fact, died hard, and ceilings of this kind, replete with moorish detail, were made in certain parts of southern spain until the closing moments of the eighteenth century. [illustration: xxiii saint john the baptist (_san juan de dios, granada_)] marvellous in conjunction with the thousand lighted lamps which served to manifest its beauties, must have been the primitive ceiling (_as-sicafes_) of the mosque of cordova, of which an arab poet sang; "look at the gold on it, like the kindled flame, or like the lightning-stroke that darts across the heavens."[ ] our notices of this ceiling, barbarously hacked to pieces by christian architects, are neither numerous nor clear. we are told, however, that it was nearly finished in the reign of abd-er-rhaman the first, and terminated altogether by his son hixem. new ceilings were added on the enlarging of the mosque by abd-er-rhaman the second, while fresh additions were made by al-hakem the second and al-manzor. ambrosio de morales gives a quaint description of the earliest, or an early, ceiling of this temple. "the roof of the whole church, made of wood painted and adorned in divers ways, is of incredible richness, as will be seen from what i am about to say. it is of larch throughout, odorous, resembling pine, which is not found in any part but barbary,[ ] whence it is brought by sea. and every time that a part of this temple was thrown down for new constructions to be added, the wood removed was sold for many thousand ducats for making guitars and other delicate objects. the ceiling was built across the church upon the nineteen naves thereof, and over it, covered likewise with wood, the roofs, nineteen in number also, each with its ridge atop, drooping to one and other side."[ ] [ ] that the moors were proud of their mastery in woodwork is proved by an inscription in the torre de la cautiva at granada, saying; "in the plaster and the tiles is work of extreme beauty, _but the woodwork of the roof has vanquished them in elegance_." [ ] morales was probably mistaken. "on entering aragon one sees whole forests of 'spanish cedar' or _alerce_, some of the trees so thick that they measure four feet in diameter."--bowles' _natural history of spain_, p. . [ ] _antigüedades de las ciudades de españa_ (a.d. ), p. . three pieces made of common pine, and which are thought to have belonged to the original ceiling of this mosque or to an early replica, are now in the national museum at madrid, but the carving of these fragments is so simple that in the opinion of rodrigo amador de los ríos the decoration of the wood itself was purposely subordinated in this instance to the richness and variety of the painting. [illustration: xxiv choir-stalls (_santo tomás, avila_)] three types of decorative doors were made in older spain. in the earliest and simplest (_lacería en talla_), the _lacería_ or _lazo_-work is carved directly on and from the solid plank which forms the body of the door. in the second type, the carver's art is delicately blended with the joiner's--_lazo_-work with _ensamblaje_. in the third type the _lazo_-work is _sobrepuesta_--that is, attached to, not elaborated from, the planking.[ ] [ ] josé amador de los ríos mentions, as a good example of the first of these types, a thirteenth-century door of the _claustrilla_ in the monastery of las huelgas at burgos. other doors in the same monastery are illustrative of the second type; while all three types are represented by the doors, described herewith, which close the principal entrance to the misnamed hall of ambassadors in the alcázar of seville. as in the case of ceilings, many and excellent examples of these doors exist to-day in spain. among the most remarkable are several in the moorish palace of the alhambra, such as the two (dating from the end of the fourteenth century or early in the fifteenth) belonging, respectively, to the famous hall of the abencerrajes (pl. ix.), and to the hall of the two sisters (pl. x.). apparently it was the former of these doors which bertaut de rouen wrote of in the seventeenth century as "une porte aussi grande et aussi épaisse comme celles de nos plus grandes églises. elle s'ouvre des deux costez, et est toute de pieces rapportées, et d'un bois de differentes couleurs, comme les beaux cabinets et les belles tables qui coustent si cher."[ ] [ ] _journal du voyage en espagne_, p. . an early mudejar door proceeding from the church of san pedro at daroca in aragon is now in the national museum. this door, which is of larch, and measures nearly fourteen feet in height by nine in breadth, is of a simple design and represents a horse-shoe door described within the door itself. it was originally painted vermilion, with other decorative painting of a simple character in black, white, and red, and is fortified with massive iron braces. it is believed to date from earlier than the fourteenth century. [illustration: xxv carved choir-stall (_toledo cathedral_)] the mighty doors of the "hall of ambassadors," in the mediæval royal residence of seville (plates xi. and xii.), are quite the finest to be seen in spain. although a widespread superstition assigns their manufacture to a period close upon the moorish conquest, it has been proved conclusively that they were made by mudejar craftsmen of toledo at the time when the whole alcázar was erected more or less upon the ruins of the old, by pedro the first of castile, denominated, according to the prejudice with which we view his character, "the cruel," or "the just."[ ] [ ] the following words record the date of the construction of this place and its doors, and may be read (plate xiii.) upon the scroll of tiles or _alizares_ crowning the principal façade:-- [cross] el ¦ muy ¦ alto ¦ et ¦ muy ¦ noble ¦ et ¦ muy ¦ poderoso ¦ et ¦ muy ¦ conqueridor ¦ don ¦ pedro ¦ por ¦ la ¦ gracia ¦ de ¦ dios ¦ rey ¦ de ¦ castiella ¦ et ¦ de ¦ leon ¦ mandÓ ¦ facer ¦ estos ¦ alcÁzares ¦ et ¦ estos ¦ palacios ¦ et ¦ estas ¦ portadas ¦ que ¦ fuÉ ¦ fecho ¦ en ¦ la ¦ era ¦ de ¦ mill ¦ et ¦ quatroÇientos ¦ y ¦ dos ¦ the observant swinburne was not misled, like many travellers of to-day, into believing the alcázar to be of purely moorish origin. "having read that the moors built one part of this palace, i concluded i was admiring something as old as the mahometan kings of seville; but upon closer examination was not a little surprised to find _lions_, _castles_, and other armorial ensigns of castille and leon, interwoven with arabesque foliages; and still more so, to see in large gothic characters, an inscription informing me that these edifices were built in the fourteenth century, by the most mighty king of castille and leon, don pedro." these doors, which under a pretence of restoration have been mutilated more than once, are made of larch, and measure sixteen feet in height by thirteen feet (including both the leaves) in width. the upper part of either leaf consists of geometrical and floral ornament in exquisitely tasteful combination, executed in the scheme known technically, from the angles at the central polygon, as _lazo de á doce_--"_lazo_-work of twelve." the decoration of the lower part is more minute, and in the scheme of _lazo de á diez_--"_lazo_-work of ten." inscriptions in arabic and latin, many of which are quoted from the psalms, are distributed on both sides of the woodwork, and confirm our other evidence that the doors were made during the reign and in obedience to the orders, of don pedro. the plateresco sixteenth-century doors of the capilla de los vargas at madrid (plate xiv.) are attributed by cean bermudez and by ponz to an artist named giralte, who carved them in walnut with various military and other scenes from scripture, alternating with shields and floral ornament; the whole surrounded by an exquisitely delicate and tasteful border. lampérez remarks that the errors of perspective recall the similar productions of ghiberti. [illustration: xxvi choir-stalls (_burgos cathedral_)] the _celosía_ or decorative wooden window-grating, imported by the mussulman conqueror from egypt and the east, extended to all parts of christian spain, and was particularly used in convents. these gratings, identical in form and workmanship with those of cairo,[ ] were attached to projecting windows, so that the women of a household could look into the street without themselves being seen, a custom which the spanish woman still recalls to us by peering, for hours at a time, between the lowered _persiana_ of her balcony.[ ] by the seventeenth century, which may truthfully be called the age of spanish jealousy, and when the "othello-like revenge of the moor" had eaten into the very entrails of society, the _celosía_ had become as indispensable to houses as the door or window. "la," wrote bertaut de rouen of a residence on the outskirts of madrid, and obviously alluding to these gratings, "il y avoit bien des dames dans l'appartement d'enhaut qui y demeurerent cachées, se contentant de nous voir promener dans le jardin par les fenêtres." [ ] "the windows, which are chiefly composed of curious wooden lattice-work, serving to screen the inhabitants from the view of persons without, as also to admit both light and air, commonly project outwards, and are furnished with mattresses and cushions."--lane's _arabian nights_, vol. i., p. . [ ] it is strange that ford should have confounded the _reja_ with the _celosía_ (_handbook_, vol. i., p. ). however, he opportunely quotes the spanish proverb, _muger ventanera tuercela el cuello si la quieres buena_ ("the remedy for a woman who is always thrusting her head from the casement is to twist her neck"). we know from the stone coat of arms which is carved above the doorway of the "house of castril at granada" that in the olden time the balconies of the hall of comares in the alhambra were fitted with projecting wooden _celosías_; and contreras says that in the torre de los puñales of the same palace there used to be "a kind of wooden _mirador_ or _menacir_, covered with _celosías_ like those of cairo, and many of which were still to be seen in granada early in the nineteenth century." i am not aware of any moorish _celosía_ remaining to this day outside a spanish building. in such exposed positions weather and the natural delicacy of the woodwork seem to have destroyed them all. as an interior ornament, a single one (pl. xvi.) exists in the alhambra. nevertheless, i hesitate to call this _celosía_ purely moorish. perhaps it is the work of a morisco, or even of a christian-spaniard, for we know that decorative wooden fittings for the alhambra were made in the sixteenth century by antonio navarro and other craftsmen. the grating, which is well preserved, covers a window over the archway leading from the hall of the two sisters into the sala de los ajimeces and the mirador de daraxa, and consists of minute prisms and turned pieces in the typical egyptian style. [illustration: xxvii choir stalls (_san márcos, león_)] other fittings for a building, wrought in wood by moorish artists and by these communicated to the christian-spaniards, were balustrades and cornices, _aleros_ (decorative bands beneath the eaves of a roof, plate xvii.) and _zapatas_ (gargoyle-looking figures, often in human form, used to support a roof or gallery). in the so-called "patio de las asas" of the convent of santa catalina de zafra, at granada, exists an interesting moorish balustrade[ ] that seems almost untouched by time. i reproduce an outline of it as the tailpiece to the present chapter, and am glad to append the little sketch in question, copied from a photograph i took upon the spot three years ago, because it is almost impossible to obtain admission to this convent. beautiful or uncouth and quaint _zapatas_ may be seen in the casa de los tiros at granada, and in many other places (plates xviii. and xix.). much of the moorish woodwork of the palace of the alhambra was destroyed by the fire of , but there yet remain the ample cornice and carved _alero_ of the façade of the cuarto de comares (plate xx.), which is often called in error the court of the mezquita. this _alero_ bears the following inscription, allusive to the sultan mohammed the fifth:--"i am the place where the crown is guarded, and on my doors being opened the regions of the west believe the east to be contained within me. algami billah charged me to keep guard upon the doorway." [ ] almagro cardenas calls it "part of a _celosía_" (_museo granadino_, p. ); but as it can never have been a window-grating, this term is incorrect. gómez moreno calls it, not too lucidly, "a wooden balustrade forming squares and rectangular figures in the manner of a _celosía_" (_guía de granada_, p. ). valladar (_guía de granada_, edition of , p. ) calls it simply a balustrade, and this, it seems to me, is the only term which truthfully describes the object. other remarkable _aleros_ are in the generalife and in the court of lions of the alhambra, while, also in this last-named mansion, genuine moorish woodwork of elaborately inlaid ebony and larch is in two niches near the entrance to the sala de embajadores. sacred statuary, _sillerÍas_ or choir-stalls, and _retablos_ the genius of the wood-carvers of older spain is manifested chiefly in three groups of objects--sacred statuary, choir-stalls, and _retablos_. among this people, and probably by reason of its cheapness, plain, or gilt, or polychrome painted wood has always been a favourite material for the statues of their temples, whether such statues were employed alone, or as an accessory to a larger article of sacred furniture, such as a pulpit, or a _sillería_, or an altar-screen. so powerful, in fact, has been the vogue of this material here,[ ] that even to-day the spanish people, making, in symonds' happy phrase, "representation an object in itself, independently of its spiritual significance," attempt to elevate the most remarkable of their wooden, and by preference their coloured wooden, statuary (typically defended by pacheco's indigested tome), to rank beside the noblest and the purest monuments of bronze and marble; denoting, by this reckless and uneducated partiality, a positively national misconception of the true domain of art. [ ] my readers are no doubt aware that every spanish hamlet has its wooden image of the virgin, badly executed as a rule, and rendered doubly hideous by a gaudy gown. most of these local images are believed to hold the power of working miracles, or at least to have been fashioned and conducted to their present shrine by supernatural agency--on which account the populace and their pastors call these latter _imagenes aparecidas_, as distinct from _manufactured_ images. such are the virgins of montserrat, granada, and numerous other cities, towns, or villages of this illiterate and ill-starred peninsula. the curious may refer for every kind of detail to villafañe's _compendious history of the wonder-working images of spain_, which numbered in this author's day (his book was published in ) one hundred and eighty-nine. but the most extraordinary miracle of all was that which is recalled, with pious gravity, by bertaut de rouen. speaking of the gilt-wood image of nuestra señora del pilar at zaragoza, he says:--"on y void quantité de lampes d'argent et on m'en raconta un miracle qu'il me fut impossible de ne pas croire. c'est d'un pauvre homme qui ayant eu la jambe coupée pour une blessure, et s'estant bien recommandé à _nostra señora del pilar_, il se trouva un jour avec sa mesme jambe qu'il avoit déja fait enterrer. y'ay sceu l'histoire du chirurgien mesme qui coupa cette jambe et de quantité de témoins de veuë. il n'y a que quinze ans que cela est arrivé, mais l'homme est mort depuis peu."--_journal du voyage en espagne_, p. . [illustration: xxviii detail of choir-stalls (_león cathedral_)] it is outside the scope of such a work as this to deal at any length with spanish figure-sculpture. however, it is only fair to recognize that spain produced a couple of score or so of admirable carvers of wood-statuary. among the greatest of these craftsmen or _imagineros_ were becerra, berruguete, juan de juni, author of the _mater dolorosa_ ("our lady of the knives"), of valladolid; gregorio hernández the galician, author of "simon the cyrenian," "santa veronica," and "the baptism of our lord"; martínez montañes, author of "san jerónimo" and of the "cristo del gran poder";[ ] solis, gaspar de ribas, juan gómez, author of the "jesus" of puerto de santa maria; pedro roldan, with whom, according to tubino, "the art of seville closed its eyes"; and alonso cano, master of pedro and alonso de mena, ruiz del peral, josé de mora, and diego de mora, and who carved the exquisite "elijah sleeping" (pl. xxi.) now at toledo, and also (as it is believed) the famous statuette (frontispiece to the present volume) of saint francis of assisi. [ ] it is due to martínez montañes to mention that in many of his contracts he stipulated that the painters of his statuary should be chosen by himself, "so as not to corrupt the outline and the sentiment of the figures." [illustration: xxix choir-stalls (_plasencia cathedral_)] the earliest centre of this branch of wood-carving was valladolid, where lived and laboured juni and hernández. nevertheless, although so popular in every part of spain, it had a short-lived prime, originating in the two castiles towards the reign of philip the second, declining steadily (with seville for its centre now) all through the seventeenth century, and flickering out, despite the perseverance and the genius of the murcian susillo, in the century succeeding. in decorative _sillerías_ or sets of choir-stalls, spain has produced examples worthy to be set beside the masterpiece of vitry in the abbey of sainte-claude, the best productions of dürer and his followers in germany, or those of donatello, brunelleschi, valdambrino, vechietta, and verrochio in italy. nevertheless, her most distinguished _sillería_-makers were at almost every moment inspired and directed by the foreigner. germans or flemings were her first preceptors in this craft. these artists had been sent for, or proceeded of their own accord, to spain, and settling in this country rapidly spread the technics of their art among the spaniards. in the peninsula the origin of this school or movement may be traced to burgos. here, just as the fifteenth century was drawing to its close, and just before the breath of the renaissance crossed the spanish frontier at its eastern side, was gathered a small though influential group of eminent workers in more crafts than one; painters and sculptors, architects, embroiderers, carvers of wood, _reja_-makers, and painters of cathedral glass. prominent among them all was a foreigner named philip vigarny,[ ] who is described by diego de sagrado as "singular above all others in the art of making statuary and sculpture; a man of vast experience, general in his mastery of the liberal and mechanic arts, and no less resolute in all that is related with the sciences of architecture." [ ] in spanish he is called felipe de borgoña, but martí y monsó says that the proper spelling of the surname is biguerny. [illustration: xxx detail of choir-stalls (_convent of san marcos, león_)] burgundy is said to have been the birthplace of felipe de borgoña, but of his early history we have no tidings. in documents which bear his signature he styles himself "_imaginario_, resident at burgos." three such documents exist. on august st, , he agrees, for , _maravedis_, to make "such images as may be necessary" for the altar of the high chapel of palencia cathedral, "he with his own hand to carve the hands and faces, out of good smooth walnut, without painting." this document is dated from palencia. the other two are dated severally, burgos, december th, , and corcos, september th, without the addition of the year.[ ] we also know this craftsman to have made the great _retablo_ of burgos cathedral. such, from the fragmentary semblance we can trace of him, was philip vigarny, the pioneer of the wood-carvers of older spain, and who, aided by other craftsmen from abroad, communicated all the secrets of his art to spaniards such as gil de siloe, ruy sanchez, diego de la cruz, alonso de lima, and berruguete. [ ] zarco del valle, _documentos inéditos para la historia de las bellas artes en españa_, pp. , . the typical _sillería_ consists of two tiers; the _sellia_ or upper seats, with high backs and a canopy, intended for the canons, and the lower seats or _subsellia_, of simpler pattern and with lower backs, intended for the _beneficiados_. at the head of all is placed the presidential throne, larger than the other stalls, and covered, in many cases, by a canopy surmounted by a tall spire. when the _sillería_ belongs to a monastery, the higher stalls are for the _profesos_, and the lower for the novices and _legos_. commonly the part that forms the actual seat is hinged and rises to a vertical position, being so contrived that when the occupant rises to his feet, there remains a narrow ledge projecting from the under surface. this ledge is called the "seat of pity" or "of patience," because the worshipper is able to incline himself on it and give his limbs some measure of repose without appearing to be seated. there also is commonly another piece, intended for him to rest his hands upon in rising, which projects from the sides of the stall and forms a part of the decorative carving, as well as, somewhat higher still, the carved support to rest his arms while he is on his feet. [illustration: xxxi "samson" (_carved choir-stall of león cathedral_)] the earliest spanish _sillerías_ date from the fourteenth century; but it is not until the century succeeding that we find them at their very best. gothic or plateresco _sillerías_ of marvellous design and workmanship are those of the seo of zaragoza (begun in ), the cartuja de miraflores of burgos ( ), the monastery of oña, santa maría de nájera ( ), the church of santa maría del campo, in the province of burgos, santo tomás of avila (finished in ), and the cathedrals of oviedo, segovia ( - ), ciudad rodrigo, tarragona ( ), tarazona, toledo (begun in ), zamora, astorga, barcelona ( - ), and seville (finished in ). the gothic choir-stalls of the seo of zaragoza have lofty backs with arabesque mudejar ornamentation, small gothic columns, and medallions containing figures upon the arms of every stall. the material is flemish oak. the carving was begun in by the moors alí arrondi, muza, and chamar, who earned a daily wage of four _sueldos_. in juan navarro and the brothers antonio and francisco gomar were working at the same stalls, and also, in , francoy. the stalls of the cartuja de miraflores at burgos were carved by martin sánchez, who received in , and for the _mano de obra_ alone, the sum of , _maravedis_. the material, which was presented by luis de velasco, señor of belorado, is dark walnut. the _sillería_ of santa maría de nájera, the work of maestro andrés and maestro nicolás, is gothic merging into the renaissance. that of santo tomás of avila (late gothic) consists of sixty oaken stalls, besides two larger ones resembling thrones (plate xxiv.), intended to be occupied by ferdinand and isabella, founders of this monastery, and whose arms they bear in lace-like carving. the rest of the decoration is composed of thistles, vines, trefoils, and pomegranates. owing to the fact that not a single cross appears on any part of the _sillería_ (although this circumstance is not unusual in sacred gothic woodwork), there is a superstition that these stalls were wrought anonymously by some jew, condemned to execute them by the inquisition as a form of punishment. this fable has no value. although the author's name is not upon the stalls, they are identical in nearly every detail with those of the cartuja de miraflores at burgos, known to have been carved by martin sánchez in . hence it is extremely probable that this craftsman was the author of both _sillerías_. [illustration: xxxii "esau" (_carved choir-stall of león cathedral_)] on many spanish _sillerías_ we find most spirited reproductions of the life and manners of their time; satirical allusions to contemporary vices, allegories and caprices as fantastic, in the phrase of vargas ponce, as "one of bosch's nightmares," hunting-scenes or love-scenes, banquets, tournaments, dances, battles, sieges, and even bull-fights. thus, on the stalls of the cathedrals of zamora, oviedo, plasencia, astorga, and león are carved such subjects as the following. a fox dressed as a friar, preaching to a group of hens but slyly abstracting their chicks (zamora), men fighting with their fists (zamora), a hog playing the bagpipes (león), the devil in the garb of a confessor, tempting a penitent (león), a woman suckling an ass (león), a man armed with a lance, fighting a woman (astorga), a bird of prey struggling with a crocodile (astorga), card-players (astorga), a warrior on all-fours, whipped by a woman (plasencia), an _auto-de-fé_ (plasencia), swine praying and spinning (ciudad rodrigo), a fight between a tiger and a bull (ciudad rodrigo), a monkey beating a drum (ciudad rodrigo), and a monkey wearing a mitre (ciudad rodrigo). the style of the lower stalls of toledo cathedral is good plateresque. they were begun in by maese rodrigo, one of the very best of spain's _entalladores_, and portray, in each successive stall, the phases of the last campaign against granada (plate xxv.); the sieges or battles of altora, melis, xornas, erefran, alminia, baza, málaga (two stalls), salobreña, almuñecar, comares, beles, montefrío, moclín, illora, loja, cazarabonela, coyn, cartama, marbella, ronda, setenil, alora, alhama, nixar, padux, vera, huéscar, guadix, purchena, almería, rión, castil de ferro, cambril, zagani, castul, gor, canzoria, moxacar, vélez el blanco, gurarca, vélez el rubio, soreo, and cabrera. the upper tier of the same stalls belongs to a later period, and will, in consequence, be noticed subsequently. the _sillería_ of barcelona cathedral was begun in the middle of the fifteenth century by matias bonafé, at the same time that the german michael locher and his pupil john frederic worked at the canopies. it was finished thirty years later. upon the back (which otherwise is plain) of every stall is a coat of arms distinct from all its neighbours, marking the seat of one of the princes or nobles summoned by charles the fifth to the chapter of the order of the golden fleece, march th, .[ ] [illustration: xxxiii _retablo_ (_seville cathedral_)] the splendid _sillería_ of seville cathedral is a mingling of the gothic with the mudejar and plateresque. the material is oak and fir, and the number of the seats one hundred and seventeen. the _sellia_ are surmounted by a graceful running _guardapolvo_. each seat is carved distinctly from the rest, and further decorated in the mudejar style with inlaid woods of various kinds and colours, imitating stone mosaic. among this labyrinth of design are groups of people, angels, animals, and scenes from scripture, as well as, on the lower stalls, the giralda tower, which forms the arms of the cathedral. the _sillería_ is further embellished with two hundred and sixteen statuettes, seventy-two of which are ranged along the canopy or _dosel_, the remainder being distributed between the seats. [ ] "the stalls of the choir are neatly carved, and hung with escutcheons of princes and noblemen, among which i remarked the arms of our henry the eighth."--swinburne. the authors of this splendid work of art (judiciously restored some years ago by boutelou, fernandez, and mattoni) were nufio sanchez, dancart, and several other craftsmen, concerning whom we know but very little. sánchez' name is carved upon the second stall of the upper row, and on the side of the evangelist, as follows:-- [illustration] the above inscription states that "this choir was made by nufio sanchez, _entallador_ (god guard him[ ]), and finished in the year one thousand four hundred and seventy-eight." [ ] this kind of parenthetical remark or prayer is one of the many muslim phrases that have passed into the regular service of the spanish christian. with the dawn of the sixteenth century, the gothic style runs rapidly into that of the renaissance. at about this time, and as baron davillier pointed out, we sometimes find a triple influence, namely, the burgundian, the italian, and the native spanish. vigarny may be called the champion of the first of these, berruguete (who studied in italy) of the second, and guillermo doncel of the third. after this the purer renaissance gives place to the decadent, as in the stalls of santiago, málaga, cordova, and salamanca. [illustration: xxxiv _retablo_ of seville cathedral (_detail of carving_)] sixteenth-century _sillerías_ of note are those of burgos cathedral (plate xxvi.), carved by vigarny, avila cathedral, the pilar of zaragoza, the minor friars of the cartuja of burgos, pamplona cathedral, san marcos of león, huesca, the _alta sillería_ of toledo, and the walnut stalls--carved in by bartolomé fernandez de segovia, and now in the madrid museum--of the parral of segovia. the _sillería_ of avila cathedral is believed to have been begun in by juan rodrigo, although the greater part of it was probably executed between and by cornelis de holanda, who took for his model the stalls of san benito of valladolid. the cost of the walnut wood and of its workmanship amounted to , _reales_. the upper stalls of toledo cathedral were carved by vigarny and alonso berruguete in collaboration, so that we find in them the northern and italian styles effectively and interestingly united. the plateresque-renaissance _sillería_, described as "genuinely spanish," of the old convent of san marcos of león, containing statuettes of biblical personages and of fathers of the church--saint isidore among them,--was finished in by guillermo doncel, who added the inscription "_magister guillermus doncel me fecit mdxlii_" (plate xxvii.). we know, however, nothing more about this excellent spanish artist, except that (on the unsupported testimony of cean) he worked at the façade of this convent between the years and . the intricate _sillería_ of the pilar of zaragoza, containing almost every kind of subject--beasts, birds and fishes, allegories, incidents of the chase, or scenes of popular life--was designed by esteban de obray, a navarrese, and executed by him and his assistants, juan moreto florentino and nicolas de lobato, between and . that of the minor friars of the cartuja of burgos was carved at a cost of eight hundred and ten ducats by simón de bueras, in . that of pamplona cathedral dates from about the middle of the century, and is the work of one ancheta, who had visited italy and gathered inspiration from the masterpieces of siena. the material is english oak. the stalls of huesca, carved from oak proceeding from an older _sillería_ which had been removed, were begun in and finished in . the craftsmen were nicolás de verástegui and juan verrueta de sangüesa. [illustration: xxxv detail of _retablo_ (_late th century. museum of valladolid_)] seventeenth-century _sillerías_ are those of santiago, carved by juan de vila in ; salamanca, in , by alfonso balbás; orihuela, in , by juan bautista borja; and segorbe, carved in the same year by nicolás camarón; while dating from the eighteenth century--a period of manifest decadence in this beautiful but short-lived craft--are the stalls of lerida, by luis bonifar y masó (born in ), and cordova, executed between and , at a cost of , _reales_, by pedro ciriaco duque y cornejo, a son of seville and a pupil of the sevillano roldan. the least imperfect of these later and decadent _sillerías_ is that of málaga, whose author, pedro de mena, was, like his master, alonso cano, a native of granada. mena's contract with two canons of the cathedral, nominated by the bishop to prepare and sign the stipulations, will be found in no. of the _boletín de la sociedad de excursiones_. the stalls of málaga number a hundred and one, carved in walnut, larch, cedar, and the heavy indian wood called _granadillo_. as happens with many of the _sillerías_ of this country, the costumes of the figures are of great historical value. among the saints is san roque, in pilgrim's garb, attended by the dog who brought him day by day a loaf of bread while men refused to succour him. no less magnificent than these sets of choir-stalls are the carved _retablos_ or altar-screens,[ ] a gradual excrescence from the primitive and unpretentious altar of the early days of christianity. several kinds of craftsmen worked upon these altar-screens, such as _tallistas_, _entalladores_, _imagineros_, and even architects. [ ] wood is the usual material for these altar-screens, though sometimes marble was employed, or stone, or silver. of genoese marble is the _retablo_ (end of the fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth century) of the cartuja del paular in the lozoya valley; of stone, those of the parish church of san nicolás at burgos (end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century), and of the "chapel of the tailors" in tarragona cathedral; while a silver _retablo_, in the renaissance style, was that of the church, now demolished, of santa maría at madrid. the golden age of the _retablo_ embraces the end of the fifteenth century and the whole of the sixteenth. notable examples belonging to this period are the screens of the monastery of santo tomás at avila, san martin of segovia, the cartuja de miraflores, the colegiata of covarrubias in the province of burgos, the cathedrals of avila, toledo, tudela, and tarazona; several in the churches of toledo, two in the church of san lesmes (burgos), two in burgos cathedral (plate xxxvi.), and three, including those of _reyes_ and of _buena mariana_, in the church of san gil in the same city. not one of these, however, has the grandeur or variety of the altar-screen of seville (plates xxxiii. and xxxiv.), which is carefully described in cean's monograph. "the style is gothic; the material, undecaying larch; and the screen, which reaches nearly to the vaulting, is the largest in the country, although at first it spanned the presbytery only, not including either side. it was designed in by dancat or danchart, who began work upon it as soon as his sketches were approved, and worked at it till , in which year he seems to have died. [illustration: xxxvi detail of _retablo_ (_chapel of santa ana, burgos cathedral_)] "dancat was succeeded by master marco and bernardo de ortega, whose carving reached, by , the canopy or _viga_, and who were followed in their turn by francisco, bernardo's son, father and teacher of bernardino and nufrio de ortega, his assistants. some of the statues were carved by micer domingo. the rest of the _imaginería_ was finished in ; and the gilding and painting were done by alejo fernández, his brother, and andrés de covarrubias. "so the screen remained till , when the chapter decided to extend it, without altering the style of decoration, to the sides of the presbytery. by this time spanish sculpture had improved, and many of our best-known sculptors lent their aid, of whom the earliest were roque balduc, pedro becerril, el castellano, juan de villalva, diego vazquez, and pedro bernal. in the chapter appointed, to inspect the work of these artists, juan reclid and luis de aguilar, both of whom lived at jaen. henceforth the master-craftsmen working at the screen were pedro de heredia, gomez de orozco, diego vazquez the younger, juan lopez, andrés lopez del castillo, and his sons, juan de palencia, and juan bautista vazquez. by the screen was quite concluded. "the gothic work is of incomparable richness. ten groups of tall and narrow columns, resting upon two pedestals or socles, divide the _retablo_ into nine spaces, crossed by horizontal bands of complicated carving, forming a series of thirty-six niches, in four rows. statues a little less than life-size represent, in the first row, the creation and fall of our first parents, and the mysteries of the infancy of christ; in the second, his preaching and miracles; in the third, his passion and death; and in the fourth, his resurrection, appearance to the disciples, and ascension; also the coming of the holy ghost. upon the altar-table, and resting in its niche, is the statue, covered with silver plates, of nuestra señora de la sede, presented to this temple by saint ferdinand. above the _viga_, which has an _artesonado_ ceiling, rises a frontispiece containing thirteen canopied niches with statues of the apostles, and in the centre niche that of the virgin mary. crowning the whole _retablo_ are statues larger than life-size, and a calvary standing in free space."[ ] [ ] _descripción de la catedral de sevilla_, pp. , . throughout these spanish altar-screens the influence which predominates is that of germany. they are essentially distinguished by a northern art (plates xxxv., xxxvi.), not sentimental but material, not tender but robust, not (like the art of the italians) retrospective or prospective, but prosaic, realistic, actual. curiously enough, their presence seems incongruous in spain, and yet they made themselves at home here; for spanish art was ever realistic, so probably on this account two widely different nations found, at least in this particular craft, a common bond of sympathy. certainly the renaissance, while it seemed to cherish and encourage, really undermined and killed this branch of spanish wood-carving. a similar phenomenon attends the art of the alhambra. in either case the plenitude of power and of beauty is even more ephemeral than the term of human life; and thus, deluded by so brilliant and majestic a decay, we fail to apprehend, or seek to grow oblivious of, the imminence of their ruin. [illustration] ivories the story of spanish ivory-work is shortly told, for probably no craft, excepting glass, has been so little practised in this country. the older spanish writers rarely mention it, although from time to time this substance may have been employed for carving diptyches and boxes, and roderick is stated to have entered the battle of the guadalete in an ivory car, by which is meant, perhaps, a chariot of byzantine make or pattern, covered with ivory plates. however, properly speaking, the history of this art as exercised in spain begins in the eleventh century, attains its prime towards the fourteenth century, and ceases altogether at the time of the renaissance. among the ivory objects now preserved in spain, and which were wrought by artists other than mohammedan, none is more interesting or important than the consular diptych of oviedo cathedral. although this valuable diptych was not made in spain, but manifests byzantine art in all its purity, it well deserves to be described. it consists of two ivory tablets measuring sixteen inches and a half in height by twelve inches and a half across both leaves. each leaf has a simple border of a triple form, and just inside each corner is a circular floral ornament in relief, with a lion's head in the centre. another ornament, also circular, is in the centre of each leaf, and contains, carved within a graceful s-shaped border, a half-length portrait of the consul, who is represented in the act of throwing down into the amphitheatre his _mappa_ or handkerchief[ ] with his right hand, while in his left he holds the sceptre (_scipio imaginifer_), crowned with a small bust. his hair is curled in the byzantine fashion, and his costume is a richly decorated toga. [ ] _i.e._ as a signal to begin the sport. the same usage (except that the handkerchief is waved, and not thrown down) is followed at this moment in the spanish bull-ring. an inscription runs along the top of either tablet, between the border and the circular devices carved with flowers. it says:-- _flavius strategius apion--strategius apion. vir inlustris comes devotissimorum domesticorum et consul ordinarius._ [illustration: xxxvii ivory box (_ th century. madrid museum_)] we gather, therefore, that this magnate was a chamberlain at court, as well as ordinary consul. diptyches were used among the romans for all kinds of purposes, such as to convey love-messages, as invitations to a banquet, or to notify the celebration of feasts and games. we find the diptych also used in christian temples from the time of constantine, serving to record church festivals or names of saints and martyrs, as covers for a copy of the gospel (_diptycha evangeliorum_), or as reliquaries (_thecae reliquiarum_). sometimes these diptyches were wrought expressly for the church, or sometimes they were consular diptyches that had been preserved from former ages. this latter class, when cleansed from pagan usage and devoted to the ceremonies of the christian faith, was known as _diptycha mixta_. such early objects as were wrought in ivory by spanish hands, consisting as a rule of circular or oblong, square or oval caskets, were principally carved by moors or mudejares. among the spanish-moorish boxes which are still preserved are several of the greatest interest and beauty (plates xxxviii., xxxix., xl.). one of them, made from pieces of an older casket believed to date from earlier than the moorish conquest, is in the national museum. the decoration in its present form consists of arabic inscriptions in relief, together with figures of the apostles. this casket, which proceeds from the colegiata of saint isidore at león, measures seven inches in length by five in depth and six in height, and has been used as a reliquary. another, dating from the middle of the eleventh century and proceeding from the same temple as the one just noticed, is also in the national museum. it was a present from the emir mohammed almotamid-aben-abed to his second wife, al-badir ("the moon"), and includes among the decoration dogs and doves, symbolic of affection and fidelity. the style of carving is what is known as persian-arabic. we do not know, however, whether the box was imported from the east, or whether it was made in spain by somebody of persian parentage or skilled in persian art. the material is a delicate _taracea_ of sandal, aloe, and cypress woods inlaid on larch. the box, which was used at león as a reliquary, has bronze clasps, and is inscribed along the top with sentences from which we learn that it was made by aben-as-serag. [illustration: xxxviii ivory casket (_moorish; th century. pamplona cathedral_)] in the cathedral of pamplona is a magnificent ivory box (plate xxxviii.) which was originally at sangüesa in navarre. it measures, says riaño, fifteen inches long by nine and a quarter inches wide. "it is completely covered with carvings in relief, within circular cusped medallions, with figures in the centres representing different subjects; men seated, hawking, or struggling with wild beasts, and numerous single figures of lions, stags, and other animals. the intermediate spaces contain an ornamentation of leaves and flowers which is accommodated to the geometrical style of saracenic art. round the upper part of this box appears an arabic inscription in fine cufic characters:--'in the name of god. the blessing of god, the complete felicity, the happiness, the fulfilment of the hope of good works, and the adjourning the fatal period (of death), be with the hagib seifo daula (sword of the state), abdelmalek ben almansur. this (box) was made by the orders (of the said hagib), under the inspection or direction of his chief eunuch, nomayr ben mohammad alaumeri, his slave, in the year of (a.d. ).' "in the centre medallion, on the opposite side to the lock, is represented the standing figure of a man who is attacked by two lions. he holds on his arm a shield, upon which is engraved an inscription, with the following religious formula: 'there is no god but god,' or a similar one, for the characters are very illegible and confused. in the centre of this shield may be read the words, 'made by hair,' undoubtedly one of the artists who made the box. another artist's name may be read with difficulty in a similar inscription which appears on one of the medallions on the left side; it is written on the thigh of a stag, which is attacked by a lion: 'it was made by obeidat.' three other inscriptions of a similar character appear in other parts of this box, which probably give the names of other artists, but i have been unable to decipher them." other interesting boxes dating from the same period are that of santo domingo de silos at burgos, and several which are in the national museum at madrid. the box which is preserved at burgos is made of ivory, and measures thirteen inches and a quarter in length by seven inches and a half in width and height. the decorative work consists of hunting scenes, and also of an inscription in cufic characters which says: "permanent felicity for the owner (of this box). may god lengthen his days. it was made at medina ...[ ] in the year four hundred and seventeen (a.d. ). it is the work of his servant mohammed-ibn-zeiyan. may god glorify him." [ ] at this break in the inscription riaño professed to discover the beginning of the word _cuenca_. there is also in the provincial museum of burgos a handsome ivory diptych which was formerly at the convent of santo domingo de silos. it bears at each extremity--that is, four times repeated--the following inscription:--"this was ordered to be made by the iman, servant of god, abd-er-rhaman, prince of believers." [illustration: xxxix ivory box (_ th century. palencia cathedral_)] among the rectangular boxes in the national museum is one of carved ivory, with an inscription recording it to have been a gift from prince ali to one of the favourites of his harem, and another of the same material which was once upon a time at carrion de los condes, in the province of palencia. this box is painted with a decorative pattern in carmine and dark green. the lid, which is imperfect, contains the following inscription in cufic characters, standing boldly out against a green ground:--"in the name of allah, the merciful, the compassionate. the protection of allah and an impending victory for the servant of allah ... and his wali maad abu-temim--the iman al-moez ... prince of believers (the blessing of allah be upon him and his sons the good). (this) was commanded to be made for (celebrating) the fortunate victory. it was made by ... jorasani." the length of this box is eighteen inches, and its height nine inches. a fine moorish box (plate xxxix.), now in the cathedral of palencia, is covered with elaborately engraved and perforated ivory plates upon a ground of gilt leather backed by wood, and further ornamented with enamel-work upon a copper surface. this box is fourteen inches long, and has a gable top. the decoration on the sides and lid consists of palm-leaves, birds, and men engaged in combating and chasing antelopes and lions in the characteristic manner of assyrian art. a lengthy cufic inscription tells us that the box was made at cuenca (_medina cuenca_) by abd-er-rahman ben ziyan, to the order of the moorish princes of toledo, and that it dates from the year of the hegira.[ ] vives has pointed out that cuenca was evidently a principal centre of this industry, and that caskets executed here about this time exist in perpignan cathedral and in the provincial museum of burgos. [ ] detailed accounts of this casket will be found in the _boletín de la sociedad española de excursiones_ for june , and in the _boletín de la real academia de la historia_, vol. xx. riaño mentions seven ivory boxes of particular interest, which were probably made in spain by spanish arabs, or else by eastern craftsmen who had emigrated to this country. "on all their carving," he adds, "the names of spanish historical persons appear, and it is hardly possible that they were ordered in remote countries, especially as some of these objects are small and comparatively unimportant." [illustration: xl hispano-moresque ivory casket (_ th century. royal academy of history, madrid_)] two of these boxes are in the south kensington museum. the one which is cylindrical in shape and has a domed cover is thus described by maskell in his _ivories, ancient and mediæval, in the south kensington museum_:--"this beautiful box is carved throughout, except the bottom of it, with interlacing narrow bands forming quatrefoils, in which, on the cover, are four eagles. these have spread wings and stand erect; well designed and most delicately executed. a small knob serves to lift the lid. "round the side, each quatrefoil is filled with a star having a leaf ornament. the same decoration is repeated in the spaces between the larger quatrefoils on the cover." "the whole is carved in pierced work, except a band which forms the upper upright portion of the box, round the side of the lid. this band has an arabic inscription: 'a favour of god to the servant of god, al hakem al mostanser billah, commander of the faithful.' he was a caliph who reigned at cordova, a.d. - ." the other box is oblong and rectangular. "the cover and sides are carved with scroll foliated ornament; the hinges and clasp are of chased silver inlaid with niello. round the sides, immediately below the lid, is the following arabic inscription in cufic characters:--'in the name of god. this (box) was ordered to be made by seidat allah, the wife of abd-er-rahman, prince of the believers. god be merciful and satisfied with him.'" this inscription, adds riaño, "must allude to abd-er-rahman the third, the first caliph of cordova who bore the title of emir, el mumenin. the formula 'god be merciful,' etc., denotes that he was dead when it was written. he died a.d. ." [illustration: xli ivory crucifix (_ th century. madrid museum_)] another spanish-moorish casket, also at south kensington, and dating from the eleventh century, is described by maskell as "richly carved in deep relief with foliage and animals in scrolls interlacing one another, and forming larger and smaller circles. the top and each side is a single plaque of ivory; the sloping lid at the front and back has two panels. on the two are two animals, like doves; a large bird stands at the back of each, attacking it with his beak. the sloping sides have, in the large circles, men on horseback, and animals fighting. the intermediate spaces are completely filled with foliage, and smaller beasts. similar subjects are repeated in the circles on the panels forming the lower sides of the casket, and among them are two groups of men and women sitting; one blowing a horn, another playing on a guitar, another holding a cup in one hand and a flower in the other." riaño adds: "there is no inscription on this casket, but in one of the medallions on the lid there is a bust, which is carried on the back of a horse, and which is probably a representation of the prince for whom the casket was made." [illustration: xli (_a_) ivory crucifix (_ th century. back view. madrid museum_)] the _letter of testament_ setting forth the various objects bequeathed by ferdinand the first and his consort sancha to the church of saint john the baptist (or of saint isidore) at león, mentions an ivory cross (which will be noticed presently), an ivory box fitted with gold, and two ivory boxes fitted with silver, one of them containing three other silver boxes, similarly decorated. one of these boxes is described by ambrosio de morales, and from his words we conclude it to be the one which was adorned with gold, "of which metal," he wrote in , "it has even more than of ivory," adding that it measured more than half a yard in length, and enshrined the body of saint vincent of avila. he also tells us that it bore the following inscription, carved upon a golden frieze:-- arcula sanctorum micat haec sub honore duorum baptistae sancti johannis sive pelagii ceu rex fernandus, reginaque santia, fieri jussit. era millena septena seu nonagena.[ ] [ ] a.d. . this _arca_ has been much mutilated, and stripped of all the precious metal. morales' description is therefore of especial value, as are the ivory tablets (eleventh century), carved with christian themes, which yet remain upon the body of the box. [illustration: xlii byzantine crucifix] dating from the thirteenth century is a moorish casket (plate xl.), preserved in the academy of history at madrid, and proceeding from the carthusian monastery of val de cristo at segorbe. it measures a foot in length by eight inches in height and four and a half inches in depth. the lid is deeply bevelled, and contains on each of the bevelled sides shields with the bars which constitute the arms of aragon, painted upon a gold ground, together with imperial eagles painted in black upon a carmine ground. a decorative device of leaves and stems is also painted on the ivory. rodrigo amador de los ríos believes that this casket was captured in war by jayme the first of aragon, remaining with successive princes of his line until the reign of don martin, by whom it was presented to the monastery. the shields would thus be added to the primitive moorish casket by some christian-spanish painter. the ivory crucifix (plates xli. and xli. (_a_)), of ferdinand the first and doña sancha, made in the first half of the eleventh century, and offered by these sovereigns to the church of saint john the baptist (or of saint isidore) at león, measures twenty-one inches in length by thirteen inches and a half in height. the figure of christ recalls the rigidness and rudeness of byzantine craftsmanship, such as is found in ancient crucifixes still preserved in spain (plate xlii.). the pupils of the enormous, expressionless eyes are made of jet. we see the wound upon each foot, with wavy marks to imitate the flowing blood, but no trace of a nail. nails, however, transfix the hands. the arms are separate from the trunk, but the _suppedaneum_ on which the feet are resting is of a single piece with the body of the figure. the surface of the cross, especially about the borders, contains elaborate decoration, including animals and foliage. above the saviour's head is the inscription:-- ihs naza renvs rex ivdeorvm above this is another figure of christ seated, crowned with a cruciform nimbus and holding a greek processional cross. beneath the feet of the larger figure is adam in an uncouth posture, turning his head to gaze upward, and at the lower extremity of the cross are carved the words:-- ferdinandvs rex sancia regina the lateral arms are carved with numerous devices forming an effective whole, including animals upon a tessellated band which seems to imitate a groundwork of mosaic. other subjects represented are the resurrection of the flesh, the ascent of the blessed to heaven, and the fall of the wicked to hell. [illustration: xliii "the virgin of battles" (_ th century. seville cathedral_)] upon the obverse side are pairs of quadrupeds, birds, and serpents, among a maze of foliage, together with the eagle, lion, lamb, and ox, as symbols of the evangelists. the lion and the ox have wings, and at the foot of the cross is an angel. the carving of the saviour's form is clearly inferior to that of the decoration which surrounds it. amador de los ríos seeks to account for this by declaring that "the difficulty from the point of view of art increases in proportion as the size of the figure is required to be larger"--a statement with which i wholly disagree. i believe, in fact, that in this cross the figure of christ and the surrounding ornamentation are not by the same hand, and that the carver of the decorative detail was simply the better craftsman of the two. many of the statuettes of the virgin which are preserved in spain were probably made in france. one that is typically and unquestionably spanish is the celebrated "virgin of battles" (plate xliii.), now guarded, together with other relics of saint ferdinand (see vol. i., plate xi.), in the chapel royal of seville cathedral. these statuettes, the use of which originated with the greek emperors, and which were called by the byzantines _socia belli_, consist of a seated figure of the virgin with a small door opening underneath her throne, and served as reliquaries, and also as a kind of talisman. boutelou says that the spanish warriors of the middle ages were accustomed to carry these images to war with them, fitted upon a pin protruding from the left side of the saddle-bow. the "virgin of battles," made in spain in the early part of the thirteenth century, was thus carried by king ferdinand the saint, resting between his shield or _rodela_ and his left arm, and so protected, and protecting, in the brunt of war. [illustration: xliv spanish mediÆval _baculus_] the image is of ivory, and measures seventeen inches in height. the style is primitive gothic, not as yet emancipated from romanic and byzantine art; and the expression of the madonna and her babe is marked by an engaging sweetness. through lapse of centuries, myriads of diminutive cracks have opened on the surface of the ivory, and this has turned, in colour, to a brightish yellow. the right arm of the virgin was broken off at some time prior to the sixteenth century, and has been replaced by another one. mother and child wear crowns of silver-gilt which probably were added later, and the hair, lips, and eyes have been badly painted or repainted with discordant colouring. a four-sided hole bored deep into the ivory served for holding the image to the _perno_ which projected from the monarch's saddle-bow. a few elaborate _baculi_ or pastoral staves (plate xliv.) exist in spain, including one of the fourteenth century, in ivory, which belonged to the late marquis of monistrol, and is carved with the crucifixion and also with the virgin contemplating the holy infant as he is offered cups by angels. another interesting spanish baculus, though not of ivory, but copper decorated with turquoises and bright blue enamel, belonged to bishop pelayo de cebeyra of mondoñedo (a.d. - ), and has been preserved, together with that prelate's gilded shoes. in the celebrated processions of santiago, at which alfonso the sixth was personally present, magnificent ivory _baculi_ were borne, not only by the archbishop (_eburnea virga pontificali decoratus_), but even by the choristers. between the eleventh and the fifteenth centuries, spanish craftsmen produced a fair quantity of ivory boxes, reliquaries, diptyches, triptyches, combs, and other less important objects. a fifteenth-century ivory spoon, ten inches long, whose handle is carved with six crocodiles, is in the national museum, and may be spanish work. in the same collection are one or two ivory diptyches and leaves of diptyches, and a wooden box (fourteenth century), with figures of carved ivory representing passages from the life of saint george upon the body of the box, and from the old testament upon the lid. a carved renaissance temple of the same material, with the virgin and child in its interior, is probably italian. [illustration: xlv "a tournament" (_carved lid of box in ivory; th century_)] in the fortieth volume of _españa sagrada_ it is stated that four ivory diptyches (_quatuor dictacos eburneos_) were offered in a.d. to lugo cathedral by alfonso the third and his queen jimena. other ivory diptyches were presented in a.d. by ferdinand the second to the church of saint isidore at león. josé villa-amil, in his study of an ivory statuette of the virgin, belonging to the nuns of allariz (_boletín de la sociedad española de excursiones_; nos. and ), mentions a carved ivory box (_capsa eburnea_) made in the year for santiago cathedral by order of archbishop gelmirez; another which existed in the sixteenth century in the church of santa maría at finisterre; and a third, used as a reliquary, which in was opened by the monks of samos in presence of ambrosio de morales. during the middle ages portable altars (_altares portátiles_) were widely used in spain, and some were made of ivory. it was the custom to open them at the time of prayer, and as a rule they rested upon _reclinatorios_ or hung upon the wall. the _imagen abriente_ or "opening image" was also popular in spain throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. as the name implies, these images opened in the manner of a triptych, and were very often used as reliquaries. specimens are preserved in many parts of europe, but only one or two exist in spain and portugal. that which belongs to the nuns of allariz dates from the end of the thirteenth century, and was a present from queen violante. it is described fantastically by morales, and accurately by villa-amil, but the quaintest account is by the chronicler jacobo de castro. it measures, castro tells us, "about half-a-yard in length and is one of the fairest ever seen, since it opens downward from the neck, discovering, on plates of half-relief, the principal mysteries of christ and of our lady. the devotion towards it of the people in this neighbourhood exceeds description, and god has wrought a quantity of miracles through the intercession thereof." a fourteenth-century triptych carved in bone with scenes from scripture is in the national museum. it proceeds from aragon, and is said to have belonged to jayme the conqueror. the escorial possesses a handsome ivory diptych (plate xlvi.) which is either spanish or italian--probably the former. it measures exactly a foot in height by nine inches across both leaves, and is deeply carved with passages from the life of christ. the style is late romanic merging into gothic, and points to the second half of the thirteenth century. [illustration: xlvi ivory diptych (_ th century. el escorial_)] pottery ancient quantities of ancient common pottery have been, and are continually being found in many parts of spain. prehistoric cups, shaped with the fingers and dried and hardened by the sun, are preserved in the museum of history at barcelona. they were discovered at argar. similar objects have been extracted from the caves of segóbriga, lóbrega in old castile, and el tesoro in the province of málaga. those which were found at segóbriga are divided by capelle into six groups, one of which includes a vessel resembling the ordinary spanish pitcher of to-day. villa-amil y castro has described in the _museo español de antigüedades_ pieces of prehistoric sun-dried ware discovered in galicia, roughly decorated with patterns imprinted by the finger. in other instances a double spiral has been described with a pointed instrument about the vessel's neck. similar fragments have been found by góngora in andalusia. celtic pottery was found in by captain brome on windmill hill at gibraltar, in by m. lartet in the caves of torrecilla de cameros, and by casiano de prado in a cave near pedraza, as well as at navares de ayuso and elsewhere. in central spain, vessels of the celtiberian era have been found in tombs at prádena, and pieces of red saguntine ware, with dark red decoration, at otero de herreros, close to vestiges of a roman mine. lecea y garcía describes in his work on _old segovian industries_ a celtiberian plate of reddish clay covered with black varnish, which was dug up some years ago in a garden at that town. this plate, measuring no less than four feet in diameter, and containing two inscriptions in characters believed to be celtiberian, as well as the figure of a warrior armed with a lance and three javelins, was submitted to heiss, who wrote of it in the _gazette archéologique_ and pronounced it to be genuine. i have not seen the plate in question. i have, however, met with cleverly executed forgeries, also varnished black, of primitive spanish pottery. in quantities of celtic ware, believed to date from the time of the ph[oe]nicians, or even earlier, were unearthed by m. bonsor from tumuli in the guadalquivir valley. these objects are ornamented in relief with complicated patterns paler than the ground, obtained by using lighter-coloured clay. "as similar celtic pottery has been found in portugal, it will be understood that the celtic influence, having crossed the pyrenees, reached the south by the western seaboard. it will thus be seen that long before the arrival of the romans a relatively high degree of civilisation had been reached at least in the south of spain."[ ] [ ] martin hume, _the spanish people_, p. (note). in the summer of two german archæologists, messrs. schulten and könen, who had obtained permission from the spanish government to explore the site of old numancia, filled four large cases with the celtiberian pottery they extracted from the ruins. these cases were forwarded to the university of göttingen. i understand, however, that they have been returned, or are to be returned immediately, to spain. long before the christian era, greek colonies existed on the spanish coast at rhodas, denia, emporium (ampurias), saguntum (murviedro), and elsewhere. pottery of good design and workmanship was manufactured at these towns, and strongly influenced native art. bowls and other objects showing such an influence were discovered by m. bonsor in his recent excavations. another powerful influence was that of rome. roman potteries existed in the suburb of seville called triana, and in the provinces of cáceres and badajoz. mérida was also an important centre of this industry, and vessels which were used in sacred rites, such as the _aquiminarium_, the _prefericulum_, the _simpulum_, and the _urnula_, were discovered here not long ago. the name "saguntine ware" was given by the romans to a kind of pottery which seems to have been made along the spanish littoral extending southward from saguntum. fragments of this pottery, which closely resembles the arezzo ware,[ ] are found in shoals upon the sites of roman towns, particularly tarragona. these _barros saguntinos_, or (as hübner prefers to call them) _barros tarraconenses_, have been divided into four classes, namely, white, grey, red (covered with a dark red varnish),[ ] and yellow striped with red. this ware is commonly adorned with garlands, animals, hunting-scenes, divinities, games, or religious ceremonies, and also bears, in nearly every case, the potter's name or mark; _e.g._ albinvs f ("albinus fecit") or of. albin ("officina albini"). more than two hundred marks have been discovered which were used by potters of ampurias alone. [ ] "a ware exactly like that of arezzo, called by some the red roman ware, and by others samian, distinguished by its close grain composed of a fine clay, and presenting, when broken, edges of an opaque light red colour, whilst the inner and outer surfaces are quite smooth, and of a brighter and darker red, is found in all places of the ancient world to which the roman arms or civilisation reached. it is distinguished from the aretine by its darker tone, stronger glaze, and coarser ornamentation. possibly, the whole passage of pliny in which he speaks of the earthenware of his day refers to this red ware. thus, for dishes he praises the samian and the aretine ware; for cups, that of surrentum, asta and pollentia, saguntum and pergamus. tralles and mutina had their manufactories. cos was most esteemed; hadria produced the hardest ware. that one of these, that of saguntum, was a red ware, is clear; that of cumæ was also of the same colour.... that the red ware is found amidst the dense forests of germany and on the distant shores of britain, is a remarkable fact in the civilisation of the old world. it was apparently an importation, being exactly identical wherever discovered, and is readily distinguished from the local pottery."--birch, _history of ancient pottery_, pp. , . [ ] "it belongs to the class of tender lustrous pottery, consisting of a bright red paste like sealing-wax, breaking with a close texture, and covered with a siliceous, or, according to some, a metallic glaze. this glaze is exceedingly thin, transparent, and equally laid upon the whole surface, only slightly augmenting the colour of the clay."--birch, p. . there seems to be no doubt that saguntum and emporium were principal centres of this industry, and possibly, since these towns were old greek settlements, the _barros saguntinos_ were of grecian origin. pella y forgas, describing in his _history of the ampurdan_ the fine red ware of this locality, says that parts of the decoration were fashioned on the wheel, others directly by the potter's hand, and others from a mould, while the ornament of dotted lines was made by the wheeled _roulette_. among the commoner objects dating from this time are amphoræ and small earthen lamps (pl. xlvii.). these lamps have been discovered in great numbers, and, owing to the dryness of the spanish soil, in excellent preservation. they measure about the size of the hand, and have two holes, one in the spout or beak, to hold the wick, and the other at the top, for pouring in the oil. the top, which as a rule is slightly concave, is often ornamented with devices in relief, such as a chariot and its driver, or the emblem of a deity. [illustration: xlvii amphoraic vases and other pottery (_museum of tarragona_)] the typical amphora was a long, narrow vessel (usually of earthenware; less frequently of brass or glass), with an elongated handle at either side of the neck, and tapering nearly to a point. it served for storing honey, oil, or wine, and in order to keep it upright the pointed lower end was stuck into the soil, or rested on a perforated wooden stand. in the spring of some fishermen drew up in their nets, just off the coast of alicante, three large intact amphoræ thickly cased with shells, and sold them for eight dollars each. other fine amphoræ, now in the collection of the marquis of cerralbo, were washed upon the beach at torrevieja, and many more are in museums. vessels of this kind are known to have been made at rhodas (rosas) and saguntum, and their use continued in spain until the downfall of the second empire. hispano-moresque non-lustred pottery the statements of saint isidore, confirmed by one or two discoveries in southern spain, prove that the pottery in use among the visigoths was principally roman. probably in this, as in so many of her arts, the moorish conquest brought about a radical and rapid change. remains of pottery dating from this period are extremely rare. the provincial museum of granada contains some bowls and plates, all more or less imperfect, which are ascribed by experts to about the year . these objects, which were dug up in on the slopes of the sierra elvira, a few miles from granada, are coloured black and green upon a white or whitish ground. the most important is a dish which measures fourteen inches in diameter, and is decorated with a falcon on a horse's back (plate xlviii.).[ ] all of this pottery shows the double influence of byzantium and the east. among the designs upon the other pieces are hares and stags surrounded by a bordering of primitive arabesques. riaño remarks that "it is almost impossible to assert whether this pottery was made in or imported into spain." nevertheless, persians are stated to have settled in this region early in the days of muslim rule, while these dilapidated specimens of ancient ware are greatly similar in colouring and substance to the common dishes and _barreños_ which are still produced throughout the province of granada. [ ] the falcon is one of the commonest devices on all persian pottery, and was, in fact, the national emblem of the chase. its importance for the purpose of pursuing and securing game is well described in sir john malcolm's _sketches in persia_. moorish potteries producing lustred or non-lustred ware existed from an early date at málaga, valencia, toledo, calatayud, murviedro, murcia, and barcelona. another centre of this craft was probably granada; for though she is not mentioned in this sense by any of the moorish authors, the late señor contreras discovered here the vestiges of two ancient potteries, while one of the old entrances was known as bab alfajjarin, or "the potters' gate." [illustration: xlviii dish (_about a.d. . museum of granada_)] the ordinances of granada contain provisions which were evidently copied from the spanish moors, relating to the _almadraveros_ or tilemakers, the _tinajeros_ or makers of _tinajas_, and the _olleros_ or potters generally. the ordinances which concern the tilemakers are dated between and . the restrictions imposed upon these craftsmen were irksome, foolish, and unnecessary. all bricks and tiles were to be stamped in three places with the city mark, and were only permitted to be made between the first of april and the thirty-first of october in each year, "since what is made at other seasons is not good or perfect, owing to the rain, and cold, and frost." another ordinance, illustrating the lawlessness prevailing at granada in the times succeeding the reconquest, complains that "many persons, including labourers and hodmen, go forth into the roads and streets, and seize the tiles and bricks by violence from those who are conveying them, and bear them to their houses, or to the work which they are paid to do." a picturesque, though cheap and unluxurious, vessel of a thoroughly eastern character, and which was very largely manufactured by the spanish moors, is the terra-cotta _tinaja_ or gigantic jar for storing wine, or olive oil, or grain (plate xlix.). the use of these receptacles extended through the whole peninsula, and has continued undiminished to this day. the principal centres of _tinaja_-making were toledo, seville, and granada. the ordinances of the latter town embody moorish rules relating to this branch of pottery. these laws, revived in , provide that all _tinajas_ must contain two kinds of earth, one red, the other white, thoroughly compounded in a trough of water. before the potter removes the clay from the trough, he must call the city supervisor or _veedor_ to look into the quality and mixing of the mass. the vessel as it leaves the oven must be white; otherwise, even although it have no flaw, the inspector is to break it. the potter is forbidden to coat his _tinajas_ with a glaze composed of eggs, blood, chalk, and other strange ingredients; nor may he fire the glaze with torches, "because the smell of the smoke clings to the _tinaja_, and the wine or stum deposited therein grows redolent of it, and it stays within the jar perpetually." [illustration: xlix hispano-moresque _tinaja_] owing doubtless to their plain, domestic purpose and their trifling market cost, early _tinajas_ are not often met with. a fine example in excellent preservation is at south kensington, and is described by riaño as "a wine jar, amphora-shaped, and ornamented with an incised pattern of vine leaves, and stamped diaper of a gothic character." several good _tinajas_ have been discovered of late years at seville. gestoso mentions six, five of which are glazed. the first of these was found in , and has a bright green glaze upon a ground of reddish earth. both handles and nearly all the neck are wanting. the decoration consists of various bands or _fajas_ round the body of the jar, a series of archways, another of leaves, and a central band of stars, three deep, strongly imprinted from a mould. in every ninth arch are stamped symbolic hands, such as we see upon the gate of justice of the alhambra. the second _tinaja_ is similar to the one just mentioned, except that it has the neck. it was discovered in , and is now in seville museum. the third _tinaja_ is also in this museum, and was discovered in . it is in a very poor condition, and gestoso believes that it was originally covered with a honey-coloured glaze. the fourth _tinaja_ was found in a drain, in the same year as the preceding one, and is inscribed with words, including _blessing_ and _felicity_, in cufic characters. gestoso is unable to decide whether this vessel was made at seville or elsewhere. the fifth _tinaja_ is in the collection of don josé morón, and possesses greater interest than the others, both because it is in excellent condition, and also because the decoration is entirely in the spanish-christian style, without a trace of saracenic ornament. small gothic-looking shields surround the body of this vessel, which is stamped with pomegranates, and with the arms and emblems of the ponce de león and other families. between each pair of shields is an oval-shaped medallion containing human figures. the sixth _tinaja_ is unglazed. it was found in june of , and is adorned with repetitions of the words _prosperity_ and _blessing_, as well as with a series of deer and other animals in the act of running; some of them with birds upon their backs. these designs are very uncommon, and gestoso has seen no other _tinaja_, proceeding from this region, similarly decorated. _tinajas_ are still made in large quantities at toboso, lucena, colmenar de oreja, and other spanish towns and villages. other large objects of a thoroughly oriental character were earthenware glazed _brocales_ or brims of wells, which, like the _tinajas_, were largely manufactured at seville and toledo. specimens of these _brocales_ exist in the museums of toledo and cordova. riaño describes one which is at south kensington. "it was bought at toledo for three guineas at a shoemaker's shop. it is made of glazed white and green earthenware, with ornamental cufic characters in high relief all round, which appear to be of the fourteenth century. the inscription, which is repeated, is imperfect, and all that i can decipher are the words 'the power, the excellence, and the peace.'" gestoso describes two _brocales_ and the fragments of a third. all these objects were found at seville. the two which are intact, or nearly so, are cylindrical, and of a white ware. one of them has a simple leaf decoration, and seems to have been covered with a green glaze. the other, which was discovered in , is surrounded by a triple band of inscription in african characters which are illegible. gestoso also describes some interesting baptismal fonts, a class of object which he pronounces to have been the most important of all that were produced in the potteries of triana, by reason both of their large dimensions and of their elaborate ornamentation. he states that three methods were employed to decorate these fonts. the first consisted in attaching to their surface small moulded plates which bore the likeness of a saint, flowers, monograms, or other devices. by the second method the decoration was moulded directly on the font; while the third method consisted in a combination of the other two. splendid examples of these spanish fonts exist in various churches of andalusia and in private collections. one of the finest is in the parish church of nuestra señora de la concepción, at laguna, tenerife. it is suggested by gestoso that this _pila_ of laguna was made at seville and sent to the canaries in the year , when orders were issued by ferdinand and isabella for the completion of the monasteries in those islands. _pilas_ were also manufactured at toledo, although gestoso says that the workmanship of those produced at seville was in every way superior. nevertheless, he has only found the maker's name upon a single font, which is inscribed with that of juan sanchez vachero, and is now preserved in the church of san pedro at carmona. another remarkable _pila_ is that of the hospital of san lázaro at seville. in course of time the spanish church forbade the use of _pilas_ made of glazed earthenware, and ordered their substitution by fonts of stone or marble. one of these dispositions, included among the _constituciones sinodales_ of the bishopric of málaga, and dated , is quoted by gestoso. it enacts that the _pila_ be of stone and not of earthenware, and that if any of this latter class remain, they are to be "consumed" (_i.e._ destroyed) within two months. returning to the ordinances of granada, those which concern the potters or _olleros_ generally are dated , and inform us of the price of glazed and unglazed articles in common use, such as _ollas_ or pots (with and without glaze), _cazuelas_ or earthen vessels for cooking meat, plates of many colours and dimensions, _jarros_ (jugs), _alcuzas_ (vials), _cantaros castellanos_ (castilian water-pitchers), _cantaros moriscos_ (moorish water-pitchers[ ]), _morteros_ (mortars), _lebrillos_ (earthen tubs), _candiles_ (lamps with a green, white or yellow glaze), _orzas_ (gally pots), _botijas_ (narrow-necked jars), and _salseras_ (saucers). [ ] the watersellers' ordinance of enacts that each of these vendors shall carry a minimum load of six _cántaros_, and that the cántaros themselves shall be "of the round shape, and not the moorish ones, as these have long spouts; each _cántaro_ to be closed with a cork." the latter is the typical pitcher of morocco. "as we were talking, neighbours dropped in, in the familiar eastern way, and sat quiet and self-contained, occasionally drinking from one of the two long-necked and porous water-jars, known as 'baradas' or the 'coolers,' which stand, their wooden stoppers tied to them with a palmetto cord, on each side the divan."--cunninghame graham, _mogreb-el-acksa_, p. . the shape and colouring of many of these common articles have been continued till to-day, especially in andalusia. i reproduce a photograph of some (plate l.), in which the influence of the east is unmistakable. the smaller of the two unglazed jars is used for carrying and cooling water, and is made at loja. the other, which is often used for storing honey, is from guadalajara. the spherical vessel is a kind of bottle for _aguardiente_. it is glazed a brightish green, and is made in various parts of andalusia, as are the gourd-shaped _calabazas_, which have a yellow glaze. the smallest vessel, or that which has a funnel-shaped and bulging mouth, is coated with a coarse metallic glaze coloured in white and blue, and proceeds from granada. [illustration: l coarse spanish pottery (_modern_)] so is the influence of the spanish moors, linking the present intimately to the past, and handed down by early craftsmen to the moderns, and from mussulmans to christian spaniards, maintained and kept alive, not only by the city ordinances i have quoted, but also by the more occult yet no less permanent and cogent force of local and unchronicled tradition. in the historic quarter of granada which is called the albaycin, survive a few _alfarerías_ to this hour (plate lxix.). here, on the potter's wheel or ranged about his yard, may yet be seen the red granada earth that is believed to have inspired the vase of the alhambra, applied to-day to common crockery that notwithstanding has a subtle, unfamiliar charm. and towards the time of sundown, when the master turns indoors to supper and his workmen have gone home, when the last of the red light is colouring the ancient city wall until it too looks like a mammoth monument of the potter's art of old granada, it is a strange experience to wander through these desolate yards, among the files of ruddy granadino ware kindling with vivid memories of the vanished mussulmans of spain, and bringing back to us that spirited old poet of the east who also sang of pottery:-- "listen again. one evening at the close of ramazan, ere the better moon arose, in that old potter's shop i stood alone with the clay population round in rows. and strange to tell, among that earthen lot some could articulate, while others not: and suddenly one more impatient cried-- 'who _is_ the potter, pray, and who the pot?' then said another--'surely not in vain my substance from the common earth was ta'en, that he who subtly wrought me into shape should stamp me back to common earth again.'" mosaic-work and tiles the art of colouring and glazing earthenware was practised by various peoples of the ancient eastern world, and passed, in course of time, through egypt to ph[oe]nicia, greece, and rome, and, later still, to mussulman peoples of north-western africa. glazed earthenware was possibly produced in roman spain, although the specimens of it which have been discovered are singularly and, indeed, significantly few. their colour is commonly green or lightish yellow. gestoso makes particular mention of a small jar now preserved in the museum of seville, describing it as "of an ordinary shape, but finely made." he admits, however, that no trace of glaze exists in any of the broken visigothic vessels (copied, as saint isidore tells us, from the roman-spanish pottery) that were found some years ago among the ruins of italica. thus it is not decided whether the spanish potters learned to glaze, or whether this development of their craft remained familiar to the spaniards of that period through imported objects merely. as with glazed earthenware, the origin of mosaic must be looked for in the east. greece, who had doubtless borrowed it from egypt, communicated it to rome at least two centuries before the christian era, and from this time the romans used it freely in the decoration of their buildings. the greek mosaic was composed exclusively of stone. the romans modified this usage by the introduction of diminutive cubes of clay, painted and baked like porcelain; and later, in the reign of claudius, dyed these cubes with various colours. roman mosaic-work (commonly in the tessellated style and not the _opus sectile_) has been unearthed in many parts of the peninsula. such are the two "mosaics of the muses," discovered at italica on december th, , and june th, ;[ ] other mosaics, to the number of some thirty, discovered from time to time among the same ruins; another, discovered at majorca in ; that of the calle batitales at lugo (the roman _lucus augusti_), discovered in ; those of palencia, gerona, merida, milla del rio (near león), rielves (near toledo), duratón, aguilafuente, and paradinas (near segovia), and carabanchel, three miles from madrid. the mosaic found at lugo is believed to have formed part of a temple dedicated to diana. the decoration is partly geometrical, and consists of the head of a man between two dolphins, with other fishes swimming along the border. laborde describes another mosaic which existed, early in the nineteenth century, in a hall of the archbishop's palace at valencia. "the pavement of this hall demands particular attention; it is formed of antique pavements, discovered in the month of february, , three hundred paces north-east of the town of puch, between valencia and murviedro; some were entire, others were only fragments. they were separated with care, and placed on the floor of this hall, where they are carefully preserved. they are different mosaics, formed by little stones of three or four lines in diameter, curiously enchased. they are distributed into seven squares in each of which medallions and divers designs have been drawn: their compartments are of blue on a white ground. we observe in one of these squares an imitation of the pavement of bacchus, discovered at murviedro, and of which there remained but very few vestiges; it was copied in a drawing-book which a priest of this town had preserved; it is executed with such art and exactness, that no difference can be observed between this modern work and that of the romans. in another we see neptune seated in a car, in one hand holding a whip, and in the other a trident and the reins of the horses by which his car is drawn: these appear to be galloping." [ ] the latter, which was the finer of the two, was dug out by don ivo de la cortina. it has subsequently been allowed to go to pieces, but a coloured plate depicting it will be found in the first volume of the _museo español de antigüedades_. "in the same hall are also seen other pavements, of which only fragments could be preserved. some serve for borders and ornaments to the preceding pavements. on these are represented a tiger, fishes, birds, houses, flowers, and garlands, well executed. there are particularly five stuck on wood and shut up in a closet; on these are birds, fruits, and flowers, figured in different colours, the execution of which is very curious; they are perhaps the most precious of the whole." the same author says elsewhere: "in digging to make a road from valencia to murviedro in , at the entrance of the latter town a mosaic pavement was discovered; it was entire, and of such beauty that it was thought worthy of preservation. ferdinand the sixth caused it to be surrounded with walls; but the king's intentions were not properly fulfilled; the gates were suffered to remain open, and every one carried away some part of the pavement, which consequently soon became despoiled; it was rectangular, and measured twenty-four feet by fourteen. there are still some fragments of it in several houses at murviedro. a priest of that town, don diego puch, an antiquarian, took a drawing of it, which he afterwards had painted at valencia on the tiles fabricated there, and paved an apartment of his house with them. it was likewise copied with the greatest exactness, with small stones perfectly similar, in an apartment of the library belonging to the archiepiscopal palace, as we have already stated." swinburne also mentions a mosaic pavement which he saw at barcelona, upon the site of what he believed to have been a temple of neptune. in it were represented "two large green figures of tritons, holding a shell in each hand; between them a sea-horse, and on the sides a serpent and a dolphin." in october of a very important and beautiful mosaic was discovered at italica. it is known as "the mosaic of bacchus," the worship of which deity, says señor quintero, was probably general in andalusia, owing to her wealth of vines. this mosaic was found at a depth of six feet six inches below the surface of the soil, and measures twenty-one feet square. it is believed to have formed the pavement of a roman dining-chamber. mosaic in the manner of the greeks and romans seems in spain to have disappeared with the visigoths. that it was known to these is told us by saint isidore:--"pavimenta originem apud graecos habent elaboratae arte picturae, litostrata parvulis crustis ac tesselis tinctis in varios colores."[ ] [ ] _tessela_ and _crusta_ are defined by him as follows: "tesselae sunt e quibus domicilia sternuntur a tesseris nominata, id est quadratis lapillis, per diminutionem." "crustae sunt tabulae marmoris. unde et marmorari parietes et constati dicuntur. qui autem marmora secandi in crustas rationem excogitaverunt non constat. fiunt autem arena et ferro serraque in praetenui linea premente arenas, tractuque ipse secante: sed crassior arena plus erodet marmoris. nam tenuis fabricis et polituris accomodata est." [illustration: li door of the mihrab (_showing mosaic-work. cordova cathedral_)] it is impossible to affirm with any confidence that glazed earthenware, whether in the form of tiles or other objects, was manufactured by the spanish moors during the cordovese caliphate, or the period of the kinglings of taifa. no trace of it has been discovered among the scanty ruins of medina az-zahará[ ] and az-zahira--ancient palaces of cordova--or in the marvellous mosque. we know, however, that towards the seventh century the arabs borrowed from byzantium the mosaic-work of tessons known as _psephosis fsefysa_, and this, or something similar, was used, though probably to a small extent, among the muslims of the spanish caliphate. although, towards the middle of the thirteenth century, the historian aben-said, a native of granada, recorded that in al-andalus "is made a kind of _mofassass_ which is called in the east _alfoseifesa_," remains of this elaborate product only exist to-day at cordova, where patches may yet be seen lining the dome of the _mirhab_ in the vast _aljama_ (plate li.). the mosaic in question is stated to have been a gift from the byzantine emperor to the sultan al-hakem, and was set in place by a skilled workman, a greek, who, like the offering itself, proceeded from constantinople. [ ] among these ruins, at five miles' distance from the city, pieces of common brick have come to light; but no glazed pottery of any kind, whether as _foseifesa_, _azulejos_, or mosaic. during his stay at cordova this greek was helped by certain of the sultan's slaves, who thus acquired the secrets of the craft, and practised it thereafter.[ ] [ ] dozy's version of _the history of almagreb_, by ibn-adzarí the moor; p. . rodrigo amador de los rios contends, however, that this decoration is in no sense a true mosaic, but just a tempera painting executed on the wall and overlaid with cubes of glass. in any case, no other specimen of such work has been discovered in any part of the peninsula. by the time of the almohade invasion or very shortly after--that is, towards the twelfth century,--the spanish moors had grown acquainted with glazed earthenware. indeed, the almohades are believed by some authorities to have actually introduced it. gestoso, on the contrary, suggests that spain may have transmitted it to africa. however this may be, the almohades used it largely in the decoration of their homes and public buildings in andalusia; first as _aliceres_ or bands composed of smallish pieces running round a room, and subsequently in the more effective and more useful form of _azulejos_ proper. the spanish moors employed the word _almofassass_ to designate both _aliceres_ and _azulejos_. nevertheless, the two were not identical, although riaño takes them to be so. he says: "the earliest tiles or _azulejos_ made in spain are composed of small pieces let into the wall, forming geometrical patterns." these, in fact, were _aliceres_. it is not so easy to define an _azulejo_. we read in aben-said, quoted by al-makkari: "there is another kind of work employed for paving houses. it is called _azzulechí_ and resembles _mofassass_. it has wonderful colouring, and replaces the coloured marble used by the people of the east to decorate their chambers." this definition is not completely clear. those of the christian-spanish writers are not more satisfactory. covarrubias calls these objects "small bricks, square and of other shapes, used for lining chambers in the mansions of the wealthy, or in garden paths." nebrija calls them _tessela pavimenticia_, adding that they bear the name of _azulejos_ because the earliest ones were of a blue colour--a statement which dozy supports by instancing the persian-arabic _zaward_ or "blue stone." gestoso resolves the question sufficiently for our purpose by showing that the term _azulejo_ is usually applied to square tiles of a largish size, the length of whose sides varies between eleven centimetres and eighteen centimetres, _aliceres_ being properly the smaller strips or pieces (technically known as _cintas_ or _verduguillos_) used in a bordering or frieze. other decorative pieces of small dimensions, invented in the fifteenth century, were called _olambres_ or _olambrillas_, and served to lend variety to the red or yellow brickwork of a pavement or a floor. the production of _azulejos_ in spain may thus be traced to as far back as the twelfth century. by far the most important centre of the craft was seville. here, from the twelfth until the fourteenth century, was made the glazed and decorative tiling which consisted of small pieces of monochrome earthenware--black, white, green, blue, or yellow--cut one by one, and pieced together in the manner of a true mosaic. this process, says gestoso, was lengthy, difficult, and dear. in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the same mosaic would often take the form of a series of narrow, white, ribbon-like strips, with coloured interspaces. specimens of this "ribbon-work tiling" exist to-day in the patio de las doncellas of the alcázar (plate lii.). towards the sixteenth century the sevillano potters discovered a simpler way of making effective and artistic _azulejos_, which they called the _cuerda seca_ process. this novel method consisted in pressing a wood or metal mould upon the unbaked tile, in such a manner that the outline of the pattern remained in slight relief. this outline was next brushed over with a mixture of manganese and grease, which turns, in baking, very nearly black. the body of the pattern was then filled in with the various colours, which the greasy line completely separated, and thus prepared, the tile was rendered permanent by firing. [illustration: lii mosaic of the patio de las doncellas (_alcázar of seville_)] this process, in which the patterns are nearly always geometrical, remained in general use until about the year , when it began to be superseded by two others, known respectively as the processes of "cuenca" and "pisano". the _cuenca_ tile was simple and of excellent effect. the pattern, stamped from a metal mould, remained in bas-relief,--a characteristic which caused these objects to be also known as _azulejos_ "_de relieve_". the shelving border of each hollow stamped into the tile thus formed a kind of natural barrier which kept the colour there deposited from mingling with its neighbours. when of a larger size, and joined in pairs to form between each two a single motive (_ladrillo por tabla_), these _azulejos_ were often employed for decorating roofs and ceilings. the tiles which bear the name of their inventor, francesco niculoso pisano the italian, who lived and worked for many years at seville, date from about the same time as the "cuenca" _azulejos_. in the case of the _pisano_ tile, there is no indentation caused by the imprint of a mould, the surface being merely coated with a monochrome glaze, painted upon and fired, the decoration thus remaining flat all over. commonly the ground is white or yellow, with the colour of the pattern shaded blue, or black, or deepish purple. this process, which lent itself to most elaborate and effective schemes of ornament, remained in vogue until the eighteenth century, and was practised, not only by pisano himself, but by a long succession of his pupils, followers, and imitators. [illustration: liii andalusian non-lustred ware (_a.d. - . osma collection_)] such were the processes in use among the _azulejo_-makers of old seville. specimens of their craftsmanship which yet survive and illustrate the various styles and epochs may be thus enumerated:-- ( ) mosaic tile-work, such as appears in seville at the time of the almohade invasion. a fragment of this kind of work forms part of the collection of señor osma, and proceeds from the church of san andrés. tiles and smaller pieces of mosaic-work, coloured in malachite green and white, were also found in and , in the upper walls of the renowned torre del oro, or "golden tower," erected in the year , and which is popularly thought to derive its venerable title from the sparkle of the sun upon its _azulejos_. another piece of primitive mosaic, measuring rather less than a yard square, and containing star-shaped geometrical devices, was found in beneath the floor of the cathedral; while mosaics of a later age, including the more elaborate _lacería_ patterns that resemble ribbon, are preserved in the patio de las doncellas of the alcázar, in the casa de olea, and in the parish churches of san estéban, san gil, and omnium sanctorum. ( ) a small group of curious tiles, believed to be anterior to the reign of pedro the first, has come to light some years ago, in the churches of san andrés and santa marina, and in the claustro del lagarto of the cathedral. those of san andrés are of white earthenware, glazed in the same colour and stamped from a mould with the figures of two wolves in fairly bold relief (see tailpiece to this chapter). traces of a glaze of malachite green are on the bodies of these wolves. the _azulejos_ of the church of santa marina, also discovered recently, are examined by señor osma in his pamphlet _azulejos sevillanos del siglo xiii_ (madrid, ). they measure about three and a half inches square, and bear devices of a castle and an eagle, stamped in the diagonal direction of the tile, showing that this was fixed upon the wall in lozenge fashion. the tiles are bathed upon their surface with what is termed by osma "the semi-transparent, caramel-coloured glaze peculiar to the pottery of moorish spain."[ ] upon this ground is stamped the decoration,--the eagles in the blackish purple of baked manganese, the castles without additional colour, so as to be distinguished only by their outline from the yellowish surface of the tile. [ ] according to gestoso, the colours in use among the almohades consisted of green, black, caramel or honey, and deep purple. these colours underwent no change until the sixteenth century. the _azulejos_ of the claustro del lagarto of the cathedral are three in number, and were found in . two of them are stamped with a castle of a single tower described within a shield, and the third with a greek cross. these are considered by osma to be the only tiles existing at this moment which date from the latter third of the thirteenth century. in fact, he places their manufacture between the years and . [illustration: liv _cuenca_ tiles (_alcázar of seville_)] ( ) _cuerda seca_ tiles. handsome _zocalos_ or dadoes of these tiles are in the casa de los pinelos, and in the chapels of the palaces of the dukes of alba and medinaceli. gestoso attributes them to the end of the fifteenth century or the beginning of the sixteenth. detached _cuerda seca_ tiles are preserved in the municipal museum of archæology, while a fine pair (plate liii.) of this class of _azulejos_ belongs to señor osma, who considers they were made between and . they are thus coeval with the no less interesting dish of the time of ferdinand and isabella, of which a reproduction is given opposite page . ( ) _cuenca_ tiles. quantities of these, dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, may yet be seen in many parts of seville; for instance, in her churches or her convents, in her superb alcázar, or in the mansions of her old nobility. probably the most remarkable of all are those in the gardens of the alcázar, and lining the walls of the pavilion of charles the fifth. the devices on these polychrome _azulejos_ ( th century; plate liv.) are very numerous, including men and animals, centaurs and other monsters, the pillars of hercules, and imitations of elaborate dress fabrics. ( ) _pisano_ tiles. although some facts have been unearthed concerning the italian francesco niculoso pisano, we do not know precisely in what year he came to seville, or in what year he died. davillier thought it probable that he had studied at faenza or at caffagiolo. at all events, it was pisano who broadly launched the art of the sevillian potters on the stream of the renaissance.[ ] i have stated that the tiles which bear his name are painted on a white or yellow ground. consequently their surface is flat, without the ridges and depressions of the _cuenca_ or the _cuerda seca_ methods. we find _pisano_ tiles applied to various objects, such as tombs, altars, friezes, and archivolts. this artist, says gestoso, further introduced the use of two new colours,--violet and rose. several of his best productions are still intact, including the doorway of the church of the monastery of santa paula (in which he was assisted by a spanish master, pedro millan), and the altar of the catholic sovereigns in the alcázar. both these masterpieces were executed in the year , and bear pisano's signature. the doorway of santa paula is described by gestoso as consisting of a single body of masonry, distinct from that of the building itself, though resting against it, and constructed of bricks of uniform size, which show us, by their perfect symmetry, how skilful were the masons of that time, with whom the moorish craftsmanship was yet a living power. the doorway is formed by a series of concentric gothic arches resting on slender pillars. the space which forms the outer archivolt is most remarkable. upon a ground of _azulejos_ which copy the colour of the brickwork, we see a number of plateresque designs of exquisite beauty, painted in white and blue, with occasional touches of other colours. among the devices are chimeras, war-trophies, volutes, chaplets, parapegms, antelopes, masks, and others which are characteristic of the florentine renaissance. upon this ground, and enclosed by circular garlands in high relief, consisting of polychrome fruits and flowers, are seven medallions containing figures of male and female saints, except the one which is upon the keystone, and which represents the birth of christ. in this medallion the figures are enamelled in white upon a cobalt-blue ground, recalling, as also do the garlands, the work of the celebrated della robbia.[ ] in the rest of the medallions the figures are glazed in brilliant colours. in the three medallions upon the left, beginning with the lowest one, we see, upon the first, saint helen; upon the second, two saints in monkish dress; and upon the third, saint peter and saint paul. on the medallions of the other side are another saint dressed as a monk, san cosmé, san damián, and san roque. the spaces on either side of the archivolt are covered with tiles which represent a landscape. in each of the upper angles is an angel holding a large tablet with ihs in ornamental gothic character upon a black ground. these letters, and also the angels and the frames of the tablets, are enamelled in gold. beneath each tablet is an angel standing with extended wings upon a bracket of lustred earthenware, and holding an open book. the brickwork of the door is closed by a plain impost supporting a small battlement covered with _cuenca_ tiles, and crowned with a cornice of flamboyant ornaments alternating with the heads of cherubs glazed in white, and with a white marble cross in the centre. the tympanum is embellished by a superb shield carved in high relief upon white marble with the arms of castile, león, aragon, and sicily, surmounted by a royal crown and the eagle with the nimbus. beside this shield are two smaller ones of _azulejos_ painted with the yoke and sheaf of arrows, and the motto t[=a]to m[=o]ta. the ground on which are executed these three shields occupies the whole tympanum, and is covered with plateresque devices including two tablets, on one of which we read the letters s.p.q.r., and on the other, pisano. above the first of these tablets is another of an oval shape, bearing the word niculoso. lastly, at the base of the archivolt, and on the left-hand side of the spectator, is a very small rectangular tablet with this inscription:-- nicvloso francisco-i- taliano-mef ecit inelagno dei · · [ ] gestoso says that florid gothic and renaissance motives are found occasionally in the older _cuenca_ tiles. this was, however, quite exceptional. [ ] a plaque belongs to señor gestoso which proceeds from the demolished mudejar church of san miguel at seville. it measures fifteen inches high by ten wide, and is decorated with a representation, in bas-relief, of the coronation of the virgin. the eyebrows, eyelids, and lips of the figures are executed in cobalt upon a thick layer of white glaze, and strongly recall the method of lucca della robbia. gestoso considers that this plaque was made in the latter part of the fourteenth century. if so, it is antecedent to the work of della robbia (whose _resurrection_ upon one of the doors of the duomo of florence dates from ) by a good many years. a similar example, also by an unknown hand and representing the coronation, is in the chapel of the sagrario of seville cathedral. the altar in the alcázar of the same city, and which is known as that of the catholic sovereigns (plate lv.), is entirely covered with "pisano" _azulejos_ measuring sixteen centimetres square. imbedded in the centre is a picture, also of painted tiles, representing the visit of the virgin to saint elizabeth. this picture measures five feet in height by three feet eight inches in breadth. beneath it is the figure of a patriarch resting his head upon his hand. boughs with large flowers issue from his breast, and among the flowers are half-length figures of the prophets, together with those of jesus and the virgin, the whole of this decoration forming a frame to the central picture. the rest of the altar is profusely decorated with designs in the renaissance style, consisting of vases, animals, genii, and the emblems of ferdinand and isabella. in the centre of the tiling which forms the altar-front is a circular picture made of _azulejos_ surrounded by a garland of fruits and laurel leaves, and representing the annunciation, garland and picture being supported by two monsters with the tails of dragons and the upper parts of women. large flaming torches rest between the out-stretched arms of the monsters, and round about or springing from them are flowers, animals, cornucopias, and other decoration. the entire _retablo_ is painted lightish blue and white upon a yellow ground, except the larger picture and its decorative border, which is of a deeper blue. a small tablet beneath the virgin's feet contains the words niculoso francesco italiano me fecit, and on the pilaster represented on the left hand of the same picture is added the date, . as gestoso, davillier, and others have remarked, it is evident that while the rest of the altar is pure renaissance-plateresque, the pictures copied on the tiles are of a northern school. probably they were designed for niculoso by one of the various german or flemish masters who at that time were resident in seville. [illustration: lv altar of the catholic sovereigns (_alcázar of seville_)] another altar which was formerly in the same palace, but which has disappeared, was also painted by this craftsman. it was described by cean bermudez as containing scenes from the life of the virgin, the trinity, and the two saints john, and bore the same date as the altar which is yet existing, namely, . among the other works of niculoso are the altar of the church of tentudia, the tomb of iñigo lopez in the church of santa ana in the quarter of triana, and a tile-picture representing, similarly to the one which forms the centre of the altar in the alcázar, the virgin's visit to saint elizabeth. this picture formerly belonged to the kings of portugal, and is now in the museum of amsterdam.[ ] [ ] certain _azulejos_, signed by niculoso and dated , were formerly existing in the palace of the counts of el real de valencia in the city of this name. these tiles were executed in relief, and proved that niculoso did not work exclusively in the italian style. such were the decorative _azulejos_ which made the potteries of seville famous throughout europe, and which are known to have been exported to italy, portugal, and even england.[ ] the names of several hundred mediæval and post-mediæval makers of these seville tiles have been exhumed and published by gestoso. [ ] in portugal, tiles which gestoso believes to have been made at seville, exist in coimbra cathedral, the church of san roque at lisbon, and the two palaces of cintra. in our own country, seville tiles are stated by marryat and demmin to line the walls of the mayor's chapel at bristol, whither they were doubtless conveyed by one of the numerous english merchants who traded between spain and england, and who are known to have made their home at seville in the sixteenth century. another tile of seville workmanship, proceeding from haccombe church, devonshire, is in the british museum. the general title of the spanish potter was _ollero_, a comprehensive term which reaches from the most ambitious _azulejero_ to the maker of the meanest kitchen-ware. the _olleros_ of older seville produced for centuries, not only glazed and coloured tiling by the processes already indicated, but countless other objects such as brims of wells, apothecary's jars, baptismal fonts, and dishes of every shape and size. they used a general mark (the tower of the giralda) to stamp their pottery; but private marks are nearly always absent. the facts that have appeared in recent years concerning these artificers are seldom interesting. the mere mention of a name is meaningless, or even perplexing, seeing that a moor or mudejar would frequently assume the name and surname of a christian. nevertheless, gestoso has brought to light important notices concerning one or two, and in particular a document dating from the reign of ferdinand and isabella, relating to a celebrated potter of that period named fernan martinez guijarro. this document, which is dated , describes martinez as "a very great master in the art of making _azulejos_, fonts, and all the things pertaining to his trade, insomuch that none other in all this kingdom is like unto him," and subsequently, "considering him to be so excellent a craftsman that persons come hither from portugal and other parts to purchase and to carry off his ware." it is further stated that martinez guijarro was in wealthy circumstances ("hombre rrico e de mucha rrenta e fasyenda"). his _talleres_ or workshops were in the _barrio_ of triana, and included (as we learn from one of the documents copied by the same investigator) a separate department for the manufacture or storage of lustred ware. unfortunately, even gestoso is unable to point to any piece of tiling or other pottery now existing, as being unquestionably executed by this master. another sevillian potter of exceptional merit was cristóbal de augusta, who worked in the latter half of the sixteenth century, and left his name upon the _azulejo_ dadoes of the halls of charles the fifth in the alcázar. the style of these most brilliant tiles is pure renaissance, and forms a worthy continuation of the splendid work of niculoso. augusta, indeed, is termed in the archives of the alcázar "master of making tiles in the pisano manner" (_del pisano_).[ ] some tilemakers of little note succeeded him, but even the names of these are carefully recorded by gestoso. [ ] the _pisano_ process is believed by gestoso to have succumbed before the _cuenca_. he says he is aware of no _pisano_ tiling which can be dated from as late as the second half of the seventeenth century. seville was thus the principal centre of the craft of decorative tile-making. _azulejos_ were also made at barcelona and other towns in cataluña, at talavera de la reina, burgos, toledo, granada, and valencia, in several towns of aragon, and probably at cordova. riaño quotes a letter written about the year , from the wife of the admiral of castile to the abbess of the nunnery of santo domingo at toledo, requesting that a number of _azulejos_ be sent to her. "she alludes, in the same letter, to painted tiles, and says she was expecting a master potter from seville to place the tiles in their proper places. this shows us" (continues riaño) "that it was only in the province of andalusia that the art was known of cutting these tiles into geometrical sections and mosaic patterns." the meaning of this passage is obscure. riaño speaks of painted tiles and _azulejos_ as though they were distinct objects, and yet they are essentially the same. again, if only andalusia was able to produce such tiles, why did the almirante's wife order them from toledo? perhaps the faulty english of riaño's handbook is responsible, but, as it stands, this passage tells us practically nothing. in any case, abundant evidence exists to show that large quantities of mudejar and renaissance tiles were manufactured at toledo. in general appearance, they are similar to those of seville. ramírez de arellano believes that decorative tiles were manufactured at cordova in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and quotes, in proof of this, the names of "maestros de hacer vidriado" or makers of glazed ware, who resided at this ancient capital. one of these craftsmen was alonso rodriguez the younger, who, on june th, , sold to a canon of the cathedral ten thousand white and green tiles of a common kind (_ladrillos_), probably employed for roofing. the price was three ducats the thousand. on april th, , juan sanchez engaged to supply the same temple with the same quantity of glazed tiles (_tejas_) for roofing, coloured white, green, and yellow, at sixteen _maravedis_ each tile. _azulejos_ were certainly made at granada in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and probably earlier. [illustration: lvi the gate of wine (_showing polychrome tiling. alhambra, granada_)] in a passage of the alhambra palace leading from the patio de la alberca to the cuarto dorado, a space was laid bare not many years ago, containing the original _mostagueras_ or small tiles used for flooring, glazed in two colours; and in the same building, although in constantly diminishing quantities, are large numbers of tiles which date from the time of the spanish moors. there has been a good deal of discussion as to whether the roofs of the alhambra were originally covered with decorative tiles. swinburne (who must not, however, be taken as the safest of authorities) wrote that "in moorish times the building was covered with large painted and glazed tiles, of which some few are yet to be seen." indifferent renaissance tiles, made in the reign of philip the fifth, are still preserved in parts of the alhambra. excellent polychrome _cuerda seca_ tiles (fourteenth century), in white, green, yellow, blue, and black, are over the horseshoe archway of the gate of wine of the alhambra (plate lvi.). according to gómez moreno,[ ] they were manufactured here, as were the moorish _azulejos_, yellow, black, white, violet, and sky-blue, in the mirador de daraxa.[ ] the archives of the moorish palace also state that towards the close of the sixteenth century antonio tenorio, whose pottery was situated in the secano, and consequently within a stone's-throw of the casa real, made several sets of _azulejos_ for the hall of the abencerrajes. good morisco tiles, dating from the same period and wrought by craftsmen such as gaspar hernandez, pedro tenorio, and the members of the robles family, are in the sala de comares, and in one of the rooms of the casa de los tiros. [ ] _guía de granada_; pp. , . [ ] pure red is the rarest of the colours employed in moorish tile-work. it is, however, found in a single part of the alhambra; namely, among the superb tile-decoration of the torre de la cautiva. gestoso says that red was practically unknown among the seville potters. sometimes, however, in coats of arms, a space that should have properly been gules was left uncoloured in the actual making of the tile, and painted red with oil-colour after firing. from the thirteenth century until the eighteenth, excellent _azulejos_ were made in cataluña. specimens of every period exist in the collections of don francisco rogent and don josé font y gumá, of barcelona, and don luis santacana, of martorell. the tiles belonging to these gentlemen proceed from the cathedral and other temples of barcelona, and from the monasteries or castles of poblet, santas creus, montserrat, marmellá, san miguel de ervol, centellas, torre pallaresa, san miguel del fay, and vallpellach.[ ] [ ] coloured plates of catalan and other spanish _azulejos_ are published with garcía llansó's text in the _historia general del arte_; vol. ii. another region which has long been celebrated for its _azulejeria_ is the kingdom of valencia. even in the eighteenth century, when this craft was generally in a state of great decadence, valencian tiles were thoroughly well made, although the patterns on them were defective. laborde pronounced them "the best executed and most elegant in europe," and further said of this locality; "the painted earthenware tiles or _azulejos_ are used in the country, but only a small part of them; a great many are sent into the interior of spain as well as to cadiz, where they are shipped for spanish america, and to marseilles, whence they are conveyed into africa." the same writer inserts an interesting account of the manufacture of these _azulejos_. "it is at valencia that the tiles of earthenware are made, with which they incrust walls and pave apartments: those tiles are of a clayey earth, which is found in the territories of quarte near valencia; they harden the earth long after soaking it in water; the tiles are formed in moulds, and are dried in the sun; they are then beaten with a piece of square wood of the dimensions of which they are wanted. they are then put into the oven, where they undergo a slight baking. as soon as they are done they are glazed, and are afterwards painted in water colours with whatever subject is intended to be represented. the tiles are then replaced in the oven so as not to touch one another, and that the action of the fire may penetrate them all equally: as the colours change by baking, the workmen apply them anew in proportion to the changes that take place; the red alone alters entirely. the varnish with which they are glazed is made with lead, tin, and white sand. these three substances are ground in a mill to powder, which is mixed with water, to form a paste, and baked in the oven; it is again pounded and put into the oven, where it crystallises: being once more reduced to powder and diluted with water, it becomes varnish. there are two kinds of it; one is whiter than the other, though the same materials are used: the mode of mixing alone makes the difference; the whiter, the clearer the tiles. it takes a certain number of tiles to form a picture: they are of different dimensions; the smallest are three inches nine lines, the largest seven inches nine lines. the price varies according to the size of the tile, the beauty of the varnish, and the variety of the drawings: the lowest price is eight pesos ( s.) a thousand, and the highest pesos or £ , _s._ _d._ there is a considerable demand for them; they are superior both in beauty and strength to those used in holland." [illustration: lvii tiles of the decadent period] bourgoing, author of the _nouveau voyage en espagne_, described, in , the same product in the following terms: "l'industrie des valenciens tire d'ailleurs parti de toutes les productions de leur sol. il contient une espèce de terre dont ils font ces carreaux de faïence colorée, connus sous le nom d'_azulejos_, et qu'on ne fabrique qu'à valence. on en pave les appartements, et on en revêt leurs lambris; on y peint les sujets les plus compliqués, tels par exemple qu'un bal masqué, une fête de taureaux. la couleur rouge est la seule qui ne puisse être fixée sur cette espèce de faïence; elle s'altere entièrement par la cuisson."[ ] [ ] vol. iii., p. . for the amusement of my readers, i insert an illustration of common spanish tiles of the decadent period (plate lvii.), displaying considerable liveliness combined with reckless ignorance of draughtsmanship. a class of these degenerate tiles, made in large quantities at seville in the eighteenth century, is known as _azulejos de montería_ or "hunting-tiles," since episodes of the chase form one of the favourite themes of their design. although it passed through a long period of prostration, embracing the greater part of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, at no time has the manufacture of decorative spanish tiles succumbed completely. of recent years it has revived surprisingly at seville, barcelona, and segovia; and at the first of these cities the older _azulejos_, and particularly those in the _cuenca_ style, are imitated to perfection. in the cheapest kinds of modern tiling, such as is used for corridors and kitchens, a common device is a series of repeated curves and dots which evidently has its source in arabic lettering. indeed, the ornamental and attractive written characters of the spanish moors, rendered familiar to their rivals through long centuries of intercourse, seem to have constantly found favour with the christian spaniards. the _fuero_ of jaca, dated a.d. , tells us that a christian prince of spain, don sancho ramirez, was accustomed to write his signature in arabic lettering. meaningless inscriptions in the same language, and evidently executed by a christian hand, are engraved on objects in the royal armoury; and señor osma describes in an interesting pamphlet (_los letreros ornamentales en la cerámica morisca del siglo xv._) how, in the pottery of older spain, a word in arabic such as _alafia_ ("prosperity" or "blessing") would often be corrupted by morisco craftsmen into a motive of a purely ornamental character, and which would only in this sense be comprehended and appreciated by the christian.[ ] [ ] _alafia_ is written in neshki, [illustration], which word, says señor osma, by suppressing the diacritical points and prolonging some of the lines, was converted by the potter into the conventional and exclusively decorative device:-- [illustration] hispano-moresque lustred pottery probably no pottery in the world possesses greater loveliness or interest than the celebrated, yet even to this day mysterious, lustred ware of moorish spain. our knowledge of the early history of this ware is still imperfect. in modern times, attention was first drawn to the lustre process by m. riocreux, of the sèvres museum. in spite, however, of the subsequent monographs and researches of davillier and other authorities, the origin of lustred pottery is yet a problem which awaits solution. until some years ago it was believed to have had its source in persia, where many specimens have been discovered in the form of tiles and other objects; but this belief was afterwards shaken by fouquet, who unearthed at fostat in egypt, in the year , specimens of lustred ware which are known to date from the eleventh century. saladin, too, affirms that he has seen upon the mosque of kairuan lustred plaques with inscriptions recording them to have been presented, between a.d. and , by the emir ibrahim ahmed-ibn-el-aglab. whatever these facts may signify, it appears from a statement by the geographer edrisi that lustred ware was made in spain as early as the twelfth century. "here," said the writer, speaking of calatayud, "is produced the gold-coloured pottery which is exported to all countries." the next allusion to it is by the traveller ibn-batutah, who visited certain parts of spain in the middle of the fourteenth century. "at málaga," he wrote, "is made the beautiful golden pottery which is exported to the farthest countries." these passages refer respectively to aragon and andalusia. the same ware was produced in murcia. ibn-said, quoted by al-makkari, mentions the "glazed and gilded porcelain" of murcia, málaga, and almería, calling it "strange and admirable." it was also manufactured, probably in larger quantities than in any other part of spain, in many towns and villages of the kingdom of valencia, such as carcer, alaquaz, moncada, quarte, villalonga, traiguera, and manises. in the _excellencies of the kingdom of valencia_, written by eximenes and published in , we find it stated that "surpassing everything else is the ware of manises, gilded and painted with such mastery that all the world is enamoured thereof, insomuch that the pope, the cardinals, and princes send for it, astonished that objects of such excellence can be made of earth."[ ] [ ] "_sobre tot es la bellessa de la obra de manizes daurada é maestriuolment pintada que ja tot lo mon ha enamorat ent[=a]t que lo papa, é los cardenals é lo princeps del mon per special gracia la requeren é stan marauellats que d'terra se puxa fer obra axi excellent é noble._" other writers on the same locality, such as diago and escolano, author of the _historia de la insigne y coronada ciudad y reino de valencia_ (valencia, , ), confirm this eulogy of eximenes. according to escolano, valencian ware was "of such loveliness that in return for that which the italians send us from pisa, we send them boatloads of it from manises." one of the most recent of authorities on lustred ware remarks that "in the fifteenth century ornamental vases in the (spanish-moorish) wares appear to have been commanded from spain by wealthy florentines, as is evident from the medici arms and impresa in fig. ; others bearing the florentine lily (fig. ) seem to have been ordered from the same city." the illustrations to which the author of this monograph[ ] refers, depict a vase and a boccale, both in lustred ware, and which it is extremely probable were manufactured at manises. [ ] wallis, _the oriental influence on italian ceramic art_. london; . the same ware was also possibly made in cataluña, where pieces of it have been found among the ruins of the village of las casas. _la alhambra_, a small magazine which is published at granada, contains, in the number dated september th, , an account of these fragments by their finder, joaquín vilaplana. some years ago the balearic islands were also thought to have produced this pottery. one of the earliest and most fervent champions of this theory, now definitely shown to be erroneous, was baron davillier. this gentleman, in some respects an excellent authority on spanish ceramics, relied too strongly on certain assurances made him by a señor bover, and ended by declaring that in the museums of paris and london he had himself seen lustred plates which bore the arms of ynca in the balearics, proving them to have been manufactured at that town. however, a majorcan archæologist, named alvaro campaner, refuted one by one davillier's points of argument, and showed beyond all question that both the plates of ynca and the arms which decorated them were simply nonexistent, and that the term _majolica_, deriving from _majorica_, applies to pottery in general, and not with any preference to lustred ware. campaner also suggested very ingeniously that the word _majolica_ was probably applied by the italians to catalan or valencian pottery conveyed to italy in vessels themselves belonging to the balearics, and which were in the habit of completing their cargoes in the ports of barcelona and valencia, and he added that this suggestion is supported by the fact that specimens of lustred ware are far more often met with on the balearic coast than in the towns and villages of the interior. it is only fair to state that davillier frankly and fully recognized the value of campaner's refutation. as to the methods of producing lustred pottery, the chemical investigations practised by riocreux, brogniart, carand, and others, have shown that the metals used to produce the characteristic reflex which gives the ware its name were copper and silver, entering into the composition of an extremely thin glaze extended over the surface of the pottery, and employed, sometimes together, and sometimes separately. it is obvious that the lustre produced by copper would be deeper, redder, and less delicate than that produced by silver, while varying gradations would be obtainable by the mixture of both metals. it is also beyond doubt that the oldest specimens of this pottery extant to-day are those which contain the palest and most pearly lustre, and consequently the largest quantity of the costlier metal. in those of later date there is an evident inferiority, both in colour, lustre, and design. in fact, two separate, or nearly separate, epochs of this branch of spanish pottery are pointed out by señor mélida, who gives the name of _mudejar_ to lustred objects manufactured at an earlier time by moorish artists working in the cities captured by the christians, and that of _morisco_ to the second or inferior class produced by morisco craftsmen after the reconquest, and distinguished by the coarser and degenerate lustre, colouring, and draughtsmanship. the rarest and most beautiful examples of this ware are naturally those which belong to the former class, and consist of various kinds of plates and other objects in which elaborate devices such as lions, antelopes, and shields of heraldry, often combined with foliage and inscriptions in gothic lettering, are coloured in bistre or pale blue,[ ] and rendered doubly beautiful by the delicate nacreous lustre. [ ] in lustred pottery these colours, and particularly blue, are far the commonest. it has been found that other colours, such as green and black, were ill adapted to the lustre process. in nearly every case it is extremely difficult to determine with any certainty the date of manufacture of these objects, as well as the locality. wallis says he is aware of "no example of spanish lustre pottery antecedent to those in the class to which the large palermo jar belongs, and they are not likely to be much earlier than the end of the fourteenth century. happily the celebrated plaque (plate lviii.) formerly belonging to fortuny, and now in the possession of excmo sr. don g. j. de osma, furnishes an early date, which, according to its owner, is between may and november . those who know the original will remember that it is no less remarkable for the quality of its golden lustre than for the grace and elegance of its fanciful oriental design." it is also believed by señor osma that this plaque was manufactured in the kingdom of granada; _i.e._ either at granada or málaga. [illustration: lviii hispano-moresque lustred plaque (_early th century. osma collection_)] a specimen of spanish lustred ware more celebrated even than fortuny's plaque is the "vase of the alhambra" (plate lix.), which rests to-day in a corner of the sala de las dos hermanas. the history of this mighty jar is interesting. popular superstition affirms it to have been discovered, filled to the brim with gold, by the marquis of mondejar, first of the christian governors of the fortress of granada. exposed for many years to every stress of weather and to every mutilation at the hands of passers-by, it stood, in company with other vases of enormous size, upon a rampart which is now the garden terrace known as the adarves. several of the older travellers have described these vessels or alluded to them. marmol wrote of them as far back as the sixteenth century, while the journal of bertaut de rouen contains the following notice;--"sur la première terrasse par où l'on entre, et d'où l'on a de la peine à regarder en bas sans estre ébloüy, il y a deux fontaines jaillissantes, et tout du long des murs du chasteau, des espaliers d'orangers et de grenadiers, avec de grands vases de terre peinte, aussi belle que la porcelaine, où il n'y avoit pour lors, sinon quelques fleurs en quelques-uns: mais où l'on dit que le marquis de mondejar trouva quantité d'or que les mores avaient caché dans la terre, quand il y fût estably par ferdinand." the priest echeverría, who forged the relics of the ancient alcazaba of granada,[ ] was careful to repeat this fable in the twenty-sixth chapter of his _paseos por granada_. the first edition of this work was published in , under the assumed name of joseph romero yranzo. there were then two vases and part of a third, all "lacerated, peeled, and maltreated." the englishman swinburne wrote in that below the towers of the bell, "on the south-side, on a slip of terrace, is the governor's garden, a very pleasant walk, full of fine orange and cypress trees and myrtle hedges, but quite abandoned. the view it commands is incomparable. two large vases enamelled with gold and azure foliages and characters are the only ornaments left: these were taken out of the vaults under the royal apartments." in the second edition of echeverría's _paseos_, which was republished in , it is added in a footnote that only a single vase remained, "in a room that overlooks the court of myrtles." lozano, however, in his _antigüedades arabes_, mentions two vases as existing at the same period. argote de molina (_nuevos paseos por granada_, published about ) describes, together with the wretchedly executed marble statues in the sala de las ninfas, the "two or three great porcelain jars whereof some pieces only now remain," and reminds us that according to the old tradition these statues looked continually towards the vases, which were full of treasure. argote, nevertheless, takes echeverría sharply to task for his absurdities upon this theme; and washington irving, a diligent gleaner in echeverría's somewhat scanty field, makes use of the same material for his well-known story. [ ] i have fully described these forgeries in chapters ii and iii of _granada: memories, adventures, studies, and impressions_. [illustration: lix hispano-moresque lustred vase (_alhambra, granada_)] in the time of owen jones the one surviving vase, now standing with a wooden rail before it in a corner of the hall of the two sisters, still occupied the "room that looks upon the court of myrtles." jones wrote of it in :--"this beautiful vase was discovered, it is said, full of gold in one of the subterranean chambers of the casa real. it is at present to be seen in a small chamber of the court of the fish-pond, in which are deposited the archives of the palace. it is engraved in the spanish work by lozano, _antigüedades arabes de españa_, with another of the same size, which was broken a few years ago, and the pieces sold to a passing traveller. the vase is executed in baked clay, with enamelled colours and gold similar to the mosaics." a more precise description is the following. the vase, which measures four feet six inches in height by eight feet two inches and a half in circumference, is of common earthenware painted with intricate devices fired after painting. this was a difficult operation in a vessel of such size; and here, in consequence, the colours have slightly run and mingled. besides these technical flaws, the belly of the vase is broken clean in half, and one of the handles is missing. the shape is amphoraic, with a moderate downward curve. about the middle, surrounded by leaf and stem and geometrical devices effectively intertwined, are two antelopes. the vase is coloured blue and caramel upon a delicate yellow ground, and has a faint metallic lustre.[ ] an arabic inscription is repeated several times, and consists of the words "felicity" and "welcome." [ ] this lustre is faint but quite distinguishable, and rada y delgado was clearly in error in supposing that there is none. this vase is believed to date from the fourteenth century; and if we judge from the colour and composition of the earth employed, it appears probable that it was made at granada. together with the other vases which have disappeared,[ ] it was doubtless meant to serve as a receptacle for water, and for decorating the chambers of the palace, where it would rest in amphora-fashion on a perforated stand, while smaller vases containing flowers would fill the niches which may yet be seen in various inner walls of the alhambra. the belief of argote[ ] and many other writers that these niches were intended to receive the slippers of the moors is utterly unfounded. [ ] the lost jar mentioned by owen jones, of which a drawing has been made, was of the same shape as the one which now remains; but in its decoration were included the arms of the nasrite dynasty of granada. it is this circumstance which has induced gómez moreno to suppose that these vases were the work of granadino artists. [ ] "_los nichos para chinelas_," as he calls them, in describing the sala de comares. until quite recently all published illustrations of the great _jarrón de la alhambra_ were inaccurate, and as a rule grotesquely so. among the very worst are those inserted in the handbooks of riaño and contreras. i am glad to be able to reproduce an excellent photograph, which both corrects the atrocious cuts i have observed elsewhere, and relieves me from giving a prolix and possibly a wearisome description of the decoration on the vase. [illustration: lx hispano-moresque lustred vase (_madrid museum_)] several other lustred vases of large size are still preserved in spain and other countries. one, proceeding from a sicilian church, is in the museum of palermo. wallis, who inserts an illustration, describes it as "amphora-shaped, with two large flat handles; pear-shaped body, long neck, ribbed at lower part, canellated above, moulded lip. whitish body, tin glaze. ornament painted in gold lustre on white ground, the pattern in parts almost obliterated. hispano-moresque. height, one metre, seventeen centimetres." another of these great vases belonged to the painter fortuny, and was sold at his death to prince basilewsky, for thirty thousand francs. it was found by fortuny at the village of salar, near granada, and purchased by him at a low price. "the neck and mouth resemble those of the alhambra vase. the ornamentation is distributed about the body of the vase in four zones; one of the two central zones has tangent circles, and the other an inscription." [illustration: lxi lustred tiles (_osma collection_)] another large lustred vase is in the museum of madrid (plate lx.). it was found by a labourer at hornos in the province of jaen, and passed into the hands of the village priest, who placed it in his church to support the font of holy water. in course of time a dealer in antiquities, by name amat, happened to pass that way, observed the vase, and made an offer for it to the _padre_. this latter at first refused, but subsequently, stimulated by an ignorant though well-intentioned and disinterested zeal for bettering the temple, he stipulated that if the dealer provided a new support of marble for the font, and paid for white washing the church, he might bear off the coveted _jarrón_. fulfilling these conditions at all speed, he mounted the precious vessel on an ass, and briskly strode away. when he had gone a little distance the villagers, missing their cherished vase, though unaware, of course, of its artistic worth, swarmed angrily about the purchaser, flourished their knives and sticks at him, and pelted him with stones. at this he called upon the mayor for protection; the mayor provided him with two armed men for bodyguard, and, thus defended, the indomitable dealer reached madrid and sold his jar to government for fifteen hundred dollars. its present value is estimated at not less than thirty thousand.[ ] [ ] j. r. mélida, _jarrones arábigos de loza vidriada_; published in the _boletín de la sociedad española de excursionistas_. one of the earliest and most interesting notices relating to the preparation of this lustred ware is contained in a description by one of the royal archers, named henry cock, of the progress, performed in , of philip the second from the court of spain to zaragoza.[ ] cock wrote of muel, in aragon:--"almost all the inhabitants of this village are potters, and all the earthenware sold at zaragoza is made in the following manner. the vessels are first fashioned to the required shape from a certain substance extracted from the earth of this locality. they are next baked in a specially constructed oven, and when removed from this are varnished with white varnish and polished, after which they are washed with a mixture of twenty-five pounds of lead, three or four pounds of tin, and as many pounds of a certain sand which is found there. all these ingredients are mixed into a paste resembling ice, which is broken small, pounded like flour, and kept in powder. this powder is mixed with water, the dishes are passed through it, and after being rebaked they keep their lustre. next, in order to gild the pottery, they take the strongest vinegar mixed with about two _reales_ of powdered silver, vermilion, and red ochre, and a little wire. when all is thoroughly mixed they paint the patterns on the dishes with a feather, bake them again, and their gold colour is now quite permanent. i was told all this by the potters themselves."[ ] [ ] _relación del viaje hecho por felipe ii. en ._ madrid, . [ ] the village of muel continued to be a centre of this craft. townsend, who travelled in spain in and , wrote of it:--"there are many potters, who turn their own wheels, not by hand, but with their feet, by means of a larger wheel concentric with that on which they mould the clay, and nearly level with the floor." [illustration: lxii hispano-moresque lustred ware (_a.d. - . osma collection_)] another most interesting account of the manufacture of lustred ware was discovered in manuscript by riaño in the british museum, and, although it belongs to a later date ( ), is well worth quoting fully. it consists of a report upon the later gilded pottery of manises, and was drawn up by order of the count of floridablanca:-- "after the pottery is baked, it is varnished with white and blue, the only colours used besides the gold lustre; the vessels are again baked; if the objects are to be painted with gold colour, this can only be put on the white varnish, after they have gone twice through the oven. the vessels are then painted with the said gold colour and are baked a third time, with only dry rosemary for fuel. "the white varnish used is composed of lead and tin, which are melted together in an oven made on purpose; after these materials are sufficiently melted, they become like earth, and when in this state the mixture is removed and mixed with an equal quantity in weight of sand: fine salt is added to it, it is boiled again, and when cold, pounded into powder. the only sand which can be used is from a cave at benalguacil, three leagues from manises. in order that the varnish should be fine, for every _arroba_, twenty-five pounds of lead, six to twelve ounces of tin must be added, and half a bushel of finely-powdered salt: if a coarse kind is required, it is sufficient to add a very small quantity of tin, and three or four _cuartos_ worth of salt, which in this case must be added when the ingredient is ready for varnishing the vessel. "five ingredients enter into the composition of the gold colour: copper, which is better the older it is; silver, as old as possible; sulphur; red ochre; and strong vinegar, which are mixed in the following proportions: of copper three ounces, of red ochre twelve ounces, of silver one _peseta_ (about a shilling), sulphur three ounces, vinegar a quart; three pounds (of twelve ounces) of the earth or scoriæ, which is left after this pottery is painted with the gold colour, is added to the other ingredients. [illustration: lxiii hispano-moresque lustred ware (_a.d. - . osma collection_)] "they are mixed in the following manner: a small portion of sulphur in powder is put into a casserole with two small bits of copper, between them a coin of one silver _peseta_; the rest of the sulphur and copper is then added to it. when this casserole is ready, it is placed on the fire, and is made to boil until the sulphur is consumed, which is evident when no flame issues from it. the preparation is then taken from the fire, and when cold is pounded very fine; the red ochre and scoriæ are then added to it; it is mixed up by hand and again pounded into powder. the preparation is placed in a basin and mixed with enough water to make a sufficient paste to stick on the sides of the basin; the mixture is then rubbed on the vessel with a stick; it is therefore indispensable that the water should be added very gradually until the mixture is in the proper state. "the basin ready prepared must be placed in an oven for six hours. at manises it is customary to do so when the vessels of common pottery are baked; after this the mixture is scratched off the sides of the basin with some iron instrument; it is then removed from there and broken up into small pieces, which are pounded fine in a hand-mortar with the quantity of vinegar already mentioned, and after having been well ground and pounded together for two hours the mixture is ready for decorating. it is well to observe that the quantity of varnish and gold-coloured mixture which is required for every object can only be ascertained by practice." nevertheless, the gilded ware of the kingdom of valencia had by this time deteriorated very greatly. formerly, from as far back as the reign of jayme the conqueror, the other towns or villages of this region which produced the lustred and non-lustred pottery were játiva, paterna, quarte, villalonga, alaqua, carcer, and moncada. early in the fourteenth century fourteen potteries were working in the town of biar, and twenty-three at traiguera. manises, however, maintained the lead for many years. the notices of eximenes and other writers concerning the pottery of this town have been already quoted. the same ware is mentioned in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by diago ( ), francisco jávier borrell, beuter, and martin de viciana. marineus siculus, the chronicler of ferdinand and isabella, adds that similar or identical pottery ("_desta misma arte_") was made in murcia, whose manufacture of it had been praised in earlier times by ibn-said. toledo also manufactured gilded ware with blue or bistre colouring. garcía llansó says that in the sixteenth century this capital produced plates which contain the arms of spain in the centre, the rest of the plate being completely covered with minute geometrical or floral ornamentation. [illustration: lxiv hispano-moresque lustred ware (_a.d. - . osma collection_)] it is certain that during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries large quantities of lustred pottery were produced in many parts of andalusia, castile, aragon, and valencia. the oldest and most valuable specimens of this pottery are those which have the palest and most purely golden lustre, combined with blue or bluish decoration in the form of animals, coats of arms, or foliage. the lustred ware of manises began to deteriorate about the time of the expulsion of the moriscos, when the leaves and fronds of a clean gold tone upon a lightish ground are replaced by commoner and coarser patterns, and the gold itself by the coppery lustre which is still employed. after the seventeenth century the further decline of this once famous industry may be traced from the accounts of travellers. towards the middle of this century bowles wrote that "two leagues from the capital (valencia) is a fair-looking town of only four streets, whose occupants are nearly all potters. they make a _copper-coloured_ ware of great beauty, _used for common purposes and for decorating the houses of the working-people of the province_. they make this ware of an argillaceous earth resembling in its colour and composition that portion of the soil of valencia which produces native mercury.... the objects they fashion of this earth possess a glitter and are very inexpensive, since i purchased half a dozen plates for a _real_. nevertheless, _this is not the ware which has the highest reputation in the kingdom of valencia_. the factory which the count of aranda has established at alcora is not surpassed in europe, and is ahead of many in fineness of substance, hardness of the varnish, and elegance of form. it would be perfect of its kind if the varnish did not crack and peel off so easily." according to laborde, early in the nineteenth century manises contained two potteries "of considerable extent, which employ seventy workmen. the people occupied in these possess the art of producing a gold _bronze_ colour which they carefully keep a secret, never communicating it to any person." elsewhere in the same book laborde is more explicit. "manises is a village situated a league and a quarter north of valencia. it is seen on the left coming from new castile. it is noted for its manufactories of earthen ware, which employ thirty kilns, and occupy a great part of the inhabitants. the women are employed in forming the designs and applying the colours. there are two large manufactories of a superior kind, the earthen ware of which is tolerably fine, of a beautiful white, and a moderate price. they also make here vases worked with a great degree of delicacy." [illustration: lxv hispano-moresque lustred ware (_late th century. osma collection_)] "the society of these workmen possess the secret of the composition of a colour which in the fire takes the tint and brightness of a beautiful gilt _bronze_. it has been unsuccessfully attempted to be imitated; the heads of the society compose the colour themselves, and distribute it to the masters who take care of it; it is a liquid of the colour of spanish tobacco, but a little deeper." the quantity of hispano-moresque lustred pottery preserved in the public and private collections of various countries is far from small, although to classify it according to the place and date of its production is nearly always a matter of extreme difficulty. among the earliest specimens are the vase of the alhambra, those which are now in the museums of palermo and madrid, that which belonged to fortuny, and the plaque which once was also his, and now forms part of the osma collection. lustred spanish tiles are scarce. a few exist at seville[ ] and granada, chiefly in altar-fronts, along the archivolts of doorways, or, with heraldic motives, on the inner walls of houses of the aristocracy. invariably, says gestoso, such tiles are coloured with combinations of white, blue, and gold, since in the lustre process other colours--black, or green, or deepish yellow--proved unsatisfactory. other lustred tiles of exquisite beauty are owned by señor osma, (plate lxi.), and seem to have even gained in brilliance by the centuries that have passed over them. riaño gives a list of the specimens of this pottery which are at south kensington, consisting of bowls, vases, and plates. one of the vases is particularly beautiful. it dates from the fifteenth century, and is described by fortnum as having "a spherical body on a trumpet-shaped base, with a neck of elongated funnel form, flanked by two large wing-shaped handles perforated with circular holes. the surface, except the mouldings, is entirely covered with a diaper-pattern of ivy or briony leaves, tendrils, and small flowers in brownish lustre and blue on the white ground." [ ] no direct proof has been found that lustred ware was ever made at seville; but a document copied by gestoso, and which i have already mentioned (p. ), records that the famous _ollero_ of the time of ferdinand and isabella, named fernan martinez guijarro, reserved a department ("_tiendas del dorado_") of his premises for making or for storing lustred pottery. [illustration: lxvi hispano-moresque lustred ware (_late th century. osma collection_)] through the courtesy of señor osma i am able to give illustrations of a few of the finest specimens of lustred ware in his magnificent collection (plates lxii.-lxvi.). the three small vessels facing pages , , and are of valencian workmanship, and date, according to their owner, from between and . the two plates are also valencian. the one with a bull in the centre dates from between and ; and that which has a greyhound from slightly earlier--say to . pottery of seville, puente del arzobispo, talavera de la reina, toledo, and barcelona; porous ware; porcelain of alcora and the royal factory of the buen retiro. we have seen that seville was an early and important centre of the potter's craft in spain. her potteries were celebrated even with the romans, and probably have at no moment been inactive. fifty, established in the suburb of triana, were mentioned in the sixteenth century by pedro de medina, and documents which tell of many more have recently been discovered by gestoso. the excellence of the seville tiles has been described in a preceding section of this chapter. their production still continues upon a large scale; and the ware of the cartuja factory, which reached the zenith of its fame towards the end of the eighteenth century, is considered by jacquemart and other authorities to rival with the italian wares of savona. pottery made in other parts of the peninsula--particularly that of talavera de la reina--is known to have been imitated by the seville potters with embarrassing perfection. in the case of the so-called "loza de puente del arzobispo," it is the seville ware itself which seems to have been imitated. puente del arzobispo is a small village near toledo. mendez wrote of it in the seventeenth century:--"fine pottery is manufactured in about eight kilns, which produce more than , ducats yearly." "in ," says riaño, "thirteen pottery kilns existed at this place; they still worked in , but their productions were very inferior in artistic merit." [illustration: lxvii hispano-moresque lustred ware] not many years ago the name of puente del arzobispo was connected by baron davillier with certain polychrome non-lustred plates and other vessels which are greatly esteemed for their rarity, and of which a few specimens exist in the south kensington and other museums, as well as in one or two private collections, such as that of señor osma. gestoso says that the usual diameter of these plates is either twenty-three centimetres or forty-two centimetres. "their decoration, betraying at a glance the saracenic influence, consists of leaves and flowers, together with animals of a more or less fantastic character: lions, rabbits, and birds. in other specimens the centre is occupied by a heart, fleurs-de-lis, or other fancy devices, or yet, in some few cases, with the head of a man or woman. these central designs are surrounded with leaves and flowers. the draughtsmanship upon these plates is of the rudest, and the process of their colouring was as follows. the figures were drawn upon the unfired surface in manganese ink mixed with a greasy substance; and after this the aqueous enamel or glaze was allowed to drop from a hogshair brush into the spaces which the black had outlined." this will be recognized as the _cuerda seca_ process, so extensively employed in making seville tiles. nevertheless, judging by certain marks upon this pottery, baron davillier declared it to proceed from puente del arzobispo. the marks in question consist in one or two examples of what appears to be the letters a.p. or p.a.[ ] davillier, however, affirmed that he had seen a plate fully inscribed as follows:-- [illustration] [ ] these, says señor osma, are doubtful in every case, and are only found on plates which bear the figure of a lion. two plates in this gentleman's possession are thus marked [illustration], and another [illustration]. the existence of this plate is now discredited; at least, no trace of it can be discovered at this day. upon the other hand, gestoso points to various objects manufactured by the _cuerda seca_ method, and which undoubtedly proceed from seville. among them are three shields, one of which, containing the arms of ferdinand and isabella, is of exceptional interest, for it is accompanied by an inscribed slab, evidently coeval with the shield itself, recording it to have been made in the year , and by jerónimo suarez. this shield and slab were removed from a courtyard of the old alhóndiga to seville museum, where they now remain. of the two other shields, one belongs to señor osma, and the second, which is still at seville, adorns the tomb of don león enriquez in the church of santa paula; and since it is unquestionable that all these _cuerda seca_ shields, as well as quantities of _cuerda seca_ tiles, were made at seville, gestoso prudently suggests that we should designate as "_cuerda seca_ ware" that pottery which has hitherto passed as specially belonging to puente del arzobispo. in fact, towards the end of the fifteenth century this pottery is found extending northward from seville to toledo, and señor osma assures me that toledo specimens are of a somewhat later manufacture than those which were produced at seville. one of the rarest and most interesting _cuerda seca_ plates in this gentleman's collection is reproduced herewith (lxviii.). no other plate of similar pattern is known to exist. its date may be placed between and , and it gives a curious illustration of the masculine headdress and headwear in the reign of ferdinand and isabella. the pottery of talavera de la reina was at one time much esteemed. the earliest mention of it, says riaño, occurs in , in a manuscript history of this town, while another notice, dated , says that here was produced "fine white glazed earthenware and other pottery, which supplied the country, part of portugal, and india." more explicit are the observations of father alonso de ajofrín, who wrote, in , a history of talavera. he says that "her pottery is as good as that of pisa, while quantities of _azulejos_ are made here to adorn the front of altars, churches, gardens, alcoves, saloons, and bowers, and large and small specimens of every kind. two hundred workmen work at eight separate kilns. four other kilns produce the commoner kinds of ware. red porous clay vessels and drinking-cups are baked in two other kilns in a thousand shapes to imitate birds and other creatures; also _brinquiños_ for the use of ladies, so deliciously flavoured that after drinking the water they contained, they eat the cup in which it was brought them." [illustration: lxviii dish (_andalusian non-lustred ware in the_ cuerda seca _style. a.d. - . osma collection_)] the following most interesting notice relating to this town is also quoted by riaño: "the earthenware pottery made here has reached a great perfection; it is formed of white and red clay. vases, cups, _bucaros_ and _brinquiños_ are made of different kinds, dishes and table centres, and imitations of snails, owls, dogs, and every kind of fruits, olives, and almonds. these objects are painted with great perfection, and the imitations of porcelain brought from the portuguese indies are most excellent. everyone is surprised that in so small a town such excellent things should be made. the varnish used for the white pottery is made with tin and sand, and is now found to be more acceptable than coloured earthenware; so much so, that persons of importance who pass by this town, although they have in their houses dinner-services of silver, buy earthenware made at talavera, on account of its excellence. the sand which was used to make the white varnish was brought from hita, and is now found at mejorada, near talavera. this sand is as fine and soft as silk. "the red pottery made at talavera is much to be commended, for besides the great variety of objects, and the different medals which they place upon them, they have invented some small _brinquiños_ of so small and delicate a kind, that the ladies wear them. rosaries are also made of the same material. a certain scent is added in the manufacture of this pottery which excites the appetite and taste of the women, who eat the pottery so frequently that it gives great trouble to their confessors to check this custom." [illustration: lxix an _alfarerÍa_ or potter's yard (_granada_)] this porous pottery for keeping water cool had been imported from america, and was chiefly made in andalusia, portugal, and extremadura. it is still produced at andujar and elsewhere. nearly all travellers in spain describe it, and insist upon the curious circumstance that it was eaten by the spanish women. "i have mentioned elsewhere," wrote countess d'aulnoy, "the longing many women feel to chew this clay, which often obstructs their bodies internally. their stomachs swell, and grow as hard as stone, while their skin turns yellow as a quince. i also felt a curiosity to taste this ware, that is so highly yet so undeservedly esteemed; but i would devour a grindstone rather than put it in my mouth again. nevertheless, if one wants to be agreeable to the spanish ladies, one has to present them with some _bucaros_, which they themselves call _barros_, and which, as many deem, possess such numerous and admirable qualities, since they claim for the clay that it cures sickness, and that a drinking vessel made of it betrays the presence of a poison. i possess one which spoils the taste of wine, but greatly improves water. this liquid seems to boil and tremble when it is thrown into the cup in question; but after a little while the vessel empties--so porous is the clay of which it is composed--and then it has a fragrant odour." similar accounts are given by travellers of a later time. "i wish," wrote swinburne, "i could contrive a method of carrying you some of the fine earthen jars, called _buxaros_, which are made in andalusia. they are remarkably convenient for water-drinkers, as they are light, smooth, and handy; being not more than half-baked, they are very porous, and the outside is kept moist by the water's filtering through; though placed in the sun, the water in the pots remains as cold as ice. the most disagreeable circumstance attending them is, that they emit a smell of earth refreshed by a sudden shower after a long drought."[ ] [ ] _travels through spain_; p. . swinburne could have been no lover of nature to speak in such terms of the smell of earth. laborde, who wrote a few years later, seems to have copied some of his information from bowles. "the murcians," he said, "use in their houses little jars called _bucaros_, the same as those which in some parts of andalusia are called alcarrazas.[ ] they have handles open at the top, are smaller at the bottom than above, and bulge in the middle; they are slight, porous, smooth, and half-baked; they are made of a peculiar kind of clay. when water is put into them, they emit a smell like that sent up by the earth after a shower of rain in summer. the water makes its way very slowly through the pores, and keeps them constantly moist on the outside; they are used to cool water for drinking. the windows and balconies of all the houses have large iron rings, with a flat surface, on which they are placed at night, and the water, oozing incessantly, becomes very cool.[ ] in andalusia some of these jars are white, and others red; in murcia they have only white ones. they appear to be in every respect of the same nature as the evaporating vases of africa, egypt, syria, and india, of which so much has been said by travellers, and on which the learned have made so many dissertations." [ ] one of the prettiest of the popular spanish _coplas_ has the _alcarraza_ for its theme;-- "alcarraza de tu casa chiquilla, quisiera ser, para besarte los labios cuando fueras á beber." "dearest, i would be the _alcarraza_ in your house; so should i kiss your lips each time you drank from me." [ ] laborde's translator adds: "these jars are very common in jamaica; they are of different sizes, from a pint to three pints. a number of them are ranged at night in the balconies, to furnish a supply of cool water. coolers of a similar kind have been lately introduced in england." the same vessels are noticed by ford in his description of a spanish _posada_. "near the staircase downstairs, and always in a visible place, is a gibbous jar, _tinaja_, of the ancient classical amphora shape, filled with fresh water; and by it is a tin or copper utensil to take water out with, and often a row of small pipkins, made of a red porous clay,[ ] which are kept ready filled with water, on, or rather in, a shelf fixed to the wall, and called _la tallada, el taller_. these pots, _alcarrazas_, from the constant evaporation, keep the water extremely cool. they are of various shapes, many, especially in valencia and andalusia, being of the unchanged identical form of those similar clay drinking-vessels discovered at pompeii. they are the precise _trulla_. martial speaks both of the colour and the material of those made at saguntum, where they still are prepared in great quantities; they are not unlike the _ckool'lehs_ of egypt, which are made of the same material and for the same purposes, and represent the ancient canobic [greek: statika]. they are seldom destined to be placed on the table; their bottoms being pointed and conical, they could not stand upright. this singular form was given to the _vasa futilia_, or cups used at the sacrifices of vesta, which would have been defiled had they touched the ground. as soon, therefore, as they are drunk off, they are refilled and replaced in their holes on the shelf, as is done with decanters in our butlers' pantries."[ ] [ ] "those of the finest quality," adds ford, "are called _bucaros_; the best come from south america--the form is more elegant, the clay finer, and often sweet-scented; many women have a trick of biting, even eating bits of them." [ ] _handbook_; vol. i., p. . i am only aware of one author who derides the statement that this porous clay was eaten by the spanish women. according to bowles, who certainly describes and comments on it with intelligence and scholarship, the neighbourhood of andujar contains "large quantities of the white argil of which are made the jars or _alcarrazas_ which serve in many parts of spain for cooling water in the summer-time. in other parts of andalusia is found a red variety of this clay, employed in making the vessels known as _búcaros_, which serve to freshen the water as well as for drinking it out of--a thing the spanish ladies love greatly. both the white _alcarrazas_ and the _búcaros_ as red as the blood of a bull are thin, porous, smooth, and half-baked. when filled with water they emit a pleasant smell like that of dry earth rained upon in summer, and as the water filters through the outer surface, remain continually damp." the same writer adds that at that time ( ) the _búcaros_ proceeding from the indies were of finer workmanship, and had a more agreeable smell than those of spanish manufacture. "in the encyclopædia," he continues, "and in the dictionary of natural history, we read that spanish ladies are for ever chewing _búcaro_, and that the hardest penance their confessors can inflict upon them is to deprive them for a single day of this enjoyment." bowles, however, quotes these observations in a scornful tone, and deprecates the habit of "believing writers who without inquiring into things, concoct and publish novels to divert the populace and rid them of their money." turning our attention once again to the finer kinds of talavera ware, gestoso adduces proofs that this as well as chinese porcelain was faultlessly and freely imitated in the potteries of seville. here, therefore, is a source of fresh confusion; and probably a great proportion of the polychrome ware which goes by the name of talaveran is really of sevillian origin. it is further known that at one period, which seems to begin with the second half of the sixteenth century, potters who were natives of talavera were hired to work in seville. [illustration: lxx talavera vase] it has not been ascertained when talavera herself grew celebrated for this industry. garcía llansó supposes that at first, before it felt the influence of italy and france, her pottery was partly mudejar, and vestiges of oriental art survive in fairly late examples. the characteristic colour-scheme was either blue on white, or else the decoration is more variegated. riaño says:--"although we find by the remarks we have quoted from contemporary authors that earthenware of every description was made at talavera, the specimens which are more generally met with may be divided into two groups, which are painted on a white ground, either in blue, or in colours, in the manner of italian maiolica. the most important examples which have reached us consist of bowls of different sizes, dishes, vases (plate lxx.), _tinajas_, holy-water vessels, medicine jars, and wall decoration. blue oriental china was imitated to a vast extent: the colouring was successful, but the design was an imitation of the baroque school of the time, and the figures, landscapes, and decoration follow the bad taste so general in spain in the eighteenth century. the imitations of italian maiolica are effective. the colours most commonly used are manganese, orange, blue, and green." talavera maintained her reputation for pottery till nearly the middle of the eighteenth century, supporting more than six hundred workmen employed in eight large potteries.[ ] from then onwards the trade declined, and by the close of the same century was practically dead, owing, larruga tells us, to the constantly increasing cost of prime materials. nevertheless, the crown made efforts to revive the craft, and met with some success till , in which year four establishments (locally known as _barrerías_) for making common pottery were opened in the same town, and speedily crushed their rivals. "the potteries of talavera," wrote laborde soon after this, "were greatly celebrated for many years, and supplied a lucrative and important branch of commerce. they are evidently on the decline. the manufactories are reduced to seven or eight. these productions no longer exhibit the same delicacy of execution. their designs are also lamentably defective. the material employed in them is a certain earth which is found near calera, three leagues from talavera." [ ] "on y fait," wrote alvarez de colmenar, "des ouvrages vernissés d'une façon ingénieuse, avec des peintures variées de bon goût; on estime ces ouvrages autant que ceux de pise et des indes orientales, et on en fournit plusieurs provinces. ce négoce rend plus de cinquante mille ducats par an."--_annales d'espagne et de portugal_; vol. ii., p. . this work is dated , but my copy is reprinted from another edition published earlier in the century. the older talavera ware, decorated, as a rule, with horses, birds, hunting-scenes, or coats of arms, is seldom met with nowadays. although it is not particularly choice, the drawing is firm, and the colouring vigorous and agreeable. i have said that pottery continued to be made in aragon, at muel, villafeliche, and other places. in course of time these local industries were also suffered to decay. laborde says that early in the nineteenth century the villafeliche factory employed thirty-eight workmen. "the ware is of a very inferior sort. this article might be carried to a greater extent. in several parts of the province, earth is found of an excellent quality for earthenware, particularly in zaragoza and in tauste; the latter affords the best, which is very fine, and of three colours, and would answer for the making of porcelain." in the eighteenth century toledo, upon the initiative of don ignacio velasco, produced good imitations of genoese ware, while other kinds of pottery were made at teruel, valladolid, jaen, zamora, segovia, puente del arzobispo, and in the balearic islands. another region which continued to be a most important centre of the potter's craft was cataluña, where it had always been encouraged by this thrifty and art-loving people. as early as the year two potters occupied a place upon the municipal council of barcelona, while the potters' guild was strictly regulated from the beginning of the fourteenth century.[ ] at the same time two whole streets in the centre of the town, as well as others in the suburbs, were occupied by potters. the ancient names of these streets are yet retained in the calles escudillers, escudillers blancs (white varnished pottery), obradors (where many of the potteries were situated), and tallers (_i.e._ the potteries for producing common ware). [ ] for a sketch of the origin and growth of the spanish trade guilds, see appendix h. the pottery of cataluña generally was largely exported to sicily, alexandria, and other parts. among the places in this region which produced it were tarragona, tortosa, and villafranca. in the municipal council of the capital herself forbade, as a protective measure, the introduction into barcelona of local pottery made at malgrat, la selva, and other towns and villages of this neighbourhood. in the portuguese barreyros declared in his work _chorografía de algunos lugares_ that the barcelona ware surpassed all other classes made in spain, including the valencian. she continued to produce good pottery all through the sixteenth century, and excellent common ware until considerably later.[ ] [ ] _historia general del arte._--vol. ii.: _cerámica_, by garcía llansó. about the beginning of the eighteenth century laborde mentioned as working centres of this craft "manufactories of delf-ware at avilés, gijón, oviedo, nava, and cangas de onis, in the asturias; at segovia in old castile; at puente del arzobispo and talavera de la reina in new castile; at seville in the kingdom of that name; at villafeliche in aragon; at onda, alcora, and manises, in the kingdom of valencia; at san andero in biscay; and at tortosa in cataluña.... the most important of these potteries is the one at alcora, the delf of which is tolerably fine, though not of the first quality. no china is made, except at alcora and madrid: that of the former place is very common, and inconsiderable as to quantity. the china manufactured at madrid is beautiful, and without exaggeration may be considered as equalling that of sèvres. it is a royal pottery; but it is impossible to give any description of its state, because admission to the interior of the manufactory is strictly prohibited." ricord states in his pamphlet relative to valencian industries that in factories of high-class pottery were working in the kingdom of valencia, at onda, alcora, ribesalves, manises, eslida, and bechí; and of common ware at san felipe, morella, manises, murviedro, alicante, moncada, orihuela, segorbe, and other towns and villages of this locality. in all, there were throughout the province eighty-seven of these latter potteries, besides two hundred and twenty tileries, and four factories of artistic tiles or _azulejos_ established at valencia. the yearly output of these _azulejerias_ was , tiles, , of which were exported to andalusia and castile. although the pottery of alcora only achieved distinction at a later age, this craft had long been practised in the neighbourhood. this circumstance induced the count of aranda to found here, in , a large factory for producing costly and artistic ware. riaño obtained permission to examine the archives of the family of aranda, with their mass of documents relating to this enterprise. his notice of alcora ware is therefore most complete and valuable, and has been copied, frequently without acknowledgment, by almost every writer on the subject. it appears from these archives that the cost of building and opening the factory of alcora amounted to about £ , . the works were placed beneath the supervision of don joaquín joseph de sayas, at the same time that a frenchman named ollery was engaged at a good salary and brought from moustiers to act as principal draughtsman. a couple of years later count aranda paid ollery the high compliment of saying that "the fine and numerous models which he has designed, have contributed to make my manufacture the first in spain." he seems to have retired in , when the count rewarded him with a yearly pension of five hundred francs besides the amount of his salary, "for his especial zeal in the improvement of the manufactory, and his great skill in directing the construction of every kind of work." riaño adds that from this date until the manufacture of porcelain in , only spanish artists worked at alcora. the products of this factory continued to improve, and reached, in course of time, a yearly total of about three hundred thousand objects. the ordinances, which are dated between and , tell us that "in these works of ours no pottery should be made except the very finest, similar to the chinese, and of as fine an earth. the models and wheels should be perfect, the drawing first-rate, the varnish and colours excellent, and the pottery light and of the highest quality, for it is our express wish that the best pottery should only be distinguished from that of an inferior kind by the greater or less amount of painting which covers it." not less interesting are certain communications, copied by riaño, which passed in between the spanish tribunal of commerce and the count of aranda, in which it is stated that "the perfection of the earthenware of alcora consists in the excellent models which have been made by competent foreign artists, as well as in the quality of the earth and the recipes brought at great cost from abroad." we learn from the same document that "from the earliest period of the manufacture, pyramids with figures of children, holding garlands of flowers and baskets of fruits on their heads, were made with great perfection; also brackets, centre and three-cornered tables, large objects, some as large as five feet high, to be placed upon them, chandeliers, cornucopias, statues of different kinds, and animals of different sorts and sizes. the entire ornamentation of a room has also been made here; the work is so perfect that nothing in spain, france, italy, or holland could equal it in merit." it is not necessary to follow in close detail all the modifications and vicissitudes (extending over quite a hundred years) which affected the alcora factory. i therefore only take some general notices from riaño. in count aranda transferred the works to a private company, which remained in possession of them until . in a frenchman named françois haly was engaged for ten years, and with a yearly salary of rather more than a thousand francs, under the following conditions:-- "that the travelling expenses of his wife and children should be given him, and that his salary should be paid as soon as he made before the director and two competent judges the different kinds of porcelain which he had undertaken to make." haly agreed to surrender his recipes, and it was promised him that he should have two modellers and one painter working by his side, and that if in one year his porcelain were satisfactory, the count would make him a present of a thousand _tornoises_.[ ] [ ] riaño; _handbook_; pp. , . porcelain was first produced at alcora towards the middle of the eighteenth century. a contract was drawn up on march th, , with a german called john christian knipfer, who had already worked there in the pottery section. by the original agreement, which exists in the archives, we find he was to prepare works of "porcelain and painting similar to those made at dresden, during a period of six years, under the following conditions:-- "that the said knipfer obliges himself to make and teach the apprentices the composition and perfection of porcelain paste, its varnishes, and colours, and whatever he may know at the present time, or discover during this period of six years; he is not to prevent the director of the works from being present at all the essays made. "the said knipfer offers to make and varnish porcelain, and to employ gold and silver in its decoration, and in that of the ordinary wares; likewise the colours of crimson, purple, violet, blues of different shades, yellow, greens, browns, reds, and black. "that knipfer will give up an account of his secrets, and the management and manner of using them, in order that in all times the truth of what he has asserted may be verified." [illustration: lxxi ornament in porcelain of the buen retiro] in a frenchman named françois martin was engaged to make "hard paste porcelain, japanese faïence, english paste (pipeclay), and likewise to mould and bake it: the necessary materials to be provided by the count of aranda." riaño says that the combined assistance of knipfer and martin went far to better the products of the factory. martin died in , and knipfer left soon afterwards. a frenchman was now engaged, whose services proved also beneficial to the works. this was pierre cloostermans, "a skilful man, well versed in the manufacture of porcelain pastes, as well as in painting and decorating them." cloostermans, however, was much molested by the envy of the spanish workmen at alcora, as well as by their typical intolerance in matters of religion, although the count, his master, behaved towards him with the utmost kindness. under his supervision, the quality of alcora ware was notably improved. figures and groups of many kinds were attempted, and even wedgwood jasper ware was creditably imitated. in , among other pottery that was sent to madrid were "two hard paste porcelain cups, adorned with low relief in the english style." the most important one was moulded by francisco garcés, the garlands and low reliefs by joaquín ferrer, sculptor, the flowers on the covers by an apprentice, helped by cloostermans. dated in the same year ( ), riaño quotes an interesting letter from the count of aranda to don pedro abadia, his steward. "i wish," he said, "to export the porcelain of my manufactory, but chiefly in common objects, such as cups of different kinds, tea and coffee services, etc. these may be varied in form and colour, the principal point being that the paste should bear hot liquids, for we spaniards above everything wish that nothing we buy should ever break. by no means let time be wasted in making anything that requires much loss of time. the chief object is that the pastes should be of first-rate excellence and durability." in cloostermans was driven from the country by political disturbances; but he was allowed to return in , and resumed his duties at the factory. all through these years alcora continued to make most excellent pottery. essays were made with foreign earths, as well as with the best that could be found in spain. about this time kaolin was discovered in cataluña, and the count was particularly anxious that this native product should be utilised at alcora. "the kaolin of cataluña," he wrote in , "may be good or bad, but it is acknowledged to be kaolin, and if we do not employ it i must close my works." the count of aranda and pierre cloostermans both died in , and in the duke of hijar became the manager and proprietor of the potteries. "two hundred workmen were employed, and pottery of every description was made, common earthenware, pipeclays in imitation of the english ones, and porcelain in small quantities; common wares were made in large quantities; the pipeclays were pronounced superior to the english in brilliancy, but were so porous that they were easily stained. a large number of snuff-boxes and other small objects belong to this period."--(riaño.) in the early years of the nineteenth century alcora ware deteriorated not a little. this decline was further aggravated by the french invasion; and although an attempt was subsequently made to revive the industry by bringing craftsmen from the porcelain factory of madrid, it suffered fresh relapses and produced henceforward little but the commonest kinds of ware. "this system," says riaño, "continued until , when the duke of hijar sold the manufactory to don ramón girona, who brought over english workmen from staffordshire in order to improve the wares. many imitations of the older styles have also been made at alcora of late years." riaño appends instructive tables, which i copy in appendix i, of every kind of pottery manufactured at alcora. he also believes that a great deal of pottery which was formerly thought to proceed from french or english factories is really of alcora make, including "a great quantity of objects of white pipeclay porcelain which have been found of late years in spain. they have hitherto been classified by amateurs as leeds pottery. we find, in papers relating to alcora, that a decided distinction is made between white and straw-coloured pottery. this indication may be sufficient to distinguish it from english wares." the celebrated royal porcelain factory of the buen retiro at madrid, formerly situated in the public gardens of that name and popularly known as the "fabrica de la china," was founded in by charles the third, who erected a vast edifice for this purpose, and filled it with a multitude of workmen and their families, including two hundred and twenty-five persons whom he brought over from his other factory of capo-di-monte in italy. he also transferred a great part of the material.[ ] the cost of the new works amounted to eleven and a half millions of _reales_, and they were terminated in . the cost of keeping up the factory is stated by larruga to have amounted to three millions of _reales_ yearly. the first directors were juan tomás bonicelli and domingo bonicelli, and the first modellers-in-chief and superintendents, possessing the secrets of the fabrication (_secretistas_), were cayetano schepers and carlos gricci. [ ] on september th, , the king wrote to his secretary of state, richard wall:--"the workmen and utensils of the royal porcelain manufactory of capo-di-monte must also be sent from naples to alicante, in the vessels prepared for this purpose, in order to proceed from alicante to madrid. the necessary conveyances are to be provided, and the expenses to be charged to his majesty's account." riaño says that every kind of porcelain was made at the buen retiro, "hard and soft paste, white china, glazed or unglazed, or painted and modelled in the style of capo-di-monte." a great many objects existed imitating the blue jasper ware of wedgwood, and they also made flowers, coloured and biscuit, groups (pl. lxxi.), and single figures, and painted porcelain of different kinds. great quantities of tiles for pavements were also made there, which may still be seen at the casa del labrador at aranjuez: they are mentioned in the accounts which exist at the ministry of finance for and . we find in these same accounts interesting details of the objects made monthly. in january, , a large number of figures were made, including heads for the table centre which was made for the king, objects ornamented with paintings, tiles, objects of less artistic importance, such as dishes, plates, etc. the finest specimens which exist are in the neapolitan style, and are two rooms at the palaces of madrid and aranjuez, of which the walls are completely covered with china plaques and looking-glasses, modelled in the most admirable manner with figures, fruits, and flowers. the room at aranjuez is covered with a bold ornamentation of figures in the japanese style, in high relief, painted with colours and gold with the most exquisite details. the figures unite the fine italian modelling with the japanese decoration. the chandelier is in the same style (plate lxxii.). upon a vase on the wainscot to the right of the entrance door is the following inscription:-- joseph gricci delineav^{it} et scul^{it} . this same date is repeated in the angles, and in some shields near the roof we find, "aÑo ; probably the year the work was terminated." [illustration: lxxii room decorated with porcelain of the buen retiro (_royal palace of aranjuez_)] the earliest mark upon the buen retiro porcelain was a blue fleur-de-lis, to which were subsequently added the letter m and a royal crown. still later, in the reign of charles the fourth, the mark used was a fleur-de-lis with two crossed c's. the object of the buen retiro factory was almost wholly to supply the crown with costly ware, and would-be visitors were jealously excluded. townsend wrote in : "i tried to obtain admission to the china manufacture, which is likewise administered on the king's account, but his majesty's injunctions are so severe, that i could neither get introduced to see it, nor meet with anyone who had ever been able to procure that favour for himself. i was the less mortified upon this occasion, because from the specimens which i have seen, both in the palace at madrid and in the provinces, it resembles the manufacture of sèvres, which i had formerly visited in a tour through france." laborde also complained that the factory was "wholly inaccessible: all entrance to it is interdicted, and its existence is only ascertained by the exhibition which is made of its productions in the royal palace." the same writer refers to another class of work which was produced here, namely, stone mosaic. "the process by which stone is wrought into pictures is as delicate as it is curious: a selection is made from marble fragments of various shades and dimensions, which are found, by judicious assimilation, to produce no bad resemblance to painting." jean françois de bourgoing, french minister at madrid, was lucky enough, in , to penetrate into the factory and view the process. "le monarque actuel," he wrote, "a établi dans leur intérieur une fabrique de porcelaine, dont l'entrée est jusqu'à présent interdite à tout le monde. on veut sans doute que ses essais se perfectionnent dans le silence, avant de les exposer aux regards des curieux. ses productions ne peuvent encore se voir que dans les palais du souverain, ou dans quelques cours d'italie, auxquelles il les envoie en présens. on travaille dans le même édifice à certains ouvrages de marqueterie, qui sont encore peu connus en europe. j'y pénétrai un jour, sous les auspices d'un étranger distingué en faveur duquel le roi avoit levé la prohibition rigoureuse, qui en exclut tout le monde. je suis témoin de la patience and de l'adresse avec lesquelles on taille and on rapproche divers petits morceaux de marbre coloré, pour en former des tableaux assez compliqués, qui en faisant à-peu-près le même effet que la peinture, ont sur elle l'avantage de braver par leur couleur immortelles les ravages du temps, qui n'épargnent pas les plus belles productions de cet art."[ ] [ ] _nouveau voyage en espagne_; vol. i., pp. , . this factory was not long-lived. until it followed the styles of the older establishment at capo-di-monte, uniting neo-classic motives with the manner of baroque. in that year it began to produce porcelain imitating that of sèvres, and two frenchmen, vivien and victor perche, were brought from paris to superintend this change. "among the finest specimens of this period," says riaño, "are a splendid clock and four vases, two mètres high, with porcelain flowers, which exist in one of the state rooms of the palace of madrid. the vases are placed in the four corners of the room. the clock is ornamented with large biscuit figures. a large number of vases of retiro china exist at the royal palaces of madrid, aranjuez, and the escorial. they are often finely mounted in gilt bronze with muslin or porcelain flowers. the blue of the imitations of wedgwood is not so pure, nor is the biscuit work so fine as the english. gold is often added to these specimens." [illustration: lxxiii porcelain of the moncloa factory] nevertheless, this manufacture was by now decadent. it had suffered severely from the death of charles the third, and upon the french invasion in was seized by the enemy and occupied by them for several months. during the reign of the "_intruso_," joseph buonaparte, porcelain was still produced to some extent; but by the time of the peninsular campaign the works had practically ceased. "near this quarter," wrote ford, describing the retiro gardens, towards the middle of last century, "was _la china_, or the royal porcelain manufactory, that was destroyed by the invaders, and made by them into a fortification, which surrendered, with two hundred cannon, august th, , to the duke. it was blown up october th, by lord hill, when the misconduct of ballesteros compelled him to evacuate madrid. now _la china_ is one of the standing spanish and _afrancesado_ calumnies against us, as it is stated that we, the english, destroyed this manufactory from commercial jealousy, because it was a rival to our potteries. 'what can be done (as the duke said) with such libels but despise them. there is no end of the calumnies against me and the army, and i should have no time to do anything else if i were to begin either to refute or even to notice them?' (disp., oct. , .) these china potsherds and similar inventions of the enemy shivered against his iron power of conscious superiority. "the real plain _truth_ is this. the french broke the _ollas_, and converted this sèvres of madrid into a bastile, which, and not the pipkins, was destroyed by the english, who now, so far from dreading any spanish competition, have actually introduced their system of pottery; and accordingly very fair china is now made at madrid and seville, and by english workmen. at the latter place a convent, also converted by soult into a citadel, is now made a hardware manufactory by our countryman, mr pickman. ferdinand the seventh, on his restoration, re-created _la china_, removing the workshops and warerooms to la moncloa, once a villa of the alva family on the manzanares." this factory of la moncloa was founded in , and it continued working until . a specimen of the moncloa ware is reproduced in plate lxxiii. outside the royal palaces of spain, the buen retiro porcelain is scarce. the choicest collections which are not the property of the crown belong, or have belonged till recently, to the marquis of arcicollar, the count of valencia de don juan, and don francisco laiglesia. [illustration] glass small vessels of uncoloured glass, belonging to the celtic period, have been discovered in galicia; so that the origin of this industry in spain is possibly pre-roman. after the conquest glass was made here by the romans,[ ] who built their ovens with a celebrated argil (potter's earth) extracted from the neighbourhood of valencia or tortosa. the roman glass was doubtless imitated by the native spaniards: at least we know from observations by saint isidore that this substance was quite familiar to the visigoths. "olim fiebat et in italia, et per gallias, et hispaniam arena alba mollissima pila mola qua terebatur." the same author speaks with admiration of coloured glass-work imitating precious stones. "tingitur etiam multis modis, ita ut hyacinthos, saphirosque et virides imitetur et oniches vel aliarum gemmarum colores"; and again; "fingunt enim eas ex diverso genere nigro, candido, minioque colore. nam pro lapide pretiosissimo smaragdo quidam vitrum arte inficiunt, et fallit oculos sub dolo quadam falsa irriditas quoadusque non est qui probet simulatum et arguat: sic et alia alio atque alio modo. neque enim est sine fraude ulla vita mortalium." we gather from these statements that coloured glass in imitation of the genuine precious stone was freely manufactured by the visigoths. such imitations, justifying by their excellence saint isidore's assertion that "vera a falsis discernere magna difficultas est," may still be seen upon the crowns and other ornaments discovered at guarrazar (see vol. i., pp. - ), as well as upon triptyches and weapons. indeed, a taste for imitation jewels forms an inherent trait of spanish character, and is discoverable at all moments of the national history. travellers have constantly observed it, and the remarks, already quoted, of countess d'aulnoy, are confirmed by other authors. "in the broken banks south of the river," wrote swinburne of the manzanares at madrid, "are found large quantities of pebbles, called diamonds of saint isidro. they cut them like precious stones, and ladies of the first fashion wear them in their hair as pins, or on their fingers as rings. they have little or no lustre, and a very dead glassy water. the value of the best rough stone does not exceed a few pence." [ ] "jam vero et per gallias hispaniasque simili modo harenæ temperantur."--pliny, bk. xxxvi; chap. . the chief centres of glass-making were tarragona, several towns of betica (andalusia), and the balearic islands. it is chiefly in the form of imitation gems that specimens of the earliest spanish glass have been preserved until our time,[ ] although the characteristic of old roman glass which is known in italian as the _lattocinio_ or "milk-white" ornament, in the form of a thread or line carried all over the surface of a vessel, remains until this day a common feature of the glass of spain, besides being found in spanish-moorish glass-work. [ ] the distinction which riaño attempts to draw between glass and glass paste is unsatisfactory. he remarks, too, that the manufacture of glass _may_ have existed in spain at an earlier period than the last three centuries, but continues: "the earliest mention of glass-works in spain will be found in pliny, who, while explaining the proceedings which were employed in this industry, says that glass was made in a similar manner in france and spain." rico y sinobas says that the rules for cutting glass by means of a diamond or _naife_ (as it was once called) are embodied in a treatise titled _el lapidario_, originally written (perhaps in the fourth, fifth, or sixth century) in hebrew, and which was brought to spain some two or three hundred years later. this treatise was translated into arabic by one abolais, who lived at some time previous to the thirteenth century, and subsequently (in the year , and by command of alfonso the learned) into the castilian language. mixed up with a great deal of fabulous and fantastic matter, this treatise contains instructive and interesting notices of the composition and the colouring of old glass, including that of spain. one of such notices is the following. "of the eleventh degree of the sign of sagittarius is the glass stone, containing a substance which is a body in itself (sand), and another which is added to it (salt), and when they clean these substances and draw them from the fire, they make between the two a single body. the stone thus made (glass) has many colours. sometimes it is white (and this is nobler and better than the others), or sometimes it is red, or green, or _xade_ (a dark, burnt colour), or purple. it is a stone which readily melteth in the fire, but which, when drawn therefrom, turneth again to its former substance: and if it be drawn from the flame unseasonably, and without cooling it little by little, it snappeth asunder. and it receiveth readily whatever colour be placed upon it. and if an animal be hurt therewith, it openeth as keen a wound as though it were of iron." the treatise also describes a stone called _ecce_, which was used in glassmaking, saying that it was found in spain, "in a mountain, not of great height, which overlooks the town of arraca, and is called secludes. and the stone is of an intense black colour, spotted with yellow drops. it is shiny and porous, brittle, and of light weight ... and if it be ground up with honey, and the glass be smeared with it and submitted to the fire, it dyes the glass of a beautiful gold colour, and makes it stronger than it was before, so that it does not melt so readily, or snap asunder with such ease." i have said that the power of a diamond to cut glass is referred to in the same work, which further tells us that this gem "breaketh all other kind of stones, boring holes in them or cutting them, and no other stone is able to bruise it; nay more, it powdereth all other stones if it be rubbed upon them ... and such as seek to cut or perforate those other stones take portions of a diamond, small and slender and sharp-pointed, and mount them on slips of silver or of copper, and with them make the holes or cuttings they require. thus do they grave and carve intaglios." all these branches of glassmaking were therefore practised by the spaniards from an early period of their history. this people were also familiar with the use of emery powder, of talc applied to covering windows, and of rock crystal. we read in the translation of abolais that crystal at that time was "found in many parts, albeit the finest is that of ethiopia. the substance which composes it is frozen water, petrified. and the proof of this is that when it is broken, small grains are discovered to be within, that made their entry as it was becoming stone (crystallizing); or again, in some of it is found what seems to be clear water. and it possesses two qualities in which it is distinct from every other stone: for when crystal is heated it receiveth any colouring that is applied to it, and is wrought with greater ease, besides being melted by fire; insomuch that it can be made into any shape desired; and if this shape be round, and the stone be set in the sun, it burneth anything inflammable that be set before it: yet does it not effect this by any virtue of its own, but by _the clearness of its substance_, and by the sunbeams which beat upon it, and by the roundness of its form." we seem to foreshadow here, clearly enough, the application of this substance to making glasses to assist the sight, especially when the author of the treatise adds that on looking through the crystal, the human eye discovers "details of the greatest beauty, and things that are secreted from the simple (_i.e._ the unaided) vision." rico y sinobas (who possessed a fine collection of antique glass, spanish and non-spanish) inclined to think that in the time of the romans the finest and strongest glass, as well as the costliest and the most sought after, was that which was manufactured in spain. in early times the chief centres of spanish glass-making were situated in the heart of the peninsula (where now is new castile), in the neighbourhood of tortosa, and in certain districts lying between the pyrenees and the coast of cataluña, though subsequently the practice of this craft extended through the kingdoms of valencia and murcia, and the valleys of ollería, salinas, busot, and the rio almanzora, forming a zone which reached from cape creus to cape gata. other regions in which the craft was introduced, apparently at a later epoch, were those of the mediterranean littoral, cuenca, toledo, avila, segovia, and other parts of new castile, as far as the slopes of the sierra de guadarrama. in the rest of the peninsula there is not the slightest indication (excepting an obscure reference by strabo, to vessels and receptacles of _wax_) that glass was made during the roman domination of the country, either in andalusia, lusitania (portugal), or in the northern regions of cantabria. rico y sinobas has described a spanish glass-oven of those primitive times. he says that such as were used for making objects of a fair size consisted of three compartments resting one upon the other; the lowest cylindrical, to hold the fire and ashes, the next with a domed top, for concentrating the heat, and the third and uppermost, which also had a domed top, for holding the pieces of glass that were set to cool by slow degrees. the wall of the oven contained a number of openings, which served, according to the level at which they were situated, for controlling the fire, adjusting the crucibles, or extracting, by means of metal rods, the lumps of molten glass, previously to submitting them to the action of the blowpipe. the dimensions of such of these primitive ovens as have been found in spain or italy, are nine feet in height by six feet in diameter, and the material of which they are built is argil, of a kind insensible to heat, and carefully freed by washing from all foreign, soluble, or inflammable substances. the crucibles, which were fitted in the oven two, four, or at most six at a time, were of this argil also, wrought and purified with even greater care. ovens and crucibles of a smaller size were used for making diminutive objects such as beads and imitation precious stones.[ ] [ ] rico y sinobas, _del vidrio y de sus artifices en españa (almanaque del museo de la industria_, ). almería was probably the most important centre of spanish-moorish glass-making, and is mentioned in connection with this craft by al-makkari. the oriental shape of the older vessels which were made in this locality is still preserved in certain objects such as jars, bowls, flasks, and _aguardiente_-bottles, which are still manufactured, or were so until quite recently, throughout a region extending from almería to the slopes of the alpujarra. "all these objects," says riaño, "are decorated with a serrated ornamentation of buttons, trellis-work, and the lines to which i have already alluded, which were placed there after the object was made, in the roman style. the paste is generally of a dark green colour, and when we find these same features in vessels of clear white glass, we may affirm that they are contemporary imitations made at cadalso or elsewhere, for they are very seldom to be met with in the provinces of almería and granada, and are generally found at toledo and other localities; it is, moreover, a common condition of oriental art that its general form complies with a geometrical tracery, and we never find, as in italian works of art, forms and capricious ornamentations which interfere with the symmetry of the general lines, and sacrifice them to the beauty of the whole." none of the original moorish glass of the alhambra has survived till nowadays. most of it was destroyed by the explosion, in the year , 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,[ ] 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. [ ] oliver, _granada y sus monumentos árabes_. 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. 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 , 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,[ ] 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." [ ] the inventory (a.d. ) of the dukes of alburquerque mentions "a white box with four small bottles of valencia glass containing ointment for the hands." other objects specified in this inventory are "a large glass cup, with two lizards for handles, and two more lizards on the cover"; "three glass cocoanuts, partly coloured and with gold blown into them, together with their covers"; and "a large glass cup, of barcelona, blown with gold." the value of these cups, if they existed now, would not be less than two or three hundred pounds apiece. 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. [illustration: 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 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 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. [illustration: lxxv vessels of catalan glass (_from drawings by the author_)] an important development of this craft was the manufacture of coloured glass for churches and cathedrals. in the peninsula, the earliest introducers of this branch of glass-making were principally natives of germany, france, and flanders, who came to spain at the beginning of the fifteenth century.[ ] many of the oldest windows executed by these foreigners, or by the spaniards who were taught by them, are still existing in the cathedrals of león, toledo, burgos, barcelona, and the seo of zaragoza. león has several windows which date from as far back as the thirteenth century, and in which the glass is in small pieces, arranged as though it were mosaic. some of the later and larger windows in the same cathedral are thirty-five feet high, and one, dating from the sixteenth century, is believed to have been presented to this temple by mary of england, prior to her marriage with philip the second. [ ] before this time, however, aymerich had written, in or about the year , that sixty large windows in santiago cathedral were closed by glass, which probably was coloured. we also hear of francisco socoma, who made or fitted windows of coloured glass at palma, in the island of majorca, in , and of guillermo de collivella, who, in , fitted at lerida the glass which had been coloured for the cathedral of that town by juan de san-amat. it was, however, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that the custom became general, in spain as in other lands, of colouring the surface of white glass by partial fusing--a process which is mentioned in the treatise of abolais, to which i have referred repeatedly. between the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries the coloured windows of spanish temples were still composed of pieces of glass united in the manner of mosaic, forming ornamental patterns of stars and similar devices; but subsequently to this period the decorative themes are said to be painted _en caballete_, and consist of figures, or the representation of scenes from scripture. in spain, and dating from the twelfth century, the workshops for preparing this coloured glass were commonly situated within the precincts of important temples, such as toledo cathedral, or else, as was the case at burgos, in separate buildings and _dependencias_. here, in the square ovens characteristic of that age, and before it was mounted in the ponderous leaden frame, the glass was coloured with exquisite solicitude and patience by the hand of the master-craftsman, sometimes with a colour upon one of its surfaces alone, sometimes with the same colour upon both, or sometimes with a different colour upon either surface. the cartoons from which such windows were constructed, and which were often designed by painters of renown, were usually three in number. the first contained, upon a reduced scale, a coloured outline of the window; the second, drawn to the exact scale of the window as it was to be, was composed of all the pieces cut out and numbered according to the various colours; and the third, also of the projected size of the window, was kept complete, to serve as a pattern in case the window should suffer any accident, and require to be restored or mended. not one of these cartoons is known to be preserved to-day, but rico y sinobas points out that from the strong and simple character of their colouring and outline, the illuminated illustrations of spanish thirteenth century manuscripts, such as the _cantigas_, and the _book of chess_ of alfonso the learned, may well have been utilized for, or else be copied from, glass windows of that period. as soon as the cartoon was finished, the window-painter traced it upon the surface of the glass. this was in square pieces, fitted conveniently together, with sufficient space between the pieces to allow the passage of the leads. before being laid upon the glass and being submitted to the fixing action of fire, the colours were mixed with honey, urine, vinegar, and other fluids or substances which served as mediums to attach the colour to the glass. thus prepared, and in the form of powder, the colours were allowed to dry for two or three days before the glass was placed in the oven. yellow, which was the strongest colour, and that which penetrated deepest beneath the surface of the glass, was made from certain combinations of silver and nitrate of potash, while oxides or other forms of copper, lead, iron, tin, silver, and manganese, were used for making black, white, red, green, blue, purple, violet, or flesh-colour. these colours penetrated the glass to the depth of about half a millimetre; but sometimes, after the colour had been applied, the craftsman would submit the glass to friction by a wooden polisher or wheel, thus giving it an appearance of greater clearness and transparency at any spot he might desire. among the artists who produced the coloured windows of león cathedral were master joan de arge (a.d. ), master baldovín, and rodrigo de ferreras. those of toledo date from early in the fifteenth century, and were made by albert of holland, vasco troya, luis pedro francés, juan de campos, and others, including the eminent dolfín, who, according to cean, began to work here in , by order of the archbishop, don sancho de rojas. the documents collected and published for the first time by zarco del valle tell us that on march nd, , dolfín received from alfonso martinez, treasurer and superintendent of works, two hundred gold florins and certain other moneys on account of his total payment of four hundred gold florins for "the eighth window he is making for the head of the cathedral." other certificates of payment relating to maestre dolfín (as he always signed himself) are included in the same collection. by he was "defunct, god pardon him!" and the windows he had left unfinished were terminated by his assistant lois (louis).[ ] [ ] _documentos inéditos para la historia de las bellas artes en españa_, p. _et seq._ in , and also at toledo, a friar named pablo began to repair the painted windows of the _crucero_. his pay was fixed by the "abbot and superintendent of works" at fifty _maravedis_ each day, and that of "his lads, ximeno and juanico," at one half of this amount. other artists engaged in the same work were pablo (not the friar just referred to), peter, a german, and "master henry," who was also german. pablo received authority to purchase ten and a half _quintales_ and thirteen pounds of coloured flemish glass, at two thousand _maravedis_ for each _quintal_. by a contract dated (he died between and ), master henry was handed by the cathedral authorities a sum of , _maravedis_ "to proceed to flanders or any other part he may desire, and where good glass is to be found, white, blue, green, scarlet, purple, yellow, or blackish (_prieto_), equal in thickness to the sample which he bears, and bring us thence such quantity as he has need of for the windows of our cathedral." it is evident from this notice that spain was then unable to produce the finest quality of glass. with such as he brought with him from abroad, henry engaged to fashion "every kind of figure, image, scroll, and other object whatsoever be commanded him, according to the place it is to fill; the colours of the glass to be well mingled and distributed." he was also to make "the leaden casings stout and deep, so as to embrace and hold the glass aforesaid, that it may resist the air and wind." in return for this, he was to be supplied with an erected scaffolding, with all the chalk and iron he might require, and with the proper number of assistants, receiving, in payment of his labour, one hundred and fifteen _maravedis_ for every square palm of glass the preparation of which should satisfy the superintendent and examiners of works. one of the witnesses to this document was henry's wife, maría maldonada, who came forward to affix her signature "with the license and pleasure of the aforesaid master enrique, her husband." in , master juan (perhaps the same as joan de arge, already mentioned) began to work at the windows of burgos, where, later in this century, he was succeeded by juan de valdivieso and diego de santillana. we learn from the _documentos inéditos_ (pp. , ) that santillana lived at burgos, and that, on may st, , he contracted to make three "historical windows" for the monastery of san francisco, at a price of ninety-five _maravedis_ for each palm of glass, this to be "of good colours and shades," and "measured by the burgos standard." two other contracts are preserved, signed by the same craftsman and both relating to palencia. by one of them santillana is to receive for six "storied windows," the subjects of which are specified, ninety-five _maravedis_ the palm, besides the scaffolding and his house and coals. arnao de flandes (arnold of flanders) was appointed master glass-painter to burgos cathedral in . other glass-painters who worked here in the sixteenth century were francisco de valdivieso, gaspar cotin, juan de arce, his son juan and grandson pedro, and, in the seventeenth century, valentin ruiz, francisco alonso, simon ruiz, and francisco alcalde. most of the windows made by all these men have been destroyed by time and weather, and have been replaced by barren panes of white; but a few fine specimens of the original work may yet be seen in the chapels of the presentation, the constable, and san jerónimo. perhaps the most remarkable of any is the rose-window, above the puerta del sarmental.[ ] [ ] in the monastery of miraflores, near this city, the queen of ferdinand the catholic built, at her expense, a rich pantheon to guard the ashes of her parents and her brother. the coloured glass was made by simon of cologne. one day, while visiting miraflores, isabella noticed upon the windows of this sanctuary the shield of a gentleman named martin de soria. furious at the liberty thus taken with a fabric of her own, "afferte mihi gladium" she called in latin to one of her attendants, and, raising the sword, dashed the offending window into a thousand pieces, crying that in that spot she would allow no arms but those of her father. other good cathedral windows prior to the sixteenth century are those of avila, which date from about the year , and were executed by diego de santillana, juan de valdivieso, and other artists; those of the seo of zaragoza, by the catalans terri and jayme romeu ( ); and some at barcelona, painted in by gil fontanet. it is, however, in the sixteenth century that spanish ecclesiastical window-glass attains its highest grade of excellence.[ ] dating from this century are windows in toledo cathedral, painted in by vasco de troya, in by alejo jiménez, in by gonzalo de córdoba (these are considered by competent judges to be the finest of any), in by juan de la cuesta, in by juan campos, in by albert of holland, in by juan de ortega, and in by nicolás vergara the elder.[ ] in ortega was engaged to repair the damaged or broken panes at a yearly salary of , _maravedis_. where the panes were wanting, he was to replace them by new ones painted by his hand, receiving, for each _palmo_ of new glass so painted, an extra payment of ninety _maravedis_.[ ] [ ] señor lázaro, who has recently made at madrid windows for león cathedral imitating those of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, remarks that with the sixteenth century the process grew more complicated, patterns composed with pieces of a single colour being replaced by glass containing a variety of tints. he has also discovered the following usage of the older spanish craftsmen: "by way of furnishing a key to their arrangement, all the pieces used to be marked with the point of a diamond, and this mark indicates the tone the glass requires for such and such a part of the design. the signs most often employed were three, namely x, l, and v, for red, blue and yellow respectively, intermediate tones being shown by combinations of these letters--xl, lv, xv, with "lines of unities" placed before or after to indicate the necessary gradation in the tone." [ ] this artist painted a series of magnificent windows representing scenes from the life of san pedro nolasco, for the convent of la piedad, at valencia. [ ] zarco del valle, _documentos inéditos, etc._, pp. _et seq._ in the same century the windows of seville cathedral, begun some years previously (cean says in ) by micer cristóbal alemán ("master christopher the german"), were continued by masters jacobo, juan juan vivan, juan bernai, bernardino de gelandia, juan jaques, arnold of flanders ( ), arnao de vergara ( ), charles of bruges, ( ), and vicente menandro ( ).[ ] in diego de valdivieso, and in pedro de valdivieso and gerald of holland, painted windows for cuenca cathedral. in the same work was done at palencia by diego de salcedo, and in george of burgundy, "master in the art of glass," then resident at burgos, proceeded to the same town and engaged to renew the cathedral windows at a cost of a hundred _maravedis_ for every palm of coloured glass, and fifty for every palm of plain.[ ] [ ] according to cean (_la catedral de sevilla_), menandro painted in the conversion of saint paul on a window in the chapel of santiago, in another window with the scene of the annunciation, over the gate of san miguel, and in the companion to it, representing the visitation, over the puerta del bautismo. "in all these windows," wrote cean, prejudiced, as was customary in his day, in favour of the strictly classic style, "the drawing, pose, and composition are good, _although_ in the draperies and figures we observe the influence of germany." in cean's own time--that is, towards the close of the eighteenth century--the coloured windows of seville cathedral amounted to ninety-three, five of which were circular, and the rest with the pointed gothic arch. the dimensions of the latter are twenty-eight feet high by twelve feet broad, and the subjects painted on them include the likenesses of prophets, patriarchs, martyrs, confessors, and virgins, or scenes from the new testament, such as the rising of lazarus, christ driving the merchants from the temple, the last supper, and the anointing by mary magdalene. [ ] zarco del valle, _documentos inéditos_, p. in , sixty-two windows in the nave of segovia cathedral were filled with painted glass prepared chiefly at valladolid and medina del campo, though some was brought from flanders. the remaining windows were left unfilled till , in which year a canon of the cathedral, named tomás de la plaza aguirre, succeeded in rediscovering a formula for the practise of this craft, and the panes yet needed were made and coloured at valdequemada by juan danis, under plaza aguirre's supervision. thirty-three additional windows were completed from this factory. according to lecea y garcía, the chapter of segovia cathedral possess, or possessed for many years, two curious manuscripts relating severally to _the painting of glass windows_, by francisco herranz, and _glass-making_, by juan danis--the same who owned and worked the factory at valdequemada. these interesting treatises were examined by bosarte, who has described them. he says that the one on glass-making consisted of twenty-three sheets of clear writing, and the one on glass-painting of eight sheets; both manuscripts being in quarto size. the latter contained, distributed beside the text, sketches of the various instruments required for this craft. the other and longer monograph consisted of the following chapters:--( ) how to draw upon glass. ( ) how to cut glass. ( ) how to paint and shade glass. ( ) of the substances and ingredients for painting glass. ( ) how to give a flesh-colour to glass. ( ) how to give a yellow or golden colour to white or pale blue glass, but no other. ( ) how to fire glass. ( ) how to make the glass-oven. windows were painted in the cathedral of palma de mallorca by sebastián danglés in and by juan jordá in , in that of málaga by octavio valerio in , and in those of tarragona and avila respectively, by juan guasch in , and by pierre de chiberri in . this craftsman was undoubtedly a foreigner. the following entry which concerns him is quoted by rosell de torres from the _libro de fábrica_ of segovia cathedral: "by order of the canon juan rodriguez, on the twelfth day of august, i paid to pierre de chiberri, master-maker of window-glass, the sum of , _maravedis_, , for the casings of seven large windows with their side-windows--in all twenty-one casings--besides ten casings for the windows of the lower chapels, containing altogether mmmccccxcvi palms, amounting at ten _maravedis_ the palm to the aforesaid , maravedis: also , _maravedis_ for ccclxxii palms of glass for the said chapels at a _real_ and a half each palm, plus _maravedis_ for certain glass which had yet to be measured because it was in the skylights. the total sum amounts to the aforesaid , _maravedis_."[ ] [ ] isidoro rosell de torres, _las vidrieras pintadas en españa_ (published in the _museo español de antigüedades_). during the seventeenth century, glass-work of various kinds continued to be produced upon a large scale at barcelona, mataró, gerona, cuenca, toledo, valmaqueda, and seville. in the duke of villahermosa established a glass factory at san martin de valdeiglesias, and placed it under the direction of a native of namur named diodonet lambot, aided by various other artists from the netherlands. in lambot was succeeded by santiago vandoleto, who proved incompetent, and caused, in , the total stoppage of the factory. i have said that glass was made at medina del campo, in the province of valladolid. pinheiro da veiga's _pincigraphia_, written at the beginning of the seventeenth century, contains an interesting notice of this glassware. "really, the glass-work of valladolid is most beautiful, and worth going to see if only for the pleasure of its contemplation. there are objects of considerable size, such as (glass) pitchers of every form and colour. others are called _penados_, and are of a syphon shape, pouring out water in small quantities.[ ] besides this there are all manner of cunningly contrived retorts such as we never see in lisbon, and yet in valladolid their cost is only moderate.... the principal shops for selling these and porcelain are two in number, and the prices are the same as in portugal." [ ] "_penado._ a narrow-mouthed vessel that affords the liquor with scantiness and difficulty." connelly and higgins' dictionary; a.d. . two very important spanish glass factories were founded in the eighteenth century. the first, which was under crown protection, was established by don juan goyeneche in the year at a place called nuevo baztán, in the province of toledo. the royal privilege allowed this factory to produce "all articles of glass up to a height of twenty inches, working and polishing the same, embellishing, and coating them with metal; to make looking-glasses and similar ornaments, glass vessels of all descriptions, white glass for window-panes, and glass objects of any kind or shape, whether already known to us, or that may be invented in the future." the factory of nuevo baztán continued working for some years, and turned out excellent glass for exportation to america and other parts; but it was killed eventually by the rising price of fuel, and above all by competition from abroad. "when the foreigners," says larruga in his _memorias políticas y económicas_, "saw that the factory was in full swing, they conspired to bring about its ruin, and begged their ambassadors to communicate against it with the ministers; but finding this of no avail, and recognising the importance to themselves of overthrowing this manufacture, they decided to sell glassware at a price at which it would be impossible to sell the products of nuevo baztán. the amount of this reduction was the one-third part of the entire value. by this means the foreigners made it impossible for the factory to support itself, since the objects it produced were laid away and found no purchaser for years. this, and the cost of the wood required to keep the ovens burning day and night, not excepting feast-days (for to stop the fires for a moment would have meant the spoiling of the oven), induced the downfall of this celebrated factory, as soon as the fuel of all the neighbouring forests had been consumed." nevertheless, upon the closing of these works, one of the experts who had been employed there, a catalan named ventura sit, attracted by the forests of valsain and the excellent and abundant sand obtainable in this locality--principally from near the villages of espirdo and bernuy de porreros--decided to open another glass-works at la granja. here is the royal summer residence of san ildefonso, and sit was fortunate enough to secure at the outset--that is, in --the firm protection of philip the fifth and of his consort, isabel farnese. instructed by the sovereigns to make some mirrors, he produced these objects of a moderate size at first, increasing it, after the year , to a maximum length of inches by in breadth. larruga says that these mirrors were the largest produced anywhere at that time, and they continued to be made until very nearly the end of the century. they are often referred to in the narratives of travellers. swinburne wrote in : "not far from carthagena is a place called almazaron, where they gather a fine red earth called almagra, used in the manufactures of saint ildephonso, for polishing looking-glasses. in seville, it is worked up with the tobacco, to give it a colour, fix its volatility, and communicate to it that softness which constitutes the principal merit of spanish snuff." describing the royal palace at madrid, the same author says that the walls of the great audience-chamber "are incrustated with beautiful marble, and all round hung with large plates of looking-glass in rich frames. the manufactory of glass is at saint ildefonso, where they cast them of a very great size; but i am told they are apt to turn out much rougher and more full of flaws than those of france." according to townsend ( ), "the glass manufacture is here carried to a degree of perfection unknown in england. the largest mirrors are made in a brass frame, one hundred and sixty-two inches long, ninety-three wide, and six deep, weighing near nine tons. these are designed wholly for the royal palaces, and for presents from the king. yet even for such purposes the factory is ill-placed, and proves a devouring monster in a country where provisions are dear, fuel scarce, and carriage exceedingly expensive." laborde wrote of the same factory a few years later: "there is also a glass-house, in which bottles are wrought of a superior quality; and white glasses, which are carved with much ingenuity (plates lxxvi. and lxxvii.). near this glass-house has been founded a manufactory for mirrors, in a large and well-arranged edifice. there are two furnaces, and a considerable number of stoves, in which the plates are left to cool after they have been precipitated. they are of all dimensions, and the largest that have yet been fabricated. they are sometimes from a hundred, a hundred and thirty, or a hundred and thirty-five inches in height, to fifty, sixty, or sixty-five inches in breadth: they are expanded in the hand. the process for polishing them is performed by a machine;[ ] they are then transported to madrid, for the purpose of being metallised. it is not uncommon to see tables of bronze, on which mirrors are extended, a hundred and sixty inches in length, and ninety in breadth." [ ] this machine was invented by a catalan named pedro fronvila. these tables are described by bowles: "the largest measures a hundred and forty-five inches in length by eighty-five in breadth, and weighs four hundred and five _arrobas_. the smallest measures a hundred and twenty inches in length, and seventy-five in breadth, and weighs three hundred and eighty _arrobas_." [illustration: lxxvi glass of the factory of san ildefonso] the best account of any is contained in the _nouveau voyage en espagne_ ( ) of bourgoing. this author wrote: "a côté de cette fabrique naissante de première nécessité" (_i.e._ the royal linen factory at la granja) "il y en a une de luxe qui remonte au regne de philippe v; c'est une manufacture de glaces, la seule qu'il y ait en espagne. on s'étoit d'abord borné à une verrerie qui subsiste encore, et donne des bouteilles d'une assez bonne qualité, et des verres blancs qu'on y cisele avec assez d'adresse. j'en ai rapporté quelques-uns où l'on a gravé des chiffres, des lettres, et jusqu'à de jolis paysages. cette verrerie étoit un acheminement à une entreprise plus brillante. la manufacture de glaces de saint ildephonse est comparable aux plus beaux établissements de ce genre; on en peut voir les dessins dans les planches de l'encyclopédie. l'édifice est vaste et très bien distribué; il contient deux fourneaux et une vingtaine de fours où l'on fait refroidir lentement les glaces après les avoir coulées. on y en coule dans toutes les dimensions depuis les carreaux de vitres jusqu'aux plus grands trumeaux. elles sont moins blanches et peut-être moins bien polies que celles de venise et de st-gobin; mais nulle part on n'en a encore coulé d'aussi grandes. l'opération du coulage s'y fait avec beaucoup de précision et d'ensemble. monseigneur comte d'artois eut la curiosité d'y assister; la glace qu'on y coula devant lui avoit, autant que je puis m'en souvenir, cent trente-trois pouces de long, sur soixante-cinq de large, et l'on m'a assuré qu'il y en avoit encore de plus grandes. on les dégrossit à mains d'hommes dans une longue galerie qui est attenante à la fabrique, et il y a à un quart de lieue une machine que l'eau fait mouvoir, et où on acheve de les polir; on les porte ensuite à madrid pour les étamer. le roi consacre les plus belles à la parure de ses appartements; il en fait des cadeaux aux cours qui ont des relations intimes avec lui. en , s.m.c. en fit joindre quelques-unes aux présens qu'il envoyoit à la porte ottomane, avec laquelle elle venoit de conclure un traité. c'est une idée agréable pour un cosmopolite tolérant, de penser qu'en dépit des préjugés de religion et de politique qui divisoient autrefois les nations, la main des arts a établi entr'elles un échange de jouissances d'un bout de l'europe à l'autre, et que les beautés du serrail se mirent dans les glaces coulées à saint-ildefonse, tandis que les tapis de turquie sont foulés par des pieds françois. ce qui sort d'ailleurs de la manufacture de saint-ildefonse est vendu, pour le compte du roi, à madrid et dans les provinces; mais on sent bien que ce profit est trop mince pour couvrir les frais d'un établissement aussi considérable qui, le bois excepté, est éloigné de toutes les matières premières qu'il employe, qui est situé fort avant dans l'intérieur des terres, au sein des montagnes, et loin de toute rivière navigable; aussi doit il être compté parmi ces fondations de luxe qui prosperent à l'ombre du trône, et qui ajoutent à son éclat."[ ] [ ] vol. i., pp. - . a few more details are added by swinburne: "below the town is the manufactory of plate-glass belonging to the crown, carried on under the direction of mr dowling; two hundred and eighty men are employed. the largest plate they have made is one hundred and twenty-six spanish inches long; the small pieces are sold in looking-glasses all over the kingdom; but i am told the king makes no great profit by it; however, it is a very material point to be able to supply his subjects with a good commodity, and to keep in the country a large sum of money that heretofore went out annually to purchase it from strangers. they also make bottles and drinking-glasses (plates lxxvi., lxxvii.); and are now busy erecting very spacious new furnaces to enlarge the works. to provide fuel for the fires, they have put the pinewoods under proper regulations and stated falls; twenty-seven mule-loads of fir-wood are consumed every day; and four loads cost the king, including all the expenses of cutting and bringing down from the mountains, about forty reals." [illustration: lxxvii glass of the factory of san ildefonso] in , the first factory which had been established at san ildefonso was nearly destroyed by fire; but the damage was repaired, and the factory placed under state control. its finances were at no time prosperous. in charles the third granted a privilege reserving to it the exclusive sale of glass within a radius of twenty leagues from madrid and segovia; but the sales did not improve. in spite of this, the monarch, a few years later, erected a new and costly factory from designs by villanueva and real. there were two departments in this ample building. one, for the manufacture of the plainest glass, was directed by a hanoverian, named sigismund brun; and the other, devoted to smaller and more elaborate articles, by eder, a swede. "the greater number of the objects made at these important works were of transparent, colourless glass, possessing a marked french style, and were either richly engraved and cut, or gilded, or sometimes (though less often) they were made of coloured and enamelled glass. at this time, too, were manufactured mirrors for the royal palaces, as well as candlesticks and chandeliers of great beauty, following the venetian method, and embellished with coloured flowers."[ ] [ ] breñosa and castellarnau; _guide to san ildefonso_ ( ), p. . rico y sinobas observes that in the objects produced at the factory of la granja, the glass itself is inferior to the engraving or cutting with which it is adorned. this leads him to infer that the foreigners brought over by the kings of spain to superintend the factory, were cutters and engravers of glass, rather than skilled glass-makers. he also draws attention to the fact that the spanish monarchs chose these foreign craftsmen from too limited a class, entrusting the most important posts at all the royal factories to frenchmen who were stated to descend from the old nobility of their native country. in this manner the progress and welfare of the craft itself was sacrificed to an insane prejudice in favour of the aristocratic origin of the craftsman. in spite of all these efforts, the works at the dawn of the nineteenth century were in a moribund condition. in they passed into the hands of private persons, who also failed to make them pay, and subsequently, owing to the ineptitude of spanish governments and the severity of foreign competition, have definitely closed their doors. "in catalonia," wrote laborde, towards the year , "are two glass houses; but the glass blown in them is dark, and destitute of lustre. aragon has four, one at alfamen, one at peñalva, one at utrillas, and one at jaulin, which is the largest; but the quality of the glass is not superior to that of catalonia. the glass-house at utrillas produces both flint and common glass. glass houses are also established at pajarejo and at recuenco in castile, which manufacture the most beautifully white and transparent glass." in there were six glass-ovens in the kingdom of valencia, situated at valencia, alicante, salines, olleria, and alcira. they turned out pieces in this year, some of which were exported to castile and aragon.[ ] [ ] ricord; _noticia de las varias y diferentes producciones del reyno de valencia, etc.: segun el estado que tenían en el año ._ valencia, . early in the eighteenth century the glass of barcelona was praised by alvarez de colmenar ("il s'y fait de belles verreries"), and we know that all through this period her _forns de vidre_ continued to produce good work, including holy-water vessels of uncoloured glass relieved with blue or with the fine white _latticinio_, the local _arruixadors_ or _borrachas_, and the typical _porrón_. the former of these vessels is of small size, and has several spouts. commonly it is filled with scented water for gallants to sprinkle on girls at dances in the public square. the _porrón_ invariably excites the curiosity of foreigners,[ ] and is often thought to be of purely spanish origin. this is not so. upon a roman lampstand in naples museum is a figure of bacchus riding on a tiger and "holding in his hand the horn from which the ancients drank, using it as, among some other peoples, do the modern catalans--that is, not placing the vessel in their mouth, but holding it aloft and thus imbibing it; a method which requires no small amount of practice." in fact, there is reason to believe that the _porrón_ is derived from a similar vessel in use among the ancient persians, who poured their liquor from it into the hollow of the hand, and thence imbibed it in the fashion called, in cataluña and valencia, _al gallet_. for just as a certain class of american displays his marksmanship in spitting, so does the catalan who is accomplished in the art, amuse himself and others by causing the ruby wine to spout from his _porrón_ on to the very apex of his nose, continuing from this point, in the form of a fine and undulating rivulet, over his upper lip and down his throat. [ ] "the mode of drinking in this country is singular; they hold a broad-bottom'd glass bottle at arm's length, and let the liquor spout out of a long neck upon their tongue; from what i see, their expertness at this exercise arises from frequent practise; for the catalans drink often and in large quantities, but as yet i have not seen any of them intoxicated."--swinburne. windows of spanish houses were seldom glazed until about one hundred years ago. when bertaut de rouen travelled here in , this fact impressed him disagreeably. even in the royal palace at madrid he found that there were chambers "qui n'ont point du tout de fenestrés, ou qui n'en ont qu'une petite, et d'où le jour ne vient que d'enhaut, le verre estant fort rare en espagne, et la pluspart des fenestrés des maisons n'ayant pas de vitres." in , arthur young was no less horrified at the glassless condition of the houses in cataluña. "reach sculló; the inn so bad that our guide would not permit us to enter it, so he went to the house of the curé. a scene followed so new to english eyes, that we could not refrain from laughing very heartily. not a pane of glass in the whole town, but our reverend host had a chimney in his kitchen; he ran to the river to catch trout; a man brought us some chickens which were put to death on the spot.... this town and its inhabitants are, to the eye, equally wretched, the smoke-holes instead of chimneys, the total want of glass windows--the cheerfulness of which, to the eye, is known only by the want." however, as an exception to this doleful rule, the town of poeblar had "some good houses with glass windows, and we saw a well-dressed young lady gallanted by two monks." printed by neill and company, limited, edinburgh. * * * * * * transcriber's note: the original spelling and minor inconsistencies in the spelling and formatting have been maintained. inconsistent hyphenation and accents are as in the original if not marked as an misprint. the table below lists all corrections applied to the original text. p. x: lix -> lix. p. : mr cunninghame graham -> mr. p. : avec leurs enfans -> enfants p. : feu. l'hôte -> l'hôtel p. : choses est règlé -> réglé p. : fort peuplée autresfois -> autrefois p. : pp. , -> pp. , . p. : león cathedral_ -> león cathedral_) p. : peintures variées de bon gôut -> goût p. : on the cover. -> on the cover." p. : (see vol. i. plate xi.) -> (see vol. i., plate xi.) p. : appear to be galloping. -> galloping." p. : and "pisano." -> and "pisano". p. : "_de relieve_." -> "_de relieve_". p. : les plus compliqúes -> compliqués p. : qu'un bal masqúe -> masqué p. : the journal of bertant -> bertaut p. : quarte, vilallonga -> villalonga p. : degree of delicacy. -> delicacy." p. : says señor osmo -> osma p. : and another [illustration] -> [illustration]. p. : style of capo-di-monte. -> capo-di-monte." p. : in france and spain. -> spain." p. : albeit the the -> albeit the p. : vessels of catalan glass -> lxxv vessels of catalan glass p. : glass of the -> lxxvi glass of the note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see -h.htm or -h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h/ -h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h.zip) project gutenberg has the other two volumes of this work. volume ii: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/ volume iii: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/ transcriber's note: text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). the ligature oe is represented by [oe]. the signs cross and dagger have been marked as [cross] and [dagger]. a carat character is used to denote superscription. a single character following the carat is superscripted (comp^a). [illustration: _frontispiece_ _reja_ of the choir (_seville cathedral_)] the world of art series the arts and crafts of older spain by leonard williams corresponding member of the royal spanish academy, of the royal spanish academy of history, and of the royal spanish academy of fine arts; author of "the land of the dons"; "toledo and madrid"; "granada," etc. in three volumes, illustrated volume i chicago a. c. mcclurg & co. edinburgh: t. n. foulis american edition published october , dedicated by special permission to their majesties king alfonso the thirteenth and queen victoria of spain preface in preparing these volumes, it has been my aim to give a clear and fairly complete account of the arts and crafts of older spain. it seems to me that there is room for a work of this design and scope, and that there is no reason why so attractive a subject--or rather, group of subjects--should be perpetually ignored by persons who travel through, or who profess to feel an interest in, the country of the cid and of don quixote. my account of spanish pottery is guarded, and yet i trust acceptable. the study of this craft in spain is far from definite, and fresh researches and discoveries may be hoped for at some future time. the history of spanish arms has also suffered from unjust neglect. perhaps my sketch of them may slightly compensate for this deficiency. for the rest, my book, which represents the well-meant assiduity of several years, shall speak for itself. although i was embarrassed by too much material, the illustrations have been chosen with great care, and not, i think, inadequately. some of the photographs were taken specially for this work. for the loan of others, or for kind assistance generally, i am indebted to excmo. señor don guillermo j. de osma, excmo. señor don josé villegas, and excmo. señor don josé moreno carbonero; to señores góngora and valladar, of granada; and to messrs hauser and menet, and mons. lacoste, of madrid. _august_, . contents of volume one pages gold, silver, and jewel work - iron-work - bronzes - arms - list of illustrations _volume one_ gold and silver plate page _reja_ of the choir; seville cathedral _frontispiece_ i. treasure of guarrazar; royal armoury, madrid ii. the cross of angels; oviedo cathedral iii. the cross of victory; oviedo cathedral iv. moorish casket; gerona cathedral v. altar-front in enamelled bronze; museum of burgos vi. "the crucifix of the cid"; salamanca cathedral vii. the "virgen de la vega"; san esteban, salamanca viii. saint james in pilgrim's dress; santiago cathedral ix. mudejar triptych; royal academy of history, madrid x. the "tablas alfonsinas"; seville cathedral xi. "the cup of saint ferdinand"; seville cathedral xii. ship; zaragoza cathedral xiii. moorish bracelets xiv. morisco jewellery xv. silver-gilt processional cross xvi. gothic _custodia_ xvii. the _custodia_ of seville cathedral xviii. early chalice and cross in filigree gold iron-work xix. old keys; seville cathedral xixa. decorative nail-heads; convent of san antonio, toledo xx. door-knockers xxi. ceremonial maces and lantern xxii. iron pulpit; avila cathedral xxiii. _reja_ of chapel royal; granada cathedral xxiv. the same (view from interior) xxv. _reja_; casa de pilatos, seville xxvi. _reja_ of the "casa de las conchas," salamanca bronzes xxvii. "meleager's hunt" xxviii. a _candil_ xxix. a _velón_ xxx. bronze lion xxxi. bronze stag; museum of cordova xxxii. bronze temple; museum of granada xxxiii. moorish lamp and mortar; museum of granada xxxiv. lamp of mohammed the third; madrid museum xxxv. abbot samson's bell; museum of cordova xxxvi. bronze crucifix xxxvii. the puerta del perdón; seville cathedral xxxviii. the weathercock of the giralda tower arms xxxix. crest of jousting helmet; royal armoury, madrid xl. spanish crossbowman; royal armoury, madrid xli. the battle of la higueruela; el escorial xlii. parade harness of philip the third; royal armoury, madrid xliii. moorish crossbow and stirrup; museum of granada xliv. moorish sword; casa de los tiros, granada xlv. sword of boabdil el chico; museum of artillery, madrid xlvi. dagger of boabdil el chico; museum of artillery, madrid xlvii. moorish sword xlviii. war harness of charles the fifth; royal armoury, madrid xlix. jousting harness of charles the fifth; royal armoury, madrid l. jousting harness of philip the handsome; royal armoury, madrid li. moorish buckler; royal armoury, madrid lii. armour made at pamplona; royal armoury, madrid liii. _adarga_; royal armoury, madrid liv. spanish swords; royal armoury, madrid lv. spanish sword; royal armoury, madrid lvi. spanish sword lvii. spanish swords; royal armoury, madrid lviii. sword marks lix. _bridona_ saddle; royal armoury, madrid lx. hanging _jaeces_ for horses lxi. travelling litter attributed to charles the fifth; royal armoury, madrid gold, silver, and jewel work the hyperbolic language of the ancients spoke of spain as filled throughout, upon her surface and beneath her soil, with precious stones and precious metals. old writers--strabo, pliny, aristoteles, pomponius mela, and diodorus siculus--declare that once upon a time a mountain fire, lighted by shepherds in the pyrenees and fanned into a conflagration by the wind, heated the earth until the ore within her entrails came bubbling to the top and ran away in rivulets of molten gold and silver, spreading all over spain. the indigens of lusitania as they dug their fields were said to strike their implements on nuggets half a pound in weight. the heart of the peninsula, between the b[oe]tis and the annas rivers--that is, the country of the oretani and the bastitani--was fabled to abound in mines of gold. the traders from ph[oe]nicia, we are told, discovered silver to be so abundant with the turdetani that "the vilest utensils of this people were composed thereof, even to their barrels and their pots." accordingly these shrewd ph[oe]nicians, offering worthless trinkets in exchange, loaded their ships with silver to the water's edge, and even, when their cargo was complete, fashioned their chains and anchors of the residue. in spite of their extravagance, upon the whole these legends are not utterly devoid of truth. "tradition," said so careful an authority as symonds, "when not positively disproved should be allowed to have its full value; and a sounder historic sense is exercised in adopting its testimony with due caution, than in recklessly rejecting it and substituting guesses which the lack of knowledge renders insubstantial." so with the legends of the gold and silver treasure of the old-time spaniards. besides, it seems unquestionable that those fanciful assertions had their origin in fact. spain stood upon the western border of the ancient world. year in, year out, the sanguine sun went seething down into the waters at her western marge. mariners from distant countries viewed those sunsets and associated them with spain herself. thus, hereabouts in the unclouded south, would gold and silver be suggested by the solar orb; or emerald and jacinth, pearl and amethyst and ruby, by the matchless colours of the seldom-failing sunset. then, too, though not of course in fabulous amount, the precious metals actually existed in this land. various of her rivers, such as the calom or darro of granada, the tagus, the agneda, and the sil, rolled down, together with their current, grains of gold. "les mores," wrote bertaut de rouen of the first of these rivers, "en tiroient beaucoup autrefois; mais cela a esté discontinué depuis à cause de la trop grande dépense qu'il y faloit faire. il est certain que souvent on prend dans le darro de petits morceaux d'or, et il y a des gens qui sont accoûtumez d'y en chercher." centuries before this abbot wrote his book, the arab author of the geographical dictionary known as the _marasid ithila_ had made a similar remark upon this gold-producing stream; and in the sixteenth century i find an ordinance of granada city prohibiting the townspeople from digging up the river-bed unless it were to look for gold.[ ] probably, however, and in spite of what some chroniclers suppose, the title darro is not in any way connected with the latin words _dat aurum_. [ ] _ordenanza de la limpieza_ ( ), tit. : "we command that nobody remove sand from the aforesaid river darro unless to extract gold, in which case he shall fill up the holes he made, or pay a fine of fifty _maravedis_ for damaging the watercourses that enter this city and the buildings of the alhambra." "two leagues from guadarrama," wrote the mineralogist william bowles, about the middle of the eighteenth century, "opposite the town and in the direction of san ildefonso, is a deep valley where one notices a vein of common quartz containing some iron. here, without the use of glasses, i perceived a good many grains of gold.... in galicia grains of gold are found on sandy hills, and one is astonished to observe the wonderful works carried out by the romans to bring the sands together, wash them, and extract the precious metal. local tradition affirms that this precious sand was destined for the purses of three roman empresses--livia, agrippina, and faustina.... i know a german minister who employed his spare time in washing these sands and collecting the gold." the romans, it is true, profited very greatly by the native wealth of the peninsula. helvius enriched the treasury with , pounds of spanish silver bars and , pounds of silver money; cornelius lentulus, with pounds of gold, , pounds of bar-silver, and , pounds in coin. cato came back from his pro-consulship with five-and-twenty thousand pounds of silver bars, twelve thousand pounds of silver money, and four hundred pounds of gold. seventy thousand pounds of coined silver fell to the share of flaccus, while minutius exhibited at his triumph eight thousand pounds of silver bars, and three hundred thousand pounds of silver coin. mines of silver,[ ] gold, and precious stones were also fairly numerous in spain. moorish authors wrote enthusiastically of the mines of precious metals in or close to the sierra nevada. "even at this day," said bowles, "the moorish mines may be distinguished from the roman. the romans made the towers of their fortresses of a round shape, in order to avoid as far as possible the blows of the battering-ram; and their miners, whether from habit or intentionally, made the mouths of their mines round also. the moors, as strangers to this engine, built their towers square and gave a square shape also to the mouths of their mines. the round mouths of roman mines are yet to be seen at riotinto and other places, and the square mouths of moorish mines in the neighbourhood of linares." [ ] "i am not aware of any spanish mine containing silver in a state of absolute purity; though some, i think, would be discovered if they were searched for."--bowles: _historia natural de españa_. emeralds were formerly extracted from a mine at moron, in the sierra de leyta; white sapphires and agates at cape de gata,[ ] at the eastern extremity of the gulf of almeria; amethysts at monte de las guardas, near the port of plata, "in a precipice (_sic_) about twenty feet in depth." according to laborde, garnets have been discovered down to modern times "in a plain half-way on the road from almeria to motril. they are very abundant there, particularly in the bed of a ravine, formed by rain-torrents, at the foot of a little hill, upon which a great number of them are likewise found. the emeralds are in the kingdom of seville, all the others in that of granada. it has been said for some time that a pit in the mountain of bujo, at cape de gata, contains a great many precious stones; but none could be found there, notwithstanding the prolonged and careful searches that were lately made." [ ] possibly, as bowles suggests, for cabo de agata--"agate cape." "it would not be strange," he adds, "if diamonds were found at this cape, since there are signs of their presence. i found white sapphires, slightly clouded, together with cornelians, jaspers, agates, and garnets." silver mines exist, or have existed, at benasque, calzena, and bielza, in aragon; at cuevas, near almeria; at almodovar del campo; at zalamea, in extremadura; at puerto blanco, in seville province; in the sierra de guadalupe; at fuente de la mina, near constantina; and near almazarron, in the province of carthagena. not far from this latter city was another mine, that sent to rome a daily yield of five-and-twenty thousand drachmas, and was worked by forty thousand men. twenty thousand pounds in weight of pure silver proceeded yearly from asturias, lusitania, and galicia. hannibal extracted from a pyrenean mine three hundred pounds a day. the fair himilca, wife of hasdrubal, was owner of a silver mine at two leagues' distance from linares. laborde wrote of this mine: "it was reopened in the seventeenth century, when a vein five feet in breadth was found, from which many pieces of silver were taken; the working of it, however, has been neglected. it belongs to the town of baeza." the same author, who wrote about one hundred years ago, gives curious and instructive notices of several other spanish silver mines. "the mountains of the kingdom of seville, on the confines of extremadura, towards guadalcanal, alanis, puerto blanco, and cazalla, which form a part of the extremity of the chain of sierra morena, contain several silver mines, which have been worked. there is one of these in the sierra morena, three miles from guadalcanal, which to all appearance must have been very rich: there were three shafts for descending, the mouths of which are still to be seen: it was worked in the seventeenth century, and given up in . it is believed that it was inundated by the workmen, in revenge for a new tax that was laid upon them. another silver mine was also worked formerly, a league and a half from the other; it has a shaft, and a gallery of ancient construction; the vein is six feet in circumference, and is composed of spar and quartz. there is also a third mine, a league and a half from guadalcanal, and half a league south-east of the village of alanis, in the middle of a field; it is two feet wide; the romans constructed a gallery in it, from south to north; a branch of it running eastward has been worked since their time: it originally contained pyrites and quartz, but it is by no means rich; there is lead at the bottom." gold mines, or traces of them, have been found in the neighbourhood of molina in aragon, san ildefonso in old castile, and alocer in extremadura; in the sierra de leyta; in the valley of hecho in aragon; and at paradeseca and ponferrada--this latter town the _interamnium flavium_ of the romans. it is said that the chieftains of the ancient spaniards adorned their robes with rude embroidery worked in gold, and that the men and women of all ranks wore gold and silver bracelets. these statements cannot now be either proved or controverted. gold or silver objects older than the roman domination have not been found abundantly in spain. riaño describes a silver bowl, conical in shape and evidently fashioned on the wheel, engraved with iberian characters on one of its sides. a similar bowl was found in andalusia in the seventeenth century, full of iberian coins and weighing ten ounces. gold ornaments, such as earrings, and _torques_ or collars for the neck, have been discovered in galicia less infrequently than in the other spanish regions, and may be seen to-day in private collections, in the royal academy of history at madrid, and in the national museum of archæology.[ ] villa-amil y castro has written fully of these _torques_ (museo español de antigüedades, _adornos de oro encontrados en galicia_). in nearly every case, he says, they consist of a plain gold bar, c-shaped and therefore not completely closed into a ring, and with a knob at each extremity, as though their pattern were suggested by the yoke of cattle. one or two are decorated with a somewhat rude design extending through a portion of their length. [ ] a fresh find of _torques_ and _fibulæ_ has occurred in the spring of this year at la moureta, near ferrol. on one of these occasions a pair of curious, kidney-shaped earrings was found, together with a _torque_. these earrings, apparently of later workmanship than the other ornament, are decorated over all their surface, partly with a filigree design, and partly with a fine, beadlike pattern executed with a small chisel or graving tool in the manner known in french as _fusé_, _guilloché_, or _hachié_. their material is hollow gold, and when discovered they were filled with a substance resembling powdered charcoal, mixed with a metallic clay. these ornaments are ascribed by most authorities to an undetermined period somewhere previous to the roman domination. i think, however, that less improbably they were produced by spanish craftsmen in imitation of the roman manner, and during the time of roman rule in the peninsula. this would account for their deficiencies of execution, and also for certain characteristics which they evidently share with roman work. we know that rome imposed her usages on all the peoples whom she subjugated. consequently, following this universal law, the spaniards would adopt, together with the lavish luxury of rome, the roman ornaments and articles of jewellery. such were the _annulus_ or finger-ring; the _fibula_, a brooch or clasp for securing the cloak; the _torques_ or neck-ring, more or less resembling those in use among the persians; and the _phalera_, a round plate of gold, silver, or other metal, engraved with any one of a variety of emblems, worn upon the breast or stomach by the persons of either sex, and very commonly bestowed upon the roman soldiers in reward of military service. then there were several kinds of earrings--the variously-designed _stalagmium_ or pendant, the _inaures_, or the _crotalium_, hung with pearls that brushed together as their wearer walked, and gratified her vanity by their rustling; and also several kinds of bracelets--the gold or bronze _armilla_, principally worn by men; the _periscelis_, the _spathalium_, and the _dextrale_, worn round the fleshy part of the right arm.[ ] [ ] these ornaments were retained in use by the visigoths, and find their due description in the _etymologies_ of saint isidore; _e.g._:-- "_inaures_ ab aurium foraminibus nuncupatae, quibus pretiosa genera lapidum dependuntur." "_tourques_ sunt circuli aurei a collo ad pectus usque dependentes. torques autem et bullae a viris geruntur; a foeminis vero monilia et catellae." "_fibulæ_ sunt quibus pectus foeminarum ornatur, vel pallium tenetur: viris in humeris, seu cingulum in lumbris." discoveries of roman jewellery and gold and silver work have occurred from time to time in the peninsula; for example, at espinosa de henares and (in ) near atarfe, on the southern side of the volcanic-looking sierra elvira, a few miles from granada. riaño describes a roman silver dish found in a stone quarry at otañez, in the north of spain. "it weighs thirty-three ounces, and is covered with an ornamentation of figures in relief, some of which are gilt, representing an allegorical subject of the source of medicinal waters. in the upper part is a nymph who pours water from an urn over rocks; a youth collects it in a vessel; another gives a cup of it to a sick man; another fills with it a barrel which is placed in a four-wheeled car to which are yoked two mules. on each side of the fountain are altars on which sacrifices and libations are offered. round it is the inscription: salvs vmeritana, and at the back are engraved, in confused characters, the words: l. p. corneliani. piii...." the same author is of opinion that in the time of the romans "objects of all kinds in gold and silver were used in spain to a very great extent, for, notwithstanding the destruction of ages, we still possess inscriptions which allude to silver statues, and a large number of objects in the precious metals exist in museums and private collections." doubtless, in the case of articles and household utensils of smaller size--bowls, dishes, and the like, or ornaments for the person--the precious metals were made use of freely; but when we hear of mighty objects as also made of silver, _e.g._ principal portions of a building, we might do well to bear in mind a couple of old columns that were standing once not far from cadiz, on a spot where in the days preceding history a temple sacred to the spanish hercules is rumoured to have been. philostratus affirmed these columns to be wrought of solid gold and silver, mixed together yet in themselves without alloy. strabo reduced them modestly to brass; but it was reserved for a curious frenchman, the père labat, who travelled in spain in , to warn us what they really were. "elles sont sur cette langue de terre, qui joint l'isle de léon à celle de cadix; car il faut se souvenir que c'est ainsi qu'on appelle la partie orientale, et la partie occidentale de la même isle. il y a environ une lieue de la porte de terre à ces vénérables restes de l'antiquité. nous nous en approchames, croyant justifier les contes que les espagnols en débitent. mais nous fûmes étrangement surpris de ne pas rencontrer la moindre chose qui pût nous faire seulement soupçonner qu'elles fussent d'une antiquité un peu considérable. nous vimes que ces deux tours rondes, qui n'ont à présent qu'environ vingt pieds de hauteur sur douze à quinze pieds de diamètre, étoient d'une maçonnerie fort commune. leurs portes étoient bouchées, et nous convinmes tous qu'elles avoient été dans leur jeune tems des moulins à vent qu'on avoit abandonnés; il n'y a ni inscriptions, ni bas-reliefs, ni reste de figures quelconques. en un mot, rien qui méritât notre attention, ni qui recompensât la moindre partie de la peine que nous avions prise pour les aller voir de près. car je les avois vue plus d'une fois du grand chemin, où j'avois passé, et je devois me contenter. mais que ne fait-on pas quand on est curieux, et aussi des[oe]uvré que je l'étois alors." many of the usages of roman spain descended to the visigoths. the jewels of this people manifest the double influence of rome and of byzantium, and the latter influenced in its turn from eastern sources. we learn from that extraordinary encyclopædia of early mediæval spanish lore--the _etymologies_ of isidore of beja--that the visigothic women decked themselves with earrings, necklaces, and bracelets, set with precious stones of fabulous price. leovigild is stated by the same writer to have been the first of the visigothic princes to use the insignia of royalty. one of his coins (engraved in florez) represents him with an imperial crown surmounted by a cross resembling that of the byzantines. coins of a similar design, and also bearing the imperial crown, were minted at toledo, cordova, or merida, in the reigns of chindaswint, wamba, ervigius, and egica. but the true fountain-head of all our modern knowledge respecting the jewellery of visigothic spain is in the wonderful crosses, crowns, and other ornaments discovered in upon the site of some old christian temple, two leagues distant from toledo. these objects, known collectively as "the treasure of guarrazar," were stumbled on by certain peasants after a heavy storm had washed away a quantity of earth. some were destroyed upon the spot; others were sold to the toledo silversmiths and melted down by these barbarians of our day; but fortunately the greater part remained intact, or very nearly so. there were in all, composed exclusively of gold and precious stones, eleven crowns, two crosses containing legible inscriptions, fragments such as the arms of a processional cross, and many single stones which time had doubtless separated from the crosses or the crowns.[ ] [ ] there is also in the archæological museum at madrid a small collection of what has been described as visigothic jewellery, consisting of a handsome _phalera_, necklaces, finger-rings, and earrings. most of these objects were found at elche in . the _museo español de antigüedades_ published a full description by florencio janer. their interest is by no means as great as that of the treasure of guarrazar, nor is the date of their production definitely ascertained. from various details i suspect that many of them may be purely roman. part of this treasure passed in some mysterious way to france, and is now in the cluny museum at paris. the rest is in the royal armoury at madrid. paris can boast possession of nine of the crowns; madrid, of two, together with a fragment of a third--this latter of a balustrade or basket pattern. five of the nine crowns preserved at paris are fashioned of simple hoops of gold. the most important of the five, the crown of recceswinth, who ruled in spain from to a.d., consists of two hinged semicircles of hollow gold, about a finger's-breadth across the interspace. it measures just over eight inches in diameter and four inches in depth. both the upper and the lower rims are decorated to the depth of nearly half an inch with a design of four-pointed floral or semi-floral figures within minute circles. amador de los ríos has recognized this same design in the frieze of certain buildings at toledo, and in the edges of mosaic discovered at italica and lugo, as well as in the balearic islands. the interstices of this design upon the crown are filled with a kind of red enamel or glaze, the true nature of which has not been definitely ascertained. riaño calls it "a delicate ornamentation of _cloisonné_ work, which encloses a substance resembling red glass." the centre of the crown is filled with three rows of large stones, principally pearls and sapphires. there are also several onyxes, a stone which in those days was held in great esteem. the spaces between the rows of stones are ornamented with a somewhat rudimentary design of palm branches, the leaves of which appear to have been filled or outlined with the kind of red enamel i have spoken of. this crown is suspended by four gold chains containing each of them five leaf-shaped links, _percées à jour_. the chains unite at a gold rosette in the form of a double lily, terminated by a stoutish capital of rock-crystal. this in its turn is capped by another piece of crystal holding the final stem of gold which served as a hook for hanging up the crown. suspended from the gold rosette by a long chain is a handsome cross, undoubtedly of more elaborate workmanship, studded with union pearls and monster sapphires. amador believed this ornament to be a brooch. if this were so it is, of course, improperly appended here. twenty-four gold chains hang from the lower border of the crown, concluding in pyriform sapphires of large size. each sapphire is surmounted by a small, square frame of gold containing coloured glass, and above this, in each of three-and-twenty of the chains, is one of the golden letters forming the inscription, [cross] reccesvinthvs rex offeret. besides this crown there are at paris-- ( ) a similar though slighter crown, the body of which is studded with fifty-four magnificent stones. a cross, now kept apart in the same collection, is thought by spanish experts to have once been pendent from the crown. if so, the latter was perhaps presented to the sanctuary by one sonnica, probably a visigothic magnate, and not a woman, as the termination of the name induced some foreign antiquaries to suppose. the cross is thus inscribed:-- _ in di nom ine offeret ___ sonnica sce ma rie ins orba ces[ ] [ ] the last word is commonly believed to be the name of a place--_sorbaces_. there has been much discussion as to its meaning. ( ) three crowns of plain design consisting of hoops of gold with primitive _repoussé_ decoration, and, in the case of one, with precious stones. ( ) four crowns, each with a pendent cross. the pattern is a basket-work or set of balustrades of thin gold hollow plates (not, as riaño stated, massive) with precious stones about the intersections of the bars or meshes, and others hanging from the lower rim. three of these crowns have three rows or tiers of what i call the balustrade; the other crown has four. the custom of offering votive crowns to christian temples was taken by the emperors of constantinople from heathen peoples of the eastern world. in spain this custom, introduced by recared, outlived by many years the ruin of the visigothic monarchy--survived, in fact, until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. thus in alfonso the third presented to the monastery of san adrian and santa natalia four crowns of gold and three of silver, while just a hundred years afterwards ordoño the second presented three silver crowns to the monastery of samos. other crowns were offered by the prelates and the secular nobility. returning to the crowns of guarrazar, there has been great controversy as to whether these were worn upon the head. some experts think they must have been so worn; and in this case the rings upon the rim, through which the chains are passed, would seem to have been added on the presentation of these objects to the sanctuary. lasteyrie, on the other hand, considered that the crowns were merely votive and were never meant for personal use, arguing that the rings were fixed about the border from the very moment when the crowns were made;[ ] but amador ingeniously replied to this by pointing out that in a few of the old castilian coins--for instance, one of sancho the third--the crown, with rings about its rim, is actually upon the monarch's head. it is possible, adds the same authority, that these were old votive crowns proceeding from some church, although he thinks it still more likely that they were fashioned with the rings attached to them. we should remember, too, the hinge which serves to open and close the body of these crowns. it is difficult to guess the purpose of this hinge, unless it were to fit the crown more comfortably on the head. [ ] _description du trésor de guarrazar_. of that portion of the treasure of guarrazar which has remained at madrid (plate i.), the most important object is the votive crown of king swinthila, son of recared, and described as "one of the most illustrious and unlucky princes that ever occupied the throne of atawulf." this crown measures nine inches in diameter by two and a half in height. it consists of thin gold plates united at the edge, leaving, between the inner and the outer side, a hollow space about a quarter of an inch across. the exterior is divided into a central horizontal hoop or band between two others, somewhat narrower, at the top and bottom, these last being slightly raised above the level of the third. a triple row of precious stones, amounting to one hundred and twenty-five pearls and sapphires in the entire crown, surrounds the outer surface of the same, the central band or zone of which contains besides, wrought in _repoussé_ on the hoop, a simple circular device wherein each centre is a sapphire or a pearl, though many of these have fallen from their setting. the spaces which describe these circles are superposed on what looks like a red enamel retaining at this moment all or nearly all its pristine brightness of twelve hundred years ago. this substance was believed by french investigators to be a coloured glass or paste,[ ] but amador, after protracted chemical experiments, declared it to be layers of cornelian. some of these layers have fallen from their grip, and if the crown be stirred are heard to move within. it is worth remarking, too, that the fillets which form the setting of the precious stones were made apart and welded afterwards; nor are these settings uniform in shape, but tally in each instance with the outline of the gem. [ ] "_ce que je puis affirmer, après l'examen le plus minutieux, c'est que la matière qui fait le fond de cette riche ornementation est réellement du verre._"--lasteyrie, supported by sommerard. [illustration: i treasure of guarrazar (_royal armoury, madrid_)] the chains which served for hanging up the crown are four in number. as in the crown of recceswinth, each of them is composed of four _repoussé_ cinquefoil links adorned along their edge with small gold beads minutely threaded on a wire and fastened on by fusing. the chains converge into an ornament shaped like two lilies pointing stem to stem, so that the lower is inverted, although they are divided by a piece of faceted rock crystal.[ ] four gems are hung from either lily, and issuing from the uppermost of these a strong gold hook attaches to the final length of chain. [ ] "in spain," said bowles (_hist. nat. de esp._, p. ), "are found two species of rock crystal. the one, occurring in clusters, are transparent, six-sided, and always have their source in rocks. there are great quantities all over the kingdom, and at madrid they are found near the hills of san isidro. the other species are found singly, and are rounded like a pebble. i have seen them from the size of a filbert to that of my fist. some were covered with a thin, opaque integument.... the river henares abounds with these crystals, and as it passes san fernando, at two leagues' distance from madrid, sweeps some of them along which are the size of the largest ones at strasburg, though very few are perfect." possibly the chain and cross now hanging through the circuit of the crown were not originally part of it. this cross is most remarkable. it has four arms of equal length, gracefully curved, and is wrought of plates of gold in duplicate, fastened back to back by straps of gold along the edges. the centre holds a piece of crystal in the midst of pearls and gold bead work threaded on a wire of the same metal and attached by fusion. several fairly large stones are hung from the lateral and lower arms of the cross by small gold chains. the letters hanging from swinthila's crown are cut and punched from thin gold plates. their decoration is a zigzag ornament backed by the same mysterious crimson substance as the circular devices on the hoop. hanging from the letters are pearls, sapphires, and several imitation stones--particularly imitation emeralds--in paste. the cross before the letters points to a custom of that period. we find it also on swinthila's coins, and those of other visigothic kings. of the letters themselves twelve have been recovered, thus:-- [cross] sv ti nv rex off t the chains, however, or fragments of them, amount to twenty-three--precisely (if we count the cross) the number needed to complete the dedication.[ ] [ ] a veritable cryptogram awaited the decipherers of these legends. when king swinthila's crown was brought to light, four of the letters only were in place, thus:-- [cross] ...... i ... v . r .... f .... eight of the others were recovered shortly after; two more, an e and l, appeared at a later date, and eight continued to be missing. the inscription dangling from the crown of recceswinth arrived at paris in this eloquent form:-- [cross] rrcceefevinstvsetorhfex the royal armoury contains another crown, a great deal smaller and less ornamented than swinthila's. the body of this crown, which was presented by the finder to the late queen isabella the second, is just a hoop of gold, two inches deep and five across, hinged like the more elaborate and larger crowns, but merely decorated with a fine gold spiral at the rims, a zigzag pattern in _repoussé_, and a rudely executed scale-work. the dedication on this cross is in the centre of the hoop, and says-- __ [cross] offeret mvnvscvlvm sco stefano _ theodosivs abba we do not know who theodosius was, but amador, judging from the simple decoration of this crown, believes him to have been a priest of lower rank, and by no means a dignitary of the visigothic church. a votive cross also forms part of this collection, which has a simple sunk device along the edges and seven pendent stones, two of these hanging from each of the lateral arms, and three, a little larger, from the lower arm. the inscription, which is rough in the extreme, appears to be the work of some illiterate craftsman, and has been interpreted with difficulty:-- __ in nomine dei: in nomine sci offeret lucetius e this reading gives an extra letter at the end, which may be construed as _episcopus_--or anything else, according to the student's fancy. i may close my notice of this collection in the royal armoury at madrid by drawing attention to a greenish, semi-opaque stone, three-quarters of an inch in height. it is engraved _en creux_ upon two facets with the scene of the annunciation. the gem itself is commonly taken for an emerald, of which, referring to the glyptic art among the visigoths, the learned isidore remarked that "_sculpentibus quoque gemmas nulla gratior oculorum refectio est._" i shall insert a sketch of the cutting on this stone as a tailpiece to the chapter, and here append a full description. "the virgin listens standing to the archangel gabriel, who communicates to her the will of the almighty. before her is a jar, from which projects the stem of a lily, emblematic of the chaste and pure, that reaches to her breast. her figure is completely out of measurement. upon her head appears to be a _nimbus_ or _amiculum_; her breast is covered with a broad and folded _fascia_, enveloping her arms, while her tunic, reaching to the ground, conceals one of her feet. the angel in the cutting on the stone is at the virgin's right. his attitude is that of one who is conveying tidings. large wings folded upon his shoulders and extending nearly to the ground are fitted to his form, better drawn and livelier than the virgin's. he executes his holy mission with his right hand lifted. his dress is a tunic in small folds, over which is a cloak fastened by a brooch and fitting closely. upon his head he wears a kind of helmet."[ ] [ ] amador de los ríos, _el arte latino-bizantino en españa y las coronas visigodas de guarrazar_, p. . the drawing of this design upon the stone is most bizarre and barbarous; for the virgin's head is so completely disproportioned that it forms the one-third part of her entire person. the merit of all this visigothic gem or gold and silver work has been extolled too highly by the french and spanish archæologists.[ ] it is, however, greatly interesting. rudely and ponderously magnificent, it tells us of a people who as yet were almost wholly strangers to the true artistic sense. such were the visigoths and the spaniards of the visigothic era, of all of whom i have observed elsewhere that "serfdom was the distinguishing mark of the commons; arrogance, of the nobility; avarice, and ambition of temporal and political power, of the clergy; regicide and tumult, of the crown."[ ] these crowns of guarrazar proclaim to us in plainest language that the volume of the stones, and showiness and glitter of the precious metal were accorded preference of every other factor--the _pondus auri_ preference of the _manus artificis_. we gather, too, from documents and chronicles and popular tradition, that the visigothic princes, as they set apart their stores of treasure in secluded caves or in the strong rooms of their palaces, were ever captivated and corrupted by the mere intrinsic worth in opposition to the nobler and æsthetic value of the craftsmanship. [ ] _e.g._ sommerard: "_une collection sans égale de joyaux les plus précieux qui, par la splendeur de la matière, le mérite de l'exécution, et plus encore, peut être, par leur origine incontestable et par leur étonnante conservation, surpassent tout ce qui possédent d'analogue les collections publiques de l'europe et les trésors les plus renommés de l'italie_." [ ] _toledo and madrid_; p. . thus we are told that sisenand owned a plate of gold (no word is said of its design or style) five hundred pounds in weight, proceeding from the royal treasure of his race, and which, long years before, had been presented by the nobleman accio to king turismund. when sisenand was conspiring to dethrone swinthila, he called on dagobert the king of france to come to his support, and promised him, as recompense, this golden plate. the french king lent his help forthwith, and then, as soon as turismund was seated on the throne of spain, despatched an embassy to bring the coveted vessel to his court. sisenand fulfilled his word and placed the envoys in possession of the plate, but since his subjects, rising in rebellion, wrenched it from their power and kept it under custody, he compensated dagobert by a money payment of two hundred thousand _sueldos_.[ ] [ ] _ajbar machmua_. lafuente y alcántara's edition; p. , note. innumerable narratives and legends dwell upon the treasure taken by the moors on entering spain. such as relate the battle of the guadalete, or the lake of janda (as it is also called by some authorities), agree that when the fatal day was at an end the riderless steed of roderick was found imbedded in the mire, wearing a saddle of massive gold adorned with emeralds and rubies. according to al-makkari, that luckless monarch's boots were also made of gold studded with precious stones, while the muslim victors, stripping the visigothic dead, identified the nobles by the golden rings upon their fingers, those of a less exalted rank by their silver rings, and the slaves by their rings of copper. the widow of the fallen king was also famous for her stores of jewellery. her name was eila or egilona (umm-asim of the moors), but she was known besides as "the lady of the beautiful necklaces." after being made a prisoner she was given in marriage to the young prince abd-al-azis, who grew to love her very greatly, and received from her, "seeing that she still retained sufficient of her royal wealth," the present of a crown. muza, on returning to the east, is said to have drawn near to damascus with a train of thirty waggons full of spanish silver, gold, and precious stones. tarik ben ziyed, marching in triumph through the land, secured at cordova, amaya, and other towns and capitals, enormous store of "pearls, arms, dishes, silver, gold, and other jewels in unprecedented number." one object, in particular, is mentioned with insistency by nearly all the chronicles, both mussulman and christian. quoting from the _pearl of marvels_ of ibn alwardi, this was "the table which had belonged to god's prophet, solomon (health be to both of them). it was of green emeralds, and nothing fairer had been ever seen before. its cups were golden and its plates of precious jewels, one of them specked with black and white." all manner of strange things are said about this table, though most accounts describe it as consisting of a _single_ emerald. perhaps it was of malachite, or of the bright green serpentine stone extracted formerly as well as nowadays from the barranco de san juan at granada, and several other spots in spain. bayan almoghreb says it was of gold mixed with a little silver and surrounded by three gold rings or collars; the first containing pearls, the second rubies, and the third emeralds. al-makkari describes it as "green, with its feet and borders of a single emerald." nor is it known for certain where this "table" fell into the hands of tarik. probably he found it in the principal christian temple at toledo--that is to say, the basilica of santa maría. ibn alwardi says that in the _aula regia_, or palace of the visigothic kings, the lancers of the moorish general broke down a certain door, discovering "a matchless quantity of gold and silver plate," together with the "table." doubtless this strong room was the same referred to in the following lines. "it was for ever closed; and each time that a christian king began to reign he added to its door a new and powerful fastening. in this way as many as four and twenty padlocks were gathered on the door." however, the most explicit and informative of all these ancient authors is ibn hayyan, who says; "the table had its origin in the days of christian rulers. it was the custom in those times that when a rich man died he should bequeath a legacy to the churches. proceeding from the value of these gifts were fashioned tables, thrones, and other articles of gold and silver, whereon the clergy bore the volumes of their gospel when they showed them at their ceremonies. these objects they would also set upon their altars to invest them with a further splendour by the ornament thereof. for this cause was the table at toledo, and the [visigothic] monarchs vied with one another in enriching it, each of them adding somewhat to the offerings of his predecessor, till it surpassed all other jewels of its kind and grew to be renowned exceedingly. it was of fine gold studded with emeralds, pearls, and rubies, in such wise that nothing similar had ever been beheld. so did the kings endeavour to increase its richness, seeing that this city was their capital, nor did they wish another to contain more splendid ornaments or furniture. thus was the table resting on an altar of the church, and here the muslims came upon it, and the fame of its magnificence spread far abroad." another chronicle affirms that tarik found the "table" at a city called almeida, now perhaps olmedo. "he reached toledo, and leaving a detachment there, advanced to guadalajara and the [guadarrama] mountains. these he crossed by the pass which took his name, and reached, upon the other side, a city called almeida or _the table_, for there had been discovered the table of solomon the son of david, and the feet and borders of it, numbering three hundred and sixty-five, were of green emerald." in any case this venerated jewel gave considerable trouble to its captors. when envious muza followed up the march of tarik, his lieutenant, he demanded from him all the spoil, and in particular the ever-famous table. tarik surrendered this forthwith, but after slyly wrenching off a leg. muza perceived the breakage, and inquired for the missing piece. "i know not," said the other; "'twas thus that i discovered it." muza then ordered a new leg of gold to be made for the table, as well as a box of palm leaves, in which it was deposited. "this," says ibn hayyan, "is known to be one of the reasons why tarik worsted muza in the dispute they had before the caliph as to their respective conquests." so it proved. ibn abdo-l-haquem[ ] relates that muza appeared before the caliph al-walid and produced the table. tarik interposed and said that he himself had taken it, and not the other leader. "give it into my hands," the caliph answered, "that i may see if any piece of it be wanting," and found, indeed, that one of its feet was different from the rest. "ask muza," interrupted tarik, "for the missing foot, and if he answer from his heart, then shall his words be truth." accordingly al-walid inquired for the foot, and muza made reply that he had found the table as it now appeared; but tarik with an air of triumph drew forth the missing piece which he himself had broken off, and said: "by this shall the emir of the faithful recognize that i am speaking truth; that i it was who found the table." and thereupon al-walid credited his words and loaded him with gifts. [ ] _account of the conquest of spain_, published, with an english translation and notes, by john harris jones. london, . comparing the statements of these writers, we may be certain that the "table" was a kind of desk of visigothic or, more probably, byzantine workmanship, for holding the gospels on the feast-days of the national church. probably, too, seeing that a palm-leaf box was strong enough to keep it in, its size was inconsiderable. its value, on the statement of ibn abdo-l-haquem, was two hundred thousand _dinares_. the sum of my remarks upon the visigothic jewel-work is this. distinguished by a coarse though costly splendour, we find in it a mingled roman and byzantine source, although it was upon the whole inferior to these styles, being essentially, as amador observes, "an imitative and decadent art." yet it did not succumb before the moors, but lurked for refuge in the small asturian monarchy, and later, issuing thence, extended through the kingdom of león into castile. we find its clearest characteristics in such objects as the cross of angels and the cross of victory. then, later still, it is affected and regenerated by the purely oriental art of the invader; and lastly, till the wave of the renaissance floods the western world, by gothic influences from across the pyrenees. a similar sketch may be applied to other arts and crafts of spain--particularly furniture and architecture. [illustration: ii the cross of angels _(oviedo cathedral)_] the pious or superstitious kings and magnates of this land have always taken pride in adding (at the instigation of the clergy) to the treasure of her churches and cathedrals. such gifts include all kinds of sumptuous apparel for the priesthood; chasubles and dalmatics heavily embroidered with the precious metals, gold or silver crowns and crosses, paxes,[ ] chalices and patines, paraments and baldaquinos, reliquaries in every shape and style and size, and figures of the virgin--such as those of lugo, seville, astorga, and pamplona--consisting of elaborate silver-work upon a wooden frame. visitors to spain, from leisurely rosmithal five hundred years ago to time-economizing tourists of our century, have been continually astonished at the prodigal richness of her sanctuaries. upon this point i quote a typical extract from the narrative of bertaut de rouen. "the treasure of this church," he said of montserrat, "is wonderfully precious, and particularly so by reason of two objects that belong to it. the first is a crown of massive gold of twenty pounds in weight, covered with pearls, with ten stars radiating from it also loaded with large pearls and diamonds of extraordinary value. this crown took forty years to make, and is valued at two millions of gold money. the second object is a gold crown entirely covered with emeralds, most of them of an amazing size. many are worth five thousand crowns apiece. the reliquary, too, is of extraordinary richness, as also a service of gold plate studded with pearls, donated by the late emperor for use in celebrating mass." [ ] the pax or osculatory used in celebrating high mass is commonly, says rosell de torres, "a plate of gold or ivory, or other metal or material, according to the time and circumstances of its manufacture. the priest who celebrates the mass kisses it after the _agnus dei_ and the prayer _ad petendam pacem_, and the acolytes present it, as a sign of peace and brotherly union, to all the other priests who may be present. this usage springs from the kiss of peace which was exchanged, prior to receiving the communion, between the early christians in their churches. the pax has commonly borne an image of the virgin with the holy infant, the face of christ, or else the agnus dei." its latin name was the _deosculatorium_. similar accounts to the above exist in quantities, relating to every part of spain and every period of her history. reverting to the earlier middle ages, a few conspicuous objects thus presented to the spanish church require to be briefly noted here. famous chalices are those of santo domingo de silos (eleventh century), made to the order of abbot domingo in honour of san sebastian, and showing the characteristic asturian filigree-work; and of san isidoro of león, made in by order of urraca fernandez, sister of the fourth alfonso. the latter vessel, inscribed with the dedication of _urraca fredinandi_, has an agate cup and foot. a remarkably handsome silver-gilt chalice and patine (thirteenth century) belong to toledo cathedral. the height of this chalice is thirteen inches, and the diameter of its bowl, which has a conical shape, eight and a half inches. inside and out the bowl is smooth, but midway between the bowl and the foot is a massive knot or swelling in the stem, and on the knot the emblematic lion, eagle, bull, and angel are chiselled in high relief. below the knot is a ring of graceful rosettes. the patine which accompanies this chalice measures twelve inches in diameter. it has upon it, thinly engraved within a slightly sunk centre with a scalloped edge, the figure of christ upon the cross, between the virgin and st john. this central group of figures and the border of the plate are each surrounded with a narrow strip of decoration. the cathedral of valencia has a beautiful and early cup asserted to be the veritable holy grail (_greal_, _garal_, or _gradal_, in the old castilian), "of which," wrote ford with his accustomed irony, "so many are shown in different orthodox _relicarios_." however this may be, the chalice of valencia is particularly handsome. according to riaño it consists of "a fine brown sardonyx which is tastefully moulded round the lip. the base is formed of another inverted sardonyx. these are united by straps of pure gold. the stem is flanked by handles, which are inlaid with delicate arabesque in black enamel. oriental pearls are set round the base and stem, which alternate with rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. this chalice is a work of the roman imperial epoch, and the mounts are of a later date." a series of spanish chalices, beginning chronologically with specimens which date from the early middle ages, and terminating with the chalice, made in , of santa maría la blanca of seville, was shown in at the exposición histórico-europea of madrid. among the finer or most curious were chalices proceeding from the parish church of játiva, las huelgas, and seville cathedral, and the plateresque chalices of calatayud, granada, and alcalá de henares. another chalice which is greatly interesting because of the date inscribed on it, is one which was presented to lugo cathedral by a bishop of that diocese, don garcia martinez de bahamonde ( - ). the workmanship, though prior to the sixteenth century, is partly gothic. an article by josé villa-amil y castro, dealing with all these chalices, will be found in the _boletín de la sociedad española de excursiones_ for april, . a small exhibition was held at lugo in august . here were shown sixteen chalices, nearly all of them of merit from the point of view of history or art. such are the chalice of san rosendo, proceeding from the old monastery of celanova; the gothic chalices of tuy cathedral, lugo cathedral, santa maría del lucio, santa eulalia de guilfrei, san pedro de puertomarín, and the franciscan friars of santiago; and the chalice and patine of cebrero (twelfth century), in which it is said that on a certain occasion in the fifteenth century the wine miraculously turned to actual blood, and the host to actual flesh, in order to convince a doubting priest who celebrated service. the cross of angels and the cross of victory--presents, respectively, from alfonso the chaste and alfonso the great--are now preserved at oviedo, in the camara santa of that stately temple. the former of these crosses, fancied by credulous people to be the handiwork of angels--whence its title[ ]--was made in a.d. . it consists of four arms of equal length, radiating from a central rosette (pl. ii.). the core or _alma_ is of wood covered with a double plate of richly decorated gold, chased in the finest filigree (indicative already of the influence of cordova) and thickly strewn with sapphires, amethysts, topazes, and cornelians. other stones hung formerly from six small rings upon the lower border of the arms. the cross is thus inscribed:-- _"susceptum placide maneat hoc in honore dei offeret adefonsus humilis servus xti hoc signo tuetur pius hoc signo vincitur inimicus._ _quisquis auferre presumpserit mihi fulmine divino intereat ipse nisi libens ubi voluntas dederit mea hoc opus perfectum est in era dccxlvi."_ [ ] this marvel is related by the monk of silos. a quotation from another of my books is applicable here. "last year," i wrote in --(pp. , of _toledo and madrid: their records and romances_)--"the young king alfonso the thirteenth paid a visit to oviedo cathedral, and was duly shown the relics and the jewels. among these latter was the 'cross of the angels.' "'why is it so called?' inquired the king. "'because,' replied the bishop of the diocese, 'it is said that the angels made it to reward king alfonso the chaste.' "'well, but,' insisted the young monarch, 'what ground is there for thinking so?' "'señor,' replied the prelate, 'none whatever. _the time for traditions is passing away._'" [illustration: iii the cross of victory (_oviedo cathedral_)] the other cross (pl. iii.) is more than twice as large, and measures just one yard in height by two feet four and a half inches in width. tradition says that the primitive, undecorated wooden core of this cross was carried against the moors by king pelayo. the ornate casing, similar to that upon the cross of angels, was added later, and contains gems and imitation gems. the following inscription tells us that this casing was made at the castle of gauzon in asturias, in the year :-- _"susceptum placide maneat hoc in honore dei, quod offerent famuli christi adefonsus princeps et scemaena regina; quisquis auferre hoc donoria nostra presumpserit fulmine divino intereat ipse. hoc opus perfectum et concessum est santo salvatori oventense sedis. hoc signo tuetur pius, hoc vincitur inimicus et operatum est in castello gauzon anno regni nostri._ xlii. _discurrente era_ dccclxvi." these crosses are processional. others which were used for the same purpose are those of san sebastián de serrano (galicia), san munio de veiga, santa maría de guillar (lugo), san mamed de fisteos, and santa maría de arcos. the five preceding crosses are of bronze; those of baamorto and san adriano de lorenzana are respectively of silver, and of wood covered with silver plates, and all were shown at the lugo exhibition i have spoken of. besides the cross of victory or pelayo, and the cross of angels, interesting objects preserved at oviedo are a small diptych presented by bishop don gonzalo (a.d. - ), and the _arca santa_ used for storing saintly relics. this beautiful chest, measuring three feet nine inches and a half in length by twenty-eight inches and a half in height, is considered by riaño to be of italian origin, and to date from between the tenth and twelfth centuries. another handsome box belonging to the cathedral of astorga was once upon a time the property of alfonso the third and his queen jimena, whose names it bears--adefonsvs rex: scemena regina. the workmanship is consequently of the close of the ninth or the beginning of the tenth century. the material is wood covered with _repoussé_ silver plates on which are figured angels and birds, together with the eagle and the ox as emblems of the evangelists john and luke, whose names are also to be read upon the casket. next to the sword, no object in the history of mediæval spain was more profoundly popular or venerated than the _relicario_. this in its primitive form was just a small receptacle, such as a vase or urn of gold or silver, ivory or crystal, used by the laity or clergy for treasuring bones, or hairs, or other relics of the virgin, or the saviour, or the saints. in private families a holy tooth, or toe, or finger thus preserved would often, as though it were some eastern talisman, accompany its credulous possessor to the battlefield. as time went on, the urn or vase was commonly replaced by chests or caskets made by moorish captives, or by tranquil and respected moorish residents within the territory of the christian,[ ] or wrested from the infidel in war and offered by the spanish kings or nobles to their churches. here they were kept on brackets, or suspended near the altar by a chain[ ] of silver, gold, or iron. among the moors themselves such chests and caskets served, according to their richness or capacity, for storing perfumes, clothes, or jewels, or as a present from a bridegroom to his bride; and since the sparsely-furnished oriental room contains no kind of wardrobe, cabinet, or chest of drawers, their use in moorish parts of spain was universal. [ ] in many towns a hearty friendship sprang up between the spaniard and the moor. this was a natural consequence in places where the vanquished had a better education than the victor. the warrior population of both races might be struggling on the field at the same moment that their craftsmen were fraternizing in the workshop. ferdinand the first and alfonso the sixth were particularly lenient in their usage of the dominated muslim. thus, the former of these princes recognised the moorish townspeople of sena as his vassals, while those of toledo were freely allowed by alfonso to retain their worship and their mosque. [ ] "_fallaron ay de marfil arquetas muy preçiadas con tantas de noblezas que non podrian ser contadas fueron para san pedro las arquetas donadas; están en este dia en el su altar asentadas._" poem of ferran gonzalvez ( th century). a typical moorish casket of this kind (plate iv.) is now in the cathedral of gerona. it measures fifteen inches in length by nine across, fastens with a finely ornamented band and clasp of bronze, and is covered with thin silver-gilt plates profusely decorated with a bead and floral pattern superposed upon a box of non-decaying wood--possibly larch or cedar. a cufic inscription along the lower part of the lid was formerly interpreted as follows:-- "in the name of god. (may) the blessing of god, prosperity and fortune and perpetual felicity be (destined) for the servant of god, alhakem, emir of the faithful, because he ordered (this casket) to be made for abdul walid hischem, heir to the throne of the muslims. it was finished by the hands of hudzen, son of bothla." [illustration: iv moorish casket (_gerona cathedral_)] it is supposed, however, that the part of this inscription which contains the maker's name was rendered incorrectly by riaño, who followed, on this point, saavedra, fita, and other archæologists; and that the casket was made to the order of djaudar, as a gift to the heir to the throne, abulwalid hischem, the actual workmen being two slaves, bedr and tarif. that is to say, the name hudzen is now replaced by djaudar, whom dozy mentions in his history of the mussulman domination in spain, and who is known to have been a eunuch high in favour with alhakem, hischem's father. these princes ruled at cordova in the latter half of the tenth century and the beginning of the eleventh. spanish-moorish caskets (_arquetas_) of ivory, silver, or inlaid work, are also preserved in the south kensington museum, the archæological museum at madrid, and the cathedrals of braga, tortosa, and oviedo. there is no reason to doubt that all these boxes were made in spain, although an eastern and particularly persian influence is very noticeable in their scheme of decoration. two silver caskets which were once in the church of san isidoro at león are now in the madrid museum. the smaller and plainer of the two, elliptical in shape and measuring five inches in length by two inches and a half in depth, is covered with a leaf and stem device outlined in black enamel. a cufic inscription of a private and domestic import, also picked out with black enamel, runs along the top. the lid is ornamented, like the body of the box, with leaves and stems surrounded by a grecian border, and fastens with a heart-shaped clasp secured by a ring. the other, more elaborate, and larger box measures eight inches long by five in height. in shape it is a parallelogram, with a deeply bevelled rather than--as amador describes it--a five-sided top. bands of a simple winding pattern outlined in black enamel on a ground of delicate niello-work run round the top and body of the casket. the central band upon the lower part contains a cufic inscription of slight interest. some of the letters terminate in leaves. the bevelled lid is covered with groups of peacocks--symbolic, among mohammedans, of eternal life--outlined in black enamel. these birds are eight in all, gathered in two groups of four about the large and overlapping hinges. four leaves, trifoliate, in _repoussé_, one beneath the other, decorate the clasp, which opens out into a heart containing, also in _repoussé_, two inverted peacocks looking face to face. between the birds this heart extremity is pierced for the passage of a ring. amador de los ríos considers that both caskets were made between the years and . the use of coloured enamel in the manufacture of these boxes dates, or generally so, from somewhat later. although the history of enamelling in spain is nebulous and contradictory in the extreme, we know that caskets in _champlevé_ enamel on a copper ground, with figures either flat or hammered in a bold relief, became abundant here. two, from the convent of san marcos at león, and dating from the thirteenth century, are now in the madrid museum. labarte says that the lids of these enamelled reliquaries were flat until the twelfth century, and of a gable form thenceforward. [illustration: v altar-front in enamelled bronze (_ th century. museum of burgos_)] other old objects--boxes, triptyches, statuettes, incensories, book-covers, crucifixes, and processional crosses--partly or wholly covered with enamel, belong or recently belonged to the marquises of castrillo and casa-torres, the count of valencia de don juan, and señor escanciano. all, or nearly all, of these are thought to have proceeded from limoges (pl. v.). _champlevé_ enamel is also on the tiny "crucifix of the cid" (pl. vi.) at salamanca, as well as on the virgin's throne in the gilt bronze statuette of the virgin de la vega at san esteban in the same city.[ ] of this image, although it properly belongs to another heading of my book, i think it well to give a reproduction here (plate vii.). i will also mention, in spite of its presumably foreign origin, the enamelled altar-front of san miguel de excelsis in navarre--a small sanctuary constructed by a mediæval cavalier who, by an accident occasioned by the dark, murdered his father and mother in lieu of his wife.[ ] this altar-front, conspicuously byzantine in its style, measures four feet three inches high by seven feet five inches long, and is now employed as the _retablo_ of the little church which stands in solitary picturesqueness on the lofty mountain-top of aralar. the figures, coloured in relief upon a yellowish enamel ground, are those of saints, and of a monarch and his queen--possibly king sancho the great, who is believed to have been the donor of the ornament. if this surmise be accurate, the front would date from the eleventh century. [ ] together with the statuette of ujué in navarre, the virgen de la vega of salamanca may be classed as one of the earliest "local virgins" of this country. sometimes these images are of wood alone, sometimes of wood beneath a silver covering, sometimes, as that of the claustro de león, of stone. but whatever may be the substance, the characteristics are the same:--byzantine rigidness and disproportion, the crude and primitive anatomy of artists only just emerging from the dark. the virgin and child of santa maría la real of hirache in navarra may be instanced as another of the series. this image dates from late in the twelfth or early in the thirteenth century, although a crown and nimbus have been added subsequently. it measures rather more than a yard in height, and consists of wood covered with silver plates, except the hands and face, which are painted. the virgin, seated, holds the infant with her left arm; in her right hand is an apple. a kind of stole bearing the following inscription in gothic letter falls upon the infant's breast; "_puer natus est nobis, venite adoremus. ego sum alpha et omega, primus et novissimus dominus._" before this statuette the king don sancho is stated to have offered his devotion. [ ] i quote this legend in appendix a. i have said that the history of spanish enamel-work is both confused and scanty. the subject in its general aspects has been studied by m. roulin, whose judgments will be found in the _revue de l'art ancien et moderne_, and in his article, "mobilier liturgique d'espagne," published in the _revue de l'art chrétien_ for . m. roulin believes the altar-front of san miguel in excelsis to be a limoges product, not earlier than the first half of the thirteenth century. ramírez de arellano declares that no enamelling at all was done in spain before the invasion of the almohades. lópez ferreiro, who as a priest had access to the jealously secreted archives of santiago cathedral, gives us the names of arias perez, pedro martinez, fernan perez, and pedro pelaez, galician enamellers who worked at santiago in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. martin minguez says that enamelling was done at gerona in the fourteenth century, and moorish enamels were certainly produced at cordova and cuenca from comparatively early in the middle ages. a few obscure workers in enamel are mentioned by gestoso, in his _diccionario de artistas sevillanos_, as living at seville in the fifteenth century, though, in the entries which refer to them, little is told us of their lives and nothing of their labours. in the sixteenth century we obtain a glimpse of two enamellers of toledo--lorenzo marqués and andrés ordoñez, and dating from the same period the chapter of the military orders of ciudad real possesses a silver-gilt _porta-paz_ with enamelling done at cuenca. however, our notices of this branch of spanish art have yet to be completed. [illustration: vi "the crucifix of the cid" (_salamanca cathedral_)] a long array of royal gifts caused, in the olden time, the treasure of santiago cathedral to be the richest and most varied in the whole peninsula, although at first this see was merely suffragan to merida. but early in the twelfth century a scheming bishop, by name diego gelmirez, intrigued at rome to raise his diocese to the dignity of an archbishopric. the means by which he proved successful in the end were far from irreproachable. "gelmirez," says ford (vol. ii. p. ) "was a cunning prelate, and well knew how to carry his point; he put santiago's images and plate into the crucible, and sent the ingots to the pope." the original altar-front or parament (_aurea tabula_) was made of solid gold. this altar-front gelmirez melted down to steal from it some hundred ounces of the precious metal for the pope, donating in its stead another front of gold and silver mixed, wrought from the remaining treasure of the sanctuary. aymerich tells us that the primitive frontal bore the figure of the saviour seated on a throne supported by the four evangelists, blessing with his right hand, and holding in his left the book of life. the four-and-twenty elders (called by quaint morales "gentlemen") of the apocalypse were also gathered round the throne, with musical instruments in their hands, and golden goblets filled with fragrant essences. at either end of the frontal were six of the apostles, three above and three beneath, separated by "beautiful columns" and surrounded by floral decoration. the upper part was thus inscribed:-- hanc tabulam didacus prÆsul jacobita secundus tempore quinquenni fecit episcopi marcas argenti de thesauro jacobensi hic octoginta quinque minus numera. and the lower part:-- rex erat anfonsus gener ejus dux raimundus prÆsul prÆfatus quando peregit opus. this early altar-front has disappeared like its predecessor; it is not known precisely at what time; but both morales and medina saw and wrote about it in the sixteenth century. [illustration: vii the "virgen de la vega" (_salamanca_)] another ornament which aymerich describes, namely, the _baldaquino_ or _cimborius_, has likewise faded from the eyes of the profane, together with three bronze caskets covered with enamel, and stated by morales to have contained the bones of saints silvestre, cucufate, and fructuoso. one of these caskets was existing in the seventeenth century. the silver lamps were greatly celebrated. ambrosio de morales counted "twenty or more"; but zepedano made their total mount to fifty-one. the french invasion brought their number down to three. three of the oldest of these lamps had been of huge dimensions, particularly one, a present from alfonso of aragon, which occupied the centre. the shape of it, says aymerich, was "like a mighty mortar." seven was the number of its beaks, symbolic of the seven gifts of the holy ghost; and each beak contained a lamplet fed with oil of myrtles, acorns, or olives. all kinds of robberies and pilferings have thus been perpetrated with the once abundant wealth of santiago.[ ] the jealous care which keeps the copious archives inaccessible to all the outside world is in itself of sinister significance. it has transpired, furthermore, that many of the bishops have "exchanged," or simply stolen, portions of the holy property. besides these clerical dilapidations, a cartload, weighing half a ton, was carried off by marshal ney, though some was subsequently handed back, "because the spoilers feared the hostility of the _plateros_, the silversmiths who live close to the cathedral, and by whom many workmen were employed in making little graven images, teraphims and lares, as well as medallions of santiago, which pilgrims purchase."[ ] [ ] a recent instance, not devoid of humour, is as follows. about three years ago, a silly rogue removed and carried off the crown from santiago's head; but since the actual jewel is only worn on solemn festivals, his prize turned out to be a worthless piece of tin. an odd removal of the treasure of another spanish church was noted by the traveller bowles. "the curate of the place, a worthy fellow who put me up in his house, assured me that a detachment of a legion of locusts entered the church, ate up the silk clothes upon the images, and gnawed the varnish on the altars." perhaps these adamantine-stomached insects have assailed, from time to time, the gold and silver plate of santiago. [ ] ford, _handbook_, vol. ii. p. . i briefly notice, in appendix b, the santiago jet-work, also practised by these craftsmen. [illustration: viii saint james in pilgrim's dress (_silver-gilt statuette; th century. santiago cathedral_)] among the gifts of value which this temple yet preserves are the ancient processional cross presented by the third alfonso in the year of grace ,[ ] and the hideous fourteenth-century reliquary shaped to represent the head of james alfeo, and containing (as it is believed) this very relic (pl. viii.). i make a reservation here, because the chapter have forbidden the reliquary to be opened. in either case, whether the head be there or not, heads of the same apostle are affirmed to be at chartres, toulouse, and other places. similarly, discussing these hydra-headed beings of the bible and the hagiology, villa-amil y castro (_el tesoro de la catedral de santiago_, published in the _museo español de antigüedades_) recalls to us the ten authenticated and indubitable mazzards of saint john the baptist. [ ] to lend my censures further cogency, i leave this statement as i set it down some weeks ago; since when, on picking up a spanish newspaper, i read the following telegram:-- "theft in santiago cathedral "santiago, _may th, _ ( . _p.m._). "this morning, when the canon in charge of the chapel of the relics unlocked the door, he was surprised to observe that some of these were lying in confusion on the floor. fearing that a theft had been committed, he sent for the dean and others of the clergy, who had examination made, and found the following objects to be missing:-- _"a gold cross, presented by king alfonso the great, when he attended the consecration of this temple in the year ._ "another cross, of silver, dating from the fifteenth century--a present from archbishop spinola. "an aureole of the fifteenth century, studded with precious stones belonging to a statuette of the apostle santiago. "the authorities were summoned and at once began their search. "they find that two of the thick iron bars of the skylight in the ceiling of the cloister have been filed through. this cloister has a skylight which opens upon the chapel. "they have also found, upon the roof, a knotted rope. this rope was only long enough to reach a cornice in the chapel wall. _the wall itself affords no sign that anybody has attempted to descend by it._" the head-shaped reliquary is of beaten silver with enamelled visage, and the hair and beard gilt.[ ] the workmanship is french. the cross, which hung till recently above the altar of the relicario, but which now requires to be placed upon the lengthy list of stolen wealth, was not unlike the cross of angels in the camara santa at oviedo, and had a wooden body covered with gold plates in finely executed filigree, studded with precious stones and cameos. not many days ago, the wooden core, divested of the precious metal and the precious stones, was found abandoned in a field. [ ] this form of reliquary was not uncommon. morales, in his _viaje sacro_, describes another one, also preserved at santiago, saying that it was a bust of silver, life-size and gilded to the breast, "with a large diadem of rays and many stones, both small and great, all or most of them of fine quality, though not of the most precious." other bust-reliquaries belong, or have belonged, to the cathedrals of burgos and toledo. visitors to the shrine of santiago seldom fail to have their curiosity excited by the monster "smoke-thrower" (_bota-fumeiro_) or incensory, lowered (much like the deadly sword in poe's exciting tale) on each _fiesta_ by a batch of vigorous gallegos from an iron frame fixed into the pendentives of the dome. "the calmest heart," says villa-amil, "grows agitated to behold this giant vessel descending from the apex of the nave until it almost sweeps the ground, wreathed in dense smoke and spewing flame." ford seems to have been unaware that the real purpose of this metal monster was not to simply scent the holy precincts, but to cover up the pestilential atmosphere created by a horde of verminous, diseased, and evil-smelling pilgrims, who, by a usage which is now suppressed, were authorized to pass the night before the services within the actual cathedral wall. the original _bota-fumeiro_, resembling, in oxea's words, "a silver boiler of gigantic bulk," was lost or stolen in the war of spanish independence. it was replaced by another of iron, and this, in , by the present apparatus of white metal. striking objects of ecclesiastical _orfebrería_ were produced in spain throughout the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries. among the finest are the triptych-reliquary of seville cathedral known as the _alfonsine tables_; the _retablo_ and _baldaquino_ of the cathedral of gerona; the silver throne, preserved in barcelona cathedral, of don martin of aragon; and the _guión_, at toledo, of cardinal mendoza. [illustration: ix mudejar triptych (_interior of one leaf of the door. th century. royal academy of history, madrid_)] triptych-reliquaries, which had gradually expanded from the diptych form--three leaves or panels thus replacing two,--were generally used in spain from the eleventh century, and varied in dimensions from a few inches in height and width to several yards. we find them in the gothic, mudejar,[ ] romanic, or renaissance styles--wrought either in a single style of these, or in effective combination of some two or more. the academy of history at madrid possesses a richly ornamented mudejar triptych (plate ix.) proceeding from the monasterio de piedra. it is inferior, notwithstanding, to the _tablas alfonsinas_,[ ] "a specimen of spanish silversmiths' work which illustrates the transition to the new style, and the progress in the design of the figures owing to the italian renaissance."[ ] in or about the year , this splendid piece of sacred furniture was made by order of the learned king, to hold the relics of certain saints and of the virgin mary. the maker is thought by amador to have been one "master george," a craftsman held in high esteem by the father of alfonso and the conqueror of seville, ferdinand the third. romanic influence is abundant in this triptych, showing that, although exposed to constant changes from abroad, the spanish mediæval crafts adhered upon the whole with singular tenacity to primitive tradition. [ ] the mudejares were the mussulmans who submitted, in the conquered cities, to the spanish-christian rule. the word _mudejar_ is of modern growth, nor can its derivation be resolved with certainty. from the thirteenth century onwards, and formed by the fusion of the christian and the saracenic elements, we find mudejar influence copiously distributed through every phase of spanish life and art, and even literature. [ ] amador prefers to call these tables "the triptych of the learned king," in order to distinguish them by this explicit title from the _astronomical tables_ prepared by order of the same monarch. [ ] riaño, _spanish arts_, p. . the triptych is of larch, or some such undecaying wood, and measures, when the leaves are opened wide, forty inches over its entire breadth, by twenty-two in height. linen is stretched upon the wood, and over that the silver-gilt _repoussé_ plates which form the principal adornment of the reliquary. "the outside is decorated with twelve medallions containing the arms of castile and aragon, and forty-eight others in which are repeated alternately the subjects of the adoration of the magi and the annunciation of the virgin, also in _repoussé_. in the centres are eagles, allusive, it is possible, to don alfonso's claim to be crowned emperor.... the ornamentation which surrounds the panels belongs to the sixteenth century" (riaño). the arms here spoken of contain the crowned lion and the castle of three towers; and the interesting fact is pointed out by amador that the diminutive doors and windows of these castles show a strongly pointed gothic arch. the sixteenth-century bordering to the panels is in the manner known as plateresque.[ ] the clasps are also plateresque, and prove, together with the border, that the triptych was restored about this time. [ ] so named because the silversmiths (_plateros_) of this country used it in their monstrances (_custodias_) and in many other objects or utensils of religious worship. the most refined and erudite of spanish silver-workers, juan de arfe, thus referred to it in rhyme:-- _"usaron desta obra los plateros guardando sus preceptos con zelo; pusiéronle en los puntos postrimeros de perfección mi abuelo."_ [illustration: x the "tablas alfonsinas" (_view of interior; th century. seville cathedral_)] inside (plate x.), it consists of fifteen compartments, "full of minute ornamentation, among which are set a large number of capsules covered with rock crystal containing relics, each one with an inscription of enamelled gold, _cloisonné_. several good cameos with sacred subjects appear near the edge of the side leaves" (riaño). these cameos, handsomely engraved with figures of the virgin and other subjects of religious character, are fairly well preserved; but the designs upon enamel are almost obliterated. eight precious stones, set in as rude a style as those upon the ancient crowns and crosses of the visigoths, have also fallen out, or been removed, from the interior. the _retablo_ of gerona cathedral and its baldachin date from the fourteenth century. "the retablo is of wood entirely covered with silver plates, and divided vertically into three series of niches and canopies; each division has a subject, and a good deal of enamelling is introduced in various parts of the canopies and grounds of the panels. each panel has a cinq-foiled arch with a crocketed gablet and pinnacles on either side. the straight line of the top is broken by three niches, which rise in the centre and at either end. in the centre is the blessed virgin with our lord; on the right, san narciso; and on the left, st filia. the three tiers of subjects contain figures of saints, subjects from the life of the blessed virgin, and subjects from the life of our lord."[ ] [ ] street, _gothic architecture in spain_. san narciso is patron of the city of gerona; which explains the presence of his image here. from the treasury of the same cathedral was stolen, during the war of spanish independence, a magnificent altar-front of wrought gold and mosaic, a gift of countess gisla, wife of ramón berenguer, count-king of barcelona. it had in the centre a bas-relief medallion representing the virgin, another medallion with a portrait of the donor, and various saints in niches, interworked with precious stones. the great armchair of don martin, called by baron davillier a "beau faudesteuil gothique," which possibly served that monarch as a throne, and was presented by him to the cathedral of barcelona, dates from the year . the wooden frame is covered with elaborately chiselled plates in silver-gilt. this most imposing object is carried in procession through the streets upon the yearly festival of corpus christi. [illustration: xi "the cup of san fernando" (_ th century. seville cathedral_)] [illustration: xii ship (_ th century. zaragoza cathedral_)] the _guión de mendoza_, now in toledo cathedral, is a handsome later-gothic silver-gilt cross, and is the same which was raised upon the torre de la vela at granada on january nd, , when the fairest and most storied city in all spain surrendered formally to ferdinand and isabella. many other interesting crosses, of the character known as processional, are still preserved in various parts of the peninsula, at south kensington, and elsewhere. the more remarkable are noticed under various headings of this book. their workmanship is generally of the fifteenth or the sixteenth century. the seo or cathedral of zaragoza possesses a handsome ship (plate xii.), presented to this temple, towards the end of the fifteenth century, by the valencian corsair, mosén juan de torrellas. the hull is a large shell resting on a silver-gilt dragon of good design, with a large emerald set in the middle of its forehead, and a ruby for each eye. ships of this kind were not uncommon on a spanish dining table of the time, or in the treasuries of churches and cathedrals. toledo owns another of these vessels (in both senses of the word), which once belonged to doña juana, daughter of ferdinand and isabella. hitherto i have confined my notice almost wholly to the treasure of the spanish temples. turning from ecclesiastical to secular life, we find, all through the middle ages, the humbler classes kept by constant penury and war aloof from every form of luxury. jewellery and gold and silver work were thus essentially the perquisite or, so to speak, the privilege of princes, nobles, and the church. the mediæval kings and magnates of this land were smitten inveterately with a passion for display, and chronicles and inventories of the time contain instructive details of the quantities of gems and precious metals employed by them to decorate their persons and their palaces. the richness of their bedsteads will be noticed under furniture. quantities of jewellery and plate belonged to every noble household. for instance, the testament of the countess of castañeda (a.d. ) includes the mention of "a gilded cup and cover to the same; a silver vessel and its lid, the edges gilt, and in the centre of both lid and vessel the arms of the said count, my lord; a silver vessel with a foot to it; a diamond ring; a silver vessel with gilt edges and the arms of the count, companion to the other vessels; a jasper sweetmeat-tray with silver-gilt handles and feet; four coral spoons; a gilt enamelled cup and lid; a small gilt cup and lid; two large silver porringers; two french cups of white silver; two large plates of eight marks apiece; two middling-sized silver vessels; two silver-gilt barrels with silver-gilt chains."[ ] [ ] count of clonard. on each occasion of a court or national festivity, the apparel of the great was ponderous with gold and silver fringe, or thickly strewn with pearls--the characteristic _aljofar_ or _aljofar_-work (arabic _chawar_, small pearls), for which the moors were widely famed. towards the thirteenth century unmarried spanish women of high rank possessed abundant stores of bracelets, earrings, necklaces, gold chains, rings, and gem-embroidered pouches for their money. their waist-belts, too, were heavy with gold and silver, and _aljofar_.[ ] the poem of the archpriest of hita ( ) mentions two articles of jewellery for female wear called the _broncha_ and the _pancha_. the former was an ornament for the throat; the other, a plate or medal which hung to below the waist. an arabic document quoted by casiri, and dating from the reign of henry the first of castile, specifies as belonging to an aristocratic lady of that time, "egyptian shirts of silk and linen, embroidered shirts, persian shirts with silk embroidery, murcian gold necklaces, ear-pendants of the same metal, set with gems; finger-rings and bracelets, waist-belts of skins, embroidered with silk and precious stones; cloaks of cloth of gold, embroidered mantles of the same, coverings for the head, and kerchiefs." [ ] _ibid_. for all the frequency with which they framed and iterated sterile and exasperating sumptuary pragmatics for their people, the spanish kings themselves went even beyond the nobles in their craze for ostentatious luxury. upon the day when he was crowned at burgos, alfonso the eleventh "arrayed himself in gold and silver cloth bearing devices of the castle and the lion, in which was much _aljofar_-work, as well as precious stones innumerable; rubies, emeralds, and sapphires." even the bit and saddle of the monarch's charger were "exceeding precious on this day, for gems and gold and silver covered all the saddle-bows, and the sides of the saddle and its girths, together with the headstall, were curiously wrought of gold and silver thread." similar relations may be found at every moment of the history of mediæval spain. another instance may be quoted from the reign of ferdinand and isabella. when these sovereigns visited barcelona in , the queen was dressed as follows:--"she advanced riding upon a fine mule, and seated on cushions covered with brocade, rising high above the saddle. her robe was of gold thread and jewel-work, with a rich brocade skirt. upon her head she wore a crown of gold adorned with richest diamonds, pearls, rubies, balas rubies, and other stones of passing price." during the same visit, a royal tournament was given in the plaza del born, in presence of the aristocracy and wealthy townspeople, "the counts, viscounts, deputies, councillors, _caballeros_, _gentiles hombres_, burgesses, and others without number." ferdinand, who "with virtue and benignity" had deigned to break a lance or two in tourneying with the duke of alburquerque, the count of benavente, and several gentlemen of cataluña, was wearing "over his harness a jacket all of gold brocade. his horse's coverings and poitral also were of thread of gold, richly devised and wrought, and of exceeding majesty and beauty. and on his helm he wore a crown of gold, embellished with many pearls and other stones; and above the crown a figure of a large gold bat, which is the emblem of the kings of aragon and counts of barcelona, with white and sanguine bars upon the scutcheon.[ ] the queen and the cardinal of spain were in a window of the house of mossen guillem pujades, conservator of the realm of sicily. her highness wore a robe of rich gold thread with a collar of beautiful pearls; and the trappings of her mule were of brocade."[ ] [ ] four pallets gules, on a field or; which were the arms of cataluña and subsequently of aragon. [ ] _archives of the crown of aragon._ eleven years later the youthful prince, don juan, son of these rulers, appeared before the citizens of barcelona dressed in "a robe of beautiful brocade that almost swept the ground, and a doublet of the same material; the sleeves of the robe thickly adorned with fine pearls of large size." he carried, too, "a gold collar of great size and beauty, wrought of large diamonds, pearls, and other stones."[ ] [ ] _ibid_. it was an ancient usage with the people of barcelona to present a silver service to any member of the royal family who paid a visit to their capital. the service so presented to ferdinand the catholic cost the corporation a sum of more than twelve hundred pounds of catalan money, and included "a saltcellar made upon a rock. upon the rock is a castle, the tower of which contains the salt.... two silver ewers, gilt within and containing on the outside various enamelled devices in the centre, together with the city arms. also a silver-gilt lion upon a rustic palisade of tree-trunks, holding an inscription in his right paw, with the arms of the city, a flag, and a crown upon his head. this object weighs thirty-four marks."[ ] the service offered on the same occasion to isabella, though less in weight, was more elaborately wrought, and cost on this account considerably more. it included "two silver ewers, gilt within and enamelled without, bearing the city arms, and chiselled in the centre with various designs of foliage. also a silver saltcellar, with six small towers, containing at the foot three pieces of enamel-work with the arms of the city in relief. this saltcellar has its lid and case, with a pinnacle upon the lid, and is of silver-gilt inside and out."[ ] [ ] sanpere y miquel, _revista de ciencias históricas_, art. _la platería catalana en los siglos xiv. y xv._, vol. i. p. . [ ] _ibid_. from about the fifteenth century the goldsmiths and the silversmiths of barcelona enjoyed considerable fame. among their names are those of lobarolla, roig, berni, belloch, planes, mellar, corda, fábregues, farrán, perot ximenis, rafel ximenis, balagué, and antonio de valdés. riaño quotes the names of many more from cean's dictionary. the most important facts relating to these artists were brought to light some years ago by baron davillier, who based the greater part of his research upon the _libros de pasantía_ or silversmiths' examination-books (filled with excellent designs for jewel-work) of barcelona. these volumes, formerly kept in the college of san eloy, are now the property of the provincial deputation of this city. the goldsmiths' and the silversmiths' guild of seville also possesses four of its old examination-books, of which the earliest dates from . gestoso, in his _dictionary of sevillian artificers_ describes the actual ceremony of examination for a silversmith or goldsmith. once in every year the members of the guild assembled in their chapel of the convent of san francisco. here and upon this day the candidate was closely questioned, to begin with, as to his "purity of blood"--that is, his freedom from contamination by relationship with any moor or hebrew. when it was duly and precisely ascertained that he, his parents, and his grandparents were uniformly "old christians," untainted with the "wicked race of moors, jews, heretics, mulattoes, and renegades," and that neither he nor his ancestors had ever been put on trial by the inquisition or by any other tribunal, "whether publicly or secretly," he was permitted to proceed to his examination proper.[ ] the formula of this was simple. the candidate was summoned before the board of examiners, consisting of the padre mayor or patriarch of the guild, and the two _veedores_ or inspectors, the one of gold-work, the other of silver-work. the book of drawings was then placed upon the table, and a ruler was thrust at haphazard among its leaves. where the ruler chanced to fall, the candidate was called upon to execute the corresponding drawing to the satisfaction of his judges. [ ] gestoso mentions that juan de luna, a silversmith of seville, was turned into the gutter from the workshop where he was employed, solely because his father had been punished as a morisco by the inquisition (_diccionario de artífices sevillanos_, vol. i. p. lvi.). riaño lays too slight a stress upon the moorish and morisco jewellery of spain. although the use of gold and silver ornaments is forbidden by the koran, the muslim, wherever his vanity or his bodily comfort is involved, tramples his bible underfoot almost as regularly, tranquilly, and radically as the christians do their own. the moors of spain were not at all behind their oriental brethren in displaying precious stones and metals on their persons or about their homes. al-jattib tells us that the third mohammed offered to the mosque of the alhambra columns with capitals and bases of pure silver. or who does not recall the caliphate of cordova; the silver lamp that measured fifty palms across, fitted with a thousand and fifty-four glass lamplets, and swinging by a golden chain from the cupola of the entrance to the _mirhab_ in the vast _mezquita_; the silver candlesticks and perfume-burners in the same extraordinary temple; the precious stones and metals employed in mighty quantities to decorate the palaces of az-zahyra and az-zahra?-- "a wilderness of building, sinking far and self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth, far sinking into splendour without end! fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold, with alabaster domes and silver spires, and blazing terrace upon terrace, high uplifted." in brief, just as the prelates of the christian church habitually precede the christian laity in trampling underfoot the elemental doctrine of our lord, so were the most exalted and responsible of all the mussulmans--that is, their sultans--indefatigably foremost in neglect of the koranic law. the spanish sultans wore a ring of gold containing one large stone (such as an emerald, or ruby, or turquoise), on which was cut the royal seal and signature. such was the ring belonging to boabdil el chico, worn by him on the very day of the surrender of his capital, and by his hand presented to a spanish nobleman, the count of tendilla, governor-elect of the alhambra. according to rodriguez de ardila, the following inscription was upon the stone:--"_la ala ile ala, abahu tabiu. aben abi abdalá_," meaning, "_there is no god but god; this is the seal of aben abi abdalá._" ardila, who was the author of a history of the counts of tendilla (which still remains in manuscript), adds that he saw the ring, although, as eguilaz observes, two words of the inscription are inaccurately rendered. among the moors of spain the use of signet rings was general. the stone employed was commonly cornelian, richly mounted and inscribed in various ways, as with the owner's name, his name together with a date, or the name of the town of which he was a native. in other instances we meet with pious phrases or quotations from the koran; or perhaps a talismanic figure, such as the open eye to guard the wearer from the dreaded _mal de ojo_; or the open hand that still surmounts the gateway of the tower of justice at granada.[ ] [ ] an article by señor saavedra on these inscribed jewels and signets of mohammedan spain will be found in the _museo español de antigüedades_. undoubtedly, too, the moorish sultans of this country owned enormous hoards of silver, gold, and precious stones. al-makkari says that the treasure of the nasrite rulers of granada included quantities of pearls, turquoises, and rubies; pearl necklets; earrings "surpassing those of mary the copt" (mohammed's concubine); swords of the finest temper, embellished with pure gold; helmets with gilded borders, studded with emeralds, pearls, and rubies; and silvered and enamelled belts. [illustration: xiii moorish bracelets] the moorish women of this country, and in particular the granadinas,[ ] were passionately fond of jewellery. ornaments which once belonged to them are sometimes brought to light in andalusia, murcia, or valencia, including pendants, rings, necklaces, and _axorcas_ or bangles for the ankle or the wrist, and bracelets for the upper portion of the arm. the national museum contains a small collection of these objects, dating from the time of the moriscos, and including a handsome necklace terminating in a double chain, with ball and pyramid shaped ornaments about the centre, a square-headed finger-ring with four green stones and a garnet, and a hollow bracelet filled with a substance that appears to be mastic, similar to those which are reproduced in plate xiii. [ ] "as to the ornaments and jewels of the ladies of granada, these wear at present necklaces of rich design, bracelets, rings (upon their ankles), and earrings of pure gold; together with quantities of silver and of precious stones upon their shoes. i say this of the middle class; for ladies of the aristocracy and of the older noble families display a vast variety of gems, such as rubies, chrysolites, emeralds, and pearls of great value. the ladies of granada are commonly fair to look upon, shapely, of good stature, with long hair, teeth of a shining white, and perfumed breath, gracefully alert in their movements, and witty and agreeable in conversation. but unfortunately at this time their passion for painting themselves and for arraying themselves in every kind of jewellery and costly stuffs has reached a pitch that is no longer tolerable."--al-jattib, in _the splendour of the new moon concerning the nasrite sultans of granada_. these jewels, i repeat, are of morisco workmanship, and therefore date from later than the independent empire of the spanish moors. nevertheless, the geometrical or filigree design was common both to moorish and morisco art. as i observed in my description of the casket-reliquaries, we note continually the influence of these motives on the arts of christian spain. the ordinances relative to the goldsmiths and the silversmiths of granada, cried at various times between and , whether "in the silversmiths' street of the alcaycería, that has its opening over against the scriveners'"; or in "the street of the puente del carbon, before the goldsmiths' shops"; or "in the street of the zacatin, where dwell the silversmiths," prove also that for many years after the reconquest the character and nomenclature of this kind of work continued to be principally and traditionally moorish. firstly, the ordinances complain that the goldsmiths of granada now employ a base and detrimental standard of the precious metals, especially in the bracelets or _manillas_ of the women. the goldsmiths answer in their vindication that equally as poor a standard is employed at seville, cordova, and toledo. these city laws herewith establish twenty carats as a minimum fineness for the gold employed in making ornaments. the makers, also, are ordered to impress their private stamp or seal on every article, or in default to pay a fine of ten thousand _maravedis_. a copy of each stamp or seal to be deposited in the city chest. the _alamín_ or inspector of this trade to test and weigh all gold and silver work before it is exposed for sale. we learn from the same source that the gold bracelets were sometimes smooth, and sometimes "covered over with devices" (_cubiertos de estampas por cima_). the technical name of these was _albordados_. the silver bracelets were also either smooth, or stamped, or twisted in a cord (_encordados_). bangles for the ankle, upper arm, and wrist are mentioned as continuing to be generally worn, while one of the ordinances complains that "moorish _axorcas_ are often sold that are hollow, and filled with chalk and mastic, so that before they can be weighed it is necessary to rid them of such substances by submitting them to fire, albeit the fire turns them black." the weapons and war-harness of the spanish moors were often exquisitely decorated with the precious stones or metals. splendid objects of this kind have been preserved, and will be noticed in their proper chapter. the ruinous and reckless measure known to spain's eternal shame as the expulsion of the moriscos, deprived this country of a great--perhaps the greatest--part of her resources. fonseca estimates this loss, solely in the quantity of coin conveyed away, at two million and eight hundred thousand _escudos_, adding that a single morisco, alami delascar de aberique, bore off with him one hundred thousand ducats.[ ] to make this matter worse, the moriscos, just before they went on board their ships, fashioned from scraps of tin, old nails, and other refuse, enormous stores of counterfeit coin, and slyly sold this rubbish to the simple spaniards in return for lawful money of the land. in the course of a few days, and in a single quarter of valencia, more than three hundred thousand ducats of false coin were thus passed off upon the christians. besides this exportation of good spanish money, the cunning fugitives removed huge quantities of jewellery and plate. chains, _axorcas_, rings, _zarcillos_, and gold _escudos_ were taken from the bodies of many of the morisco women who were murdered by the spanish soldiery; but the greater part of all this treasure found its way to africa. in his work _expulsión justificada de los moriscos_ ( ), aznar de cardona says that the morisco women carried "divers plates upon the breast, together with necklaces and collars, earrings and bracelets." it is recorded, too, that the moriscos, as they struggled in the country regions to avenge themselves upon their persecutors, did unlimited damage to the ornaments and fittings of the churches. "this people," says fonseca, "respected not our temples or the holy images that in them were; nor yet the chalices and other objects they encountered in our sacristies. upon the contrary, they smashed the crosses, burned the saints, profaned the sacred vestments, and committed such acts of sacrilege as though they had been algerian moors, or turks of constantinople." [ ] there was, however, from long before this time a prohibition to export from spain the precious metals, in any form, whether as objects of plate or as coined money. the penalty for a repetition of this offence was death. another law prohibited all foreigners who were resident in spain, not excluding the moriscos, from buying gold or silver in the bar (_suma de leyes_, p. ). it was also forbidden to sell the jewels or other objects of value belonging to a place of worship (_ibid_. p. ). legends of hidden moorish and morisco wealth are still extant in many parts of spain. the abbé bertaut de rouen[ ] and swinburne among foreigners, or spaniards such as the gossiping priest echeverría, who provided washington irving with the pick of his _tales of the alhambra_, have treated copiously of this fascinating and mysterious theme. the siete suelos tower at granada is particularly favoured with traditions of this kind. peasants of the alpujarras still declare that piles of moorish money lie secreted in the lofty buttresses of mulhacen and the veleta, while yet another summit of this snowy range bears the suggestive title of the cerro del tesoro, where, almost within the memory of living men, a numerous party, fitted and commissioned by the state, explored with feverish though unlucky zeal the naked cliffs and sterile crannies of the lonely mountain.[ ] [ ] this entertaining and inquisitive tourist describes, in , a wondrous cavern in the south of spain, "ou l'on conte que les mores ont caché leurs trésors en s'en retournant en afrique, et ou personne n'ose aborder de peur des esprits que l'on dit que l'on y voit souvent. mais comme il commencait a se faire nuit, je n'eus pas le loisir de m'y amuser beaucoup." with this our author shelved his curiosity, and prudently retired. [ ] leonard williams. _granada: memories, adventures, studies, and impressions_, p. . reducing all these fables to the terms of truth, moorish and morisco jewellery and coin are sometimes brought to light on spanish soil. such finds occur, less seldom than elsewhere, within the provinces of seville, cordova, granada, and almeria (plate xiv.), but since they are neither frequent nor considerable, although the likeliest ground for them is being disturbed continually, we may conclude that nearly all the muslim wealth accumulated here slipped from the clumsy if ferocious fingers of the mother-country, and found its way, concealed upon the bodies of her persecuted offspring, to the shores of africa.[ ] [ ] ford was more hopeful as to the preservation of this wealth in spain. "no doubt much coin is buried in the peninsula, since the country has always been invaded and torn by civil wars, and there never has been much confidence between spaniard and spaniard; accordingly the only sure, although unproductive, investment for those who had money, was gold or silver, and the only resource to preserve that, was to hide it."--_handbook_, vol. ii. p. . [illustration: xiv morisco jewellery (_found in the province of granada_)] sometimes, too, an early gold or silver object would be melted down and modernized into another and a newer piece of plate. this was a fairly common usage with the silversmiths themselves, or with an ignorant or stingy brotherhood or chapter. thus, the following entry occurs in the _libro de visita de fábrica_ belonging to the parish church of santa ana, triana, seville. in the year "the large cross of silver-gilt, together with its _mançana_ and all the silver attaching thereto, was taken to the house of zubieta the silversmith, and pulled to pieces. it weighed marks and _ochavas_ of silver, besides marks and ounces and _ochavas_ of silver which was the weight of the three lamps delivered to zubieta in the time of juan de mirando, aforetime steward of this church. it is now made into a silver-gilt cross."[ ] [ ] gestoso, _diccionario de artífices sevillanos_, vol. ii. p. . a similar instance may be quoted from a document of cordova, published by ramírez de arellano in his relation of a visit to the monastery of san jerónimo de valparaiso. in the year gerónimo de la cruz, a cordovese silversmith, agreed with the prior of this monastery to make for the community a silver-gilt _custodia_. for this purpose he received from the prior, doubtless a man of parsimonious spirit and a boor in his appreciativeness of art, eight pairs of vinegar cruets, four of whose tops were missing; a silver-gilt chalice and its patine; a _viril_ with two angels and four pieces on the crown of it; a small communion cup; some silver candlesticks; four spoons and a fork, also of silver; and a silver-gilt salt-cellar. the total value of these objects was _reales_; and all of them were tossed, in ford's indignant phrase, into the "sacrilegious melting-pot," in order to provide material for the new _custodia_. [illustration: xv silver-gilt processional cross (_made by juan de arfe in_ . _burgos cathedral_)] the gold and silver work of christian spain attained, throughout the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries, a high degree of excellence (plates xv., xvi., etc.). the best of it was made at seville, barcelona, toledo, and valladolid. objects of great artistic worth were also produced at burgos, palencia, león, cuenca, cordova, and salamanca. i have already mentioned some of the principal _orfebreros_ of barcelona. juan ruiz of cordova, whom juan de arfe applauds as "the first silversmith who taught the way to do good work in andalusia," was also, in this region, the first to turn the precious metals on the lathe. a famous silversmith of seville was diego de vozmediano, whom we find living there in . toledo, too, could boast, among an army of distinguished gold and silver smiths (riaño gives the names of no fewer than seventy-seven), cristóbal de ordas, juan rodríguez de babria, and pedro hernandez, _plateros_, respectively, to charles the fifth, to philip the second, and to the queen-dowager of portugal; and also the silversmith and engraver upon metals, pedro angel, whose praise is sung by lope de vega in the prologue to his _auto_ called _the voyage of the soul_:-- "_y es hoy pedro angel un divino artífice con el buril en oro, plata, ó cobre._" by far the greater part of all toledo's gold and silver work was made for service in her mighty temple. such were the statue of saint helen, presented by philip the second; the crown of the virgen del sagrario, wrought by hernando de carrión and alejo de montoya; the bracelets or _ajorcas_ made for the image of the same madonna by julián honrado; and the exquisite chests carved in and by francisco merino from designs by the two vergaras, father and son, as reliquaries for the bones of san eugenio and santa leocadia, patrons of this ancient capital.[ ] a magnificent silver lamp was also, in , offered by the chapter of the cathedral to the church of saint denis in france, in gratitude for the surrender of the bones of san eugenio to the city of his birth. these and other objects of toledan gold and silver work are stated to be "worthy of comparison with the very best of what was then produced in germany, italy, and france."[ ] [ ] a full description of these chests will be found in cean bermudez, vol. iii. pp. - . [ ] rada y delgado, in his reply to the count of cedillo's address in the royal academy of history. for particulars of the silver lamp, which was made by marcos and gonzalo hernandez, toledanos, and by diego dávila, see zarco del valle, _documentos inéditos para la historia de las bellas artes en españa_, vol. lv. p. . baron davillier also held a high opinion of the spanish _orfebreros_ of this time. after remarking that the italian influence was powerful among the spaniards in the sixteenth century, and more particularly for some fifty years at barcelona, he says: "a cette époque les _plateros_ espagnols pouvaient rivaliser sans désavantage avec les italiens, les français, les flamands, et les allemands." the same authority also says that the spanish _plateros_ of this period were skilled enamellers on gold and silver, and quotes some entries from french inventories of the time in which we read of cups, salt-cellars, washing-basins, and other objects executed or enamelled "à la mode d'espagne."[ ] [ ] _recherches sur l'orfévrerie en espagne_, pp. _et seq._ as we have seen, the exodus of the moriscos lost to spain a great proportion of her total wealth, although, conjointly with this loss, new wealth flowed into her in marvellous abundance from the new world.[ ] thus, the silver-mines of potosi, discovered in , sent over to the mother-country, between that year and , no less than eight hundred and forty-five millions of _pesos_. and yet this mighty influx of new riches cannot be said, except in the artistic sense, to have enriched the nation. she had renounced the service of the most industrious and, in many instances, the most ingenious of her native craftsmen; while on the other hand the christians, with but limited exceptions, were far too proud and far too indolent to set their hand to any form of manual exercise; just as (i much regret to add) a great proportion of them are this very day. foreign artificers in consequence (particularly after the royal pragmatic of encouraging their immigration), attracted by the treasure fleets that anchored in the bay of cadiz, came trooping into spain and filled their pockets from the national purse, fashioning, in return for money which they husbanded and sent abroad, luxurious gold and silver objects that were merely destined to stagnate within her churches and cathedrals. [ ] ulloa, _memorias sevillanas_, vol. i. p. . riaño and baron de la vega de hoz extract from cean bermudez a copious list of silversmiths who worked in spain all through the middle ages. this long array of isolated names and dates is neither interesting nor informative. newer and more attractive notices have been discovered subsequently. thus, in the national library at madrid, don manuel g. simancas has disinterred quite recently the copy made by a jesuit of a series of thirteenth-century accounts relating to various craftsmen of the reign of sancho the fourth ("the brave"). two of them are concerning early _orfebreros_:-- "juan yanez. by letters of the king and queen to johan yanez, goldsmith, brother of ferran garcía, scrivener to the king; for three chalices received from him by the king, cccclxxviii _maravedis_." the second entry says:-- "bartolomé rinalt. and he paid bartolomé rinalt for jewels which the queen bought from him to present to doña marina suarez, nurse of the infante don pedro, mcccl _maravedis_."[ ] [ ] _libro de diferentes cuentas y gasto de la casa real en el reynado de don sancho iv. sacado de un tomo original en folio que se guarda en la librería de la santa iglesia de toledo._ años de - . por el p. andres marcos burriel de la comp^a de jesus. among spain's gold and silver craftsmen of the fifteenth century we find the names of juan de castelnou, together with his son jaime, who worked at valencia; of lope rodríguez de villareal, ruby, and juan gonzalez, all three of whom worked at toledo; and of juan de segovia, a friar of guadalupe. papers concerning juan gonzalez, and dated , , and , are published among the _documentos inéditos_ of zarco del valle. one of segovia's masterpieces was a silver salt-cellar in the form of a lion tearing open a pomegranate--clearly allusive to the conquest of granada from the moors. upon their visiting the monastery, ferdinand and isabella saw and, as was natural, conceived a fancy for this salt-cellar; and so, whether from inclination or necessity, the brotherhood induced them to accept it. sixteenth-century _plateros_ of renown were juan donante, mateo and nicolás (whose surnames are unknown)--all three of whom worked at seville; and duarte rodríguez and fernando ballesteros, natives of that city. in or about the year were working at toledo the silversmiths pedro herreros and hernando de valles, together with diego vazquez, andres ordoñez, hernando de carrión, diego de valdivieso, juan domingo de villanueva, diego abedo de villandrando, juan tello de morata, francisco de reinalte, hans belta, and francisco merino. several of these men were natives of toledo. among the silversmiths of sixteenth-century cordova were diego de alfaro and his son francisco, francisco de baena, alonso casas, alonso del castillo, luis de cordoba, sebastián de cordoba, cristóbal de escalante, juan gonzalez, diego fernandez, diego hernandez rubio (son of sebastián de cordoba), rodrigo de león, gómez luque, ginés martinez, melchor de los reyes (silversmith and enameller), andrés de roa, pedro de roa, alonso sanchez, jerónimo sanchez de la cruz, martin sanchez de la cruz (jerónimo's son), pedro sanchez de luque, alonso de sevilla, juan urbano, and lucas de valdés. not much is told us of the lives and labours of these artists. the best reputed of them as a craftsman was rodrigo de león, who stood next after juan ruiz, _el sandolino_. ramírez de arellano, from whom i have collected these data, publishes a number of león's agreements or contracts, which from their length and dryness i do not here repeat. in we find him official silversmith to the cathedral, under the title of "_platero de martillo_ ("silversmith of hammered work") _de la obra de la catedral desta ciudad_." francisco de alfaro, although a cordovese by birth, resided commonly at seville. in he received , _maravedis_ for making four silver candlesticks for use in celebrating divine service. these candlesticks are still in the cathedral. sebastián de cordoba was one of the foremost artists of his age. he died in , leaving, together with other children, a son, diego, who also won some reputation as a silversmith. ramírez de arellano publishes a full relation of the property which sebastián de cordoba bequeathed at his decease, as well as of the money which was owing to him. among the former, or the "movable effects," we read of "isabel, a morisco woman, native of the kingdom of granada; her age thirty-four years, a little less or more." the same inventory includes a curious and complete account of all the tools and apparatus in sebastián's workshop. but the quaintest notice of them all, though it does not apprise us of his merit as a silversmith, is that concerning cristóbal de escalante. cristóbal suffered, we are told, from "certain sores produced by humours in his left leg; wherefore the said leg undergoes a change and swells." he therefore makes a contract with one juan jiménez, "servant in the royal stables of his majesty the king," and duly examined as a herbalist ("licensed," in the actual phrase, "to remedy this kind of ailments"), who is to heal his leg "by means of the divine will of the cure." as soon as cristóbal shall be thoroughly well, "in so much that his ailing leg shall be the other's equal in the fatness and the form thereof," he is to pay jiménez five-and-fifty _reales_, "having already given him ten _reales_ on account." probably, as señor ramírez de arellano facetiously supposes, cristóbal, after such a course of treatment, would be lame for all his life. at any rate, he died in , though whether from the gentle handling of the stableman and herbalist is not recorded in these entries. still keeping to the sixteenth century, in other parts of spain we find the silversmiths baltasar alvarez and juan de benavente, working at palencia; alonso de dueñas at salamanca; and juan de orna at burgos, about the same time that the foreigners jacomi de trezzo and leo leoni were engaged at the escorial. cuenca, too, boasted three excellent silver-workers in the family of becerril, mentioned by juan de arfe in company with other craftsmen of the time of the renaissance.[ ] stirling says of cuenca and the becerriles: "they made for the cathedral its great _custodia_, which was one of the most costly and celebrated pieces of church plate in spain. they began it in , and, though ready for use in , it was not finished till . it was a three-storied edifice, of a florid classical design, crowned with a dome, and enriched with numberless groups and statues, and an inner shrine of jewelled gold; it contained marks of silver, and cost , - / ducats, a sum which can barely have paid the ingenious artists for the labour of forty-five years. in the war of independence, this splendid prize fell into the hands of the french general caulaincourt, by whom it was forthwith turned into five-franc pieces, bearing the image and superscription of napoleon."[ ] [ ] "_con estos fué mi padre en seguimiento joan alvarez tambien el salmantino, becerril, que tambien fué deste cuento, juan de orna, y juan ruiz el vandolino._" [ ] _annals of the artists of spain_, vol. i. pp. , . a more reliable notice says that this _custodia_ was begun by alonso becerril and finished by his brother francisco. the third member of this family of artists, cristóbal, who flourished towards the end of the sixteenth century, was francisco's son. [illustration: xvi gothic _custodia_ (_ th century_)] towards the close of the gothic and during the earlier phases of the renaissance movement in this country, enormous quantities of gold and silver began to be employed in making these _custodias_ or monstrances of her temples; so that the fifteenth century may well be called, in spanish craftsmanship, the "age of the _custodia_." a century ago the reverend townsend, loyal to the low church prejudices of his day, spoke of this object with something of a sneer as "the depository of the host, or, according to the ideas of a catholic, the throne of the most high, when, upon solemn festivals, he appears to command the adoration of mankind." riaño's description is more technical. "the name of _custodia_," he says, "is given in spain, not only to the monstrance or ostensoir where the blessed sacrament is exposed, but also to a sort of temple or tabernacle, of large size, made also of silver, inside which is placed the monstrance, which is carried in procession on corpus christi day (plate xvi.). in order to distinguish these objects one from another, the name of _viril_ is given to the object which holds the consecrated host; it is generally made of rock crystal, with a gold stem and mount ornamented with precious stones. the small tabernacles are generally objects of the greatest importance, both from their artistic and intrinsic value." a third description of the monstrance, written in quaint and antiquated spanish verse by juan de arfe, is truthfully if not melodiously translated into english rhyme by stirling:-- "custodia is a temple of rich plate, wrought for the glory of our saviour true, where, into wafer transubstantiate, he shows his godhead and his manhood too, that holiest ark of old to imitate, fashioned by bezaleel, the cunning jew, chosen of god to work his sov'ran will, and greatly gifted with celestial skill."[ ] [ ] _op. cit._, p. , note. notwithstanding that the monstrance of toledo, surmounted by a cross of solid gold, turns the scale at ten thousand nine hundred ounces, and that of avila at one hundred and forty pounds, the weight of nearly all of these _custodias_ is far exceeded by the value of their workmanship. the style employed in their construction is the gothic, the renaissance, or the two combined. _custodias_ of the eastern parts of spain are more affected than the others by italian influence, noticeable both in decorative motives which recall the florentine, and in the use, together with the silver-work, of painting and enamels. in other parts of spain the dominating influence is the later gothic. among the former or levantine class of monstrances, the most important are those of barcelona, vich, gerona, and palma de mallorca; and of the others, those of cordova, cadiz, sahagún, zamora, salamanca, and toledo--this last, according to bertaut de rouen, "à la manière d'un clocher percé à jour, d'ouvrage de filigrane, et plein de figures." _custodias_ in the purest classic or renaissance style are those of seville, valladolid, palencia, avila, jaen, madrid, segovia, zaragoza, santiago, and orense. juan de arfe y villafañe, who may be called the cellini of spain's _custodia_-makers, was born at león in . he was the son of antonio de arfe, and grandson of enrique de arfe, a german who had married a spanish wife and made his home in spain. the family of juan, including his brother antonio, were all distinguished craftsmen, and he himself informs us that his grandfather excelled in gothic _platería_, as may be judged from the _custodias_, by enrique's hand, of cordova, león, toledo, and sahagún, and many smaller objects, such as incensories, crosiers, and paxes. the father of juan, antonio de arfe, worked in silver in the renaissance or plateresque styles, and executed in the florid manner the _custodias_ of santiago de galicia and medina de rioseco; but the training and tastes of juan himself were sternly classical. his work in consequence has a certain coldness, largely atoned for by its exquisite correctness of design and unimpeachable proportions. arfe's ideal in these matters may readily be judged of from his written verdict on the greco-roman architecture. "the escorial," he says, in the preface to his description of the _custodia_ of seville cathedral, "_because it follows the rules of ancient art_, competes in general perfection, size, or splendour with the most distinguished buildings of the asiatics, greeks, and romans, and displays magnificence and truth in all its detail." in point of versatility juan de arfe was a kind of spanish leonardo. his book, _de varia conmensuración_, etc., published in , is divided into four parts, and deals, the first part with the practice of geometry, the second with human anatomy, the third with animals, and the fourth with architecture and silver-work for use in churches. [illustration: ioan de arfe] this book is prefaced by the portrait of the author, given above. it shows us--what he really was--a quiet, cultured, gentle-hearted man. indeed, while arfe was studying anatomy at salamanca, it gave him pain to lacerate the bodies even of the dead. "i was witness," he records, "to the flaying of several pauper men and women whom the law had executed; but these experiments, besides being horrible and cruel, i saw to be of little service to my studies in anatomy." arfe's workmanship of the _custodia_ of avila cathedral, which he began in and terminated in , won for him an early and extended fame. he also made the _custodia_ of burgos (brutally melted during the spanish war of independence), and those of valladolid (finished in ), lugo, osma, and the hermandad del santísimo at madrid. the _custodia_ of palencia is also thought by some to be his handiwork. but arfe's crowning labour was the greco-roman _custodia_ of seville cathedral (plate xvii.). the chapter of this temple selected his design in , and nominated the licentiate pacheco to assist him with the statuettes. pacheco also carried out his portion of the task with skill and judgment. a rare pamphlet, written by arfe and published at seville in , gives a minute description of the whole _custodia_. in appendix c, i render this description into english, together with a similarly detailed notice of the _custodia_ ( a.d.) of cordova. this last, which we have seen to be the work of juan de arfe's grandfather, enrique, is not to be surpassed for fairy grace and lightness, seeming, in the eloquent metaphor of a modern writer, "to have been conceived in a dream, and executed with the breath." [illustration: xvii _custodia_ of seville cathedral (_by juan de arfe. late th century_)] spain in the seventeenth century had reached the lowest depth of her decadence and impoverishment; and yet we find that century an age--to quote a spanish term--of "gallantries and pearls," in which a craze for reckless luxury continued to prevail in every quarter. narratives innumerable inform us of the life and doings of that prodigal court and prodigal aristocracy; their ruinous and incessant festivals; the fortunes that were thrown away on furniture, and jewels, and costume. true, we are told by bertaut de rouen that, except upon their numerous holidays, the costume of the spanish men was plain enough. this author, who calls them otherwise "debauched and ignorant," says that their clothes were all of "méchante frise," and adds that they continually took snuff, "dont ils ont toujours les narines pleines, ce qui fait qu'ils n'ont que des mouchoirs de laine, de toile grise, et peinte comme de la toile de la chine." the same traveller, attending an ordinary reception in the royal palace at madrid, was unable to distinguish the nobles from the lower orders, except that, by the privilege peculiar to this country, the former kept their hats on in the presence of the sovereign. even of philip himself he says: "le roy d'espagne estoit debout avec un habit fort simple et fort ressemblant à tous ses portraits"; alluding, probably, to those of philip the fourth by velazquez, in which the monarch wears a plain cloth doublet. but when the spaniard dressed himself for any scene of gala show, his spendthrift inclinations swelled into a positive disease. the women, too, squandered enormous sums on finery. the marchioness of liche, said to have been the loveliest española of that day, is spoken of by bertaut as wearing "un corps de brocard d'argent avec de grandes basques à leur mode, la jupe d'une autre étoffe avec grand nombre de pierreries, et cela luy fetoit fort bien." an anonymous manuscript of the period, published by gayangos in the _revista de españa_ for , describes the _fiestas_ celebrated at valladolid in , in honour of the english ambassador and his retinue. in this relation the duke of lerma is quoted as possessing a yearly income of three hundred thousand _cruzados_, besides "as much again in jewellery and furniture, and gold and silver services." at the state banquets which were given at that wasteful court, even the pies and tarts were washed with gold or silver; and at a single feast the dishes of various kinds of fare amounted to two thousand and two hundred. at the banquet given by the duke of lerma, three special sideboards were constructed to sustain the weight of four hundred pieces of silver, "all of them of delicate design and exquisitely wrought of silver, gold, and enamel, together with innumerable objects of glass and crystal of capricious form, with handles, lids, and feet of finest gold." the whole of spain's nobility was congregated at these festivals, "richly attired with quantities of pearls and oriental gems," while everybody, young and old alike, wore "diamond buttons and brooches on cloaks and doublets," feather plumes with costly medals, gold chains with emeralds, and other ornaments. the ladies of the aristocracy were also "clothed in costliest style, as well as loaded with diamonds and pearls and hair-ornaments of pearls and gold, such as the women of castile lay by for these solemnities." the spanish churches, too, continued to be veritable storehouses of treasure. the manuscript published by gayangos says that in the church of la merced at valladolid had its altars "covered with beautiful gold and silver vessels, of which there are a great many in the whole of castilla la vieja, and particularly here at valladolid." bertaut de rouen's notice of the shrine of montserrat in cataluña has been inserted previously. in swinburne wrote of the same temple:--"in the sacristy and passages leading to it are presses and cupboards full of relics and ornaments of gold, silver, and precious stones; they pointed out to us, as the most remarkable, two crowns for the virgin and her son, of inestimable value, some large diamond rings, an excellent cameo of medusa's head, the roman emperors in alabaster, the sword of saint ignatius, and the chest that contains the ashes of a famous brother, john guarin, of whom they relate the same story as that given in the _spectator_ of a turkish santon and the sultan's daughter.... immense is the quantity of votive offerings to this miraculous statue; and as nothing can be rejected or otherwise disposed of, the shelves are crowded with the most whimsical _ex votos_, viz., silver legs, fingers, breasts, earrings, watches, two-wheeled chaises, boats, carts, and such-like trumpery." many pragmatics from the crown vainly endeavoured to suppress or mitigate the popular extravagance. such was the royal letter of , which forbade, among the laity, the wearing of "gold jewels with decoration or enamel in relief, or points with pearls or other stones." smaller jewels, of the kind known as _joyeles_ and _brincos_,[ ] were limited to a single stone, together with its pearl pendant. the jewellery of the women was exempted from these laws, though even here were certain limitations. rings for the finger might, however, bear enamel-work, or any kind of stone. enamel was also allowed in gold buttons and chains for the men's caps, as well as in the badges worn by the knights of the military orders. [ ] _brinco_ (_brincar_, to jump or spring). these jewels were so called from their vibrating as the wearer walked. the balearic islands were famous for their manufacture; and the late marquis of arcicollar possessed a case of valuable examples, most of which proceeded from this locality. "it is forbidden," continues this pragmatic, "to make any object of gold, silver, or other metal with work in relief, or the likeness of a person; nor shall any object be gilt, excepting drinking vessels, and the weight of these shall not exceed three marks. all other silver shall be flat and plain, without gilding; but this does not apply to objects intended for religious worship." "all niello-work is prohibited, as are silver brasiers and buffets."[ ] [ ] _suma de leyes_, , p. ( ). what i may call the private jewel-work of spain, largely retains throughout its history the characteristic lack of finish of all the visigothic treasure found at guarrazar. from first to last, until extinguished or absorbed by foreign influences two centuries ago, it strives to compensate in ponderous and bulky splendour for what it lacks in delicacy, elegance, and taste. it is just the jewellery we should expect to find among a military people who once upon a time possessed great riches simultaneously with little education, and who, from this and other causes, such as the strenuous opposition of the national church to pagan sentiments expressed in fleshly form, were never genuinely or profoundly art-loving. long residence and observation in their midst induce me to affirm that as a race the spaniards are and always have been hostile, or at least indifferent, to the arts; and that their most illustrious artists have made their power manifest and raised themselves to eminence despite the people--not, as in italy, on the supporting shoulders of the people. dazzle and show monopolized, and to a great extent monopolize still, the preference of this race. the spanish breast-ornaments of the seventeenth century, preserved at south kensington and reproduced by riaño on pages and of his handbook, are strongly reminiscent of the visigothic ornaments. who would imagine that a thousand years had come and gone between the execution of the new and of the old? as late as the reign of charles the second the culture of a spanish lady of high birth was little, if at all, superior to a savage's. "false stones enchant them," wrote countess d'aulnoy. "although they possess many jewels of considerable value and the finest quality, it is their whim to carry on their person wretched bits of glass cut in the coarsest fashion, just like those which pedlars in my country sell to country girls who have seen nobody but the village curate, and nothing but their flocks of sheep. dames of the aristocracy adorn themselves with these pieces of glass, that are worth nothing at all; yet they purchase them at high prices. when i asked them why they like false diamonds, they told me they prefer them to the genuine as being larger. indeed, they sometimes wear them of the bigness of an egg." even where the stones were real, the spanish taste in setting and in wearing them was no less execrable. the countess says: "the ladies here possess great stores of beautiful precious stones, and do not wear, like frenchwomen, a single article of jewellery, but nine or ten together, some of diamonds, others of rubies, pearls, emeralds, and turquoises, wretchedly mounted, since they are almost wholly covered with the gold. when i inquired the cause of this, they told me the jewels were so made because the gold was as beautiful as the gems. i suppose, however, the real reason is the backwardness of the craftsmen, who can do no better work than this, excepting verbec, who has no lack of skill, and would turn out excellent jewels if he took the trouble to finish them." "in the neck of their bodices the ladies fasten pins profusely set with precious stones. hanging from the pin, and fastened at the lower end to the side of their dress, is a string of pearls or diamonds. they wear no necklace, but bracelets on their wrists and rings on their fingers, as well as long earrings of so great a weight that i know not how they can support them. hanging from these earrings they display whatever finery they may fancy. i have seen some ladies who wore good-sized watches hanging from their ears, strings of precious stones, english keys of dainty make, and little bells. they also wear the _agnus_, together with little images about their neck and arms, or in their hair. they dress their hair in various ways, and always go with it uncovered, using many hairpins in the form of coloured flies or butterflies of diamonds, emeralds, and rubies." book-worm authorities, addicted to "dry bones" of letters, are prone just now to doubt this visit of countess d'aulnoy to the capital of spain. but if such patient doubters will compare her narrative with those of other foreigners, _e.g._ bertaut de rouen, or the manuscript description of valladolid, written by a portuguese, and now in the british museum library, their scepticism will--or should--be done away with on the moment. the letters of the countess make it plain by copious inner testimony that she actually performed her spanish visit; and though from time to time she over-colours or misreads the truth, it was the very usages of spain that were absurd and out of joint, and not, except in isolated instances, the sprightly and observant frenchwoman's account of them.[ ] [ ] but on the other hand i much suspect that the following passage in alvarez de colmenar's _annales d'espagne et de portugal_ (vol. iii. p. ) is stolen from countess d'aulnoy. "elles ne portent point de colier, mais en échange elles ont des bracelets, des bagues, et des pendans d'oreille, plus gros que tous ceux qu'on voit en hollande. telle est la diversité des gouts des nations différentes, en matière de beauté. il y en a même quelques-unes, qui attachent quelque beau joli bijou à leurs pendans d'oreilles, quelque ornement de pierreries, par exemple, ou d'autres choses semblables, selon leur quantité ou leur pouvoir." elsewhere the countess says: "utensils of common metal are not employed here, but only those of silver or of ware. i hear that a little while ago, upon the death of the duke of alburquerque, six weeks were needed to make out an inventory of his gold and silver services. his house contained fourteen hundred dozen plates, five hundred large dishes, and seven hundred of a smaller size, with all the other pieces in proportion, and forty silver ladders for climbing his sideboard, made in grades like an altar in a spacious hall." these statements have been proved in later years. dating from , an inventory of the ducal house of alburquerque was found not many years ago. in it we find the detailed list of gold and silver; cups and dishes, bowls and basins, plates and salt-cellars, trenchers, wine and water flagons, sauce-spoons, salad-spoons, conserve-spoons, and innumerable other articles. here, too, we find, upon the mighty sideboard mounted by its forty silver stairs, such objects as the following:-- "a gold cup with festoon-work above and beneath, wrought with leaves in relief. at the top of the foot there issue some leaves that fall down over a small gold staple, and below this, about the narrowest part of the foot, are leaves in relief and several dolphins. the broad part of the foot is decorated with festoons. the lid of this cup is wrought with leaves in relief, and on the crest thereof is a lion, crowned. the cup weighs three hundred and fifty-one _castellanos_ and a half." "a castilian jar from which my lord the duke was wont to drink, weighing two marks and five ounces."[ ] [ ] the mark was a standard of eight ounces, and was divided into fifty _castellanos_. "a cup with a high foot, gilt all over, with the figure of a woman in its midst, and decorated in four places in the roman manner." "a flagon of white silver, flat beneath the stem, with a screw-top surmounted by a small lion; for cooling water." "a small silver dish, of the kind they call meat-warmers." "a large silver seal for sealing provisions, with the arms of my lord the duke, don francisco." "a large silver vessel, embossed, with a savage on top." "a gold horse, enamelled in white upon a gold plate enamelled in green and open at the top; also a wolf, upon another gold plate enamelled in green, with lettering round about it; also a green enamelled lizard upon blue enamel; and a gold toothpick with four pieces enamelled in green, white, and rose; also a small gold column enamelled in black and rose." "a silver lemon-squeezer, gilt and chiselled, with white scroll-work about the mesh thereof, through which the lemon-juice is strained." "a large round silver salt-cellar, in two halves, gilt all over, with scales about the body, and two thick twisted threads about the flat part. one side of it is perforated." among the property of the duchess, doña mencía enriquez, we find "a small gold padlock, which opens and closes by means of letters"; two gold bangles; a gold necklace consisting of forty-two pieces "enamelled with some b's";[ ] a gold signet ring with the duchess's arms; and "a gold and niello box with relics, for wearing round the neck." also, resting on a table covered with silver plates, "a box of combs; the said box wrought in gold upon blue leather, containing five combs, a looking-glass, a little brush, and other fittings; girt with a cord in gold and blue silk." [ ] for beltran de la cueva, ancestor of this family. the seventeenth century and a race of native spanish kings declined and passed away together. a dynasty of france succeeded to the throne of spain, and with the foreigner came a fresh reactionary movement towards the neo-classic art, coupled with the canons of french taste. henceforth a century of slow political reform goes hand in hand with slow suppression of the salient parts of spanish character. madrid transforms or travesties herself into a miniature versailles, and national arts and crafts belong henceforward to a frenchified society which found its painter in goya, just as the preceding and eminently spanish society had found its painter in velazquez. another of the causes of the falling-off in spanish _orfebrería_ at this time, is stated to have been the craftsmen's overwhelming tendency to substitute the slighter though venerable and beautiful gold or silver filigree (plate xviii.), for more artistic and ambitious, if less showy work in massive metal. thus, in , a supplementary chapter of the ordinances of seville complained in bitter phrases of this tendency, denouncing it as "a source of fraud and detriment to the republic," and deploring that "of the last few years we have forsaken our goodly usages of older times, in the matter of the drawings entrusted to the candidates who come before us for examination." in the same year the goldsmiths' and the silversmiths' guild of seville enacted that none of its members were to work in filigree, unless they were qualified to execute the other work as well. such efforts to suppress this evil were not new. more than a century before, on april th, , the inspectors of the guild had entered the shop of luis de alvarado, silversmith, and seized some filigree earrings "of the work that is forbidden," breaking these objects on the spot, and imposing a fine of half-a-dozen ducats on the peccant or oblivious alvarado.[ ] [ ] gestoso, _diccionario de artífices sevillanos_, vol. ii. p. . the modern gold and silver work of spain is thus exempted from a lengthy notice, seeing that its typical and national characteristics have succumbed, or very nearly so. i may, however, mention the giant silver candelabra in the cathedral of palma de mallorca, which were made at barcelona, between and , by juan matons and three of his assistants. they measure eight feet high by four feet and a quarter across, weigh more than eight thousand ounces, and cost , pounds, _sueldos_, and _dineros_ of majorcan money. the state seized them during the napoleonic wars, in order to melt them down for money; but the chapter of the cathedral bought them back for eleven thousand dollars. [illustration: xviii early chalice and cross in filigree gold-work (_church of saint isidore, león_)] during this century riaño mentions several factories of silver articles established at madrid, including that of isaac and michael naudin ( ) and the escuela de platería ( ), protected by charles the third; but since the work of these was purely in the french or english manner, they call for no particular notice. the principal objects they produced were "inkstands, dishes, dinner-services, chocolate-stands, cruets, knives and forks, together with buckles, needle-cases, brooches, snuff-boxes, frames for miniatures, and similar trinkets." early in the nineteenth century laborde wrote that "the fabrication of articles of gold and silver might become an important object in a country where these metals abound; but it is neglected, and the demand is almost entirely supplied from foreign markets. what little they do in this branch at home is usually very ill executed, and exorbitantly dear. madrid, however, begins to possess some good workmen; encouragement would increase their number and facilitate the means of improvement; but manual labour is there excessively dear. hence the spaniards prefer foreign articles of this kind, which, notwithstanding the expense of carriage, the enormous duties that they pay, and the profits of the merchants, are still cheaper than those made at home." several of the inherent characteristics of the national _orfebrería_ may yet be noticed somewhat faintly in the ornaments and jewels of the spanish peasants, though even these are being discarded. a century ago laborde described the dress of the mauregata women, near astorga, in the kingdom of león. "they wear large earrings, a kind of white turban, flat and widened like a hat, and their hair parted on the forehead. they have a chemise closed over the chest, and a brown corset buttoned, with large sleeves opening behind. their petticoats and veils are also brown. over all they wear immense coral necklaces, which descend from the neck to the knee; they twist them several times round the neck, pass them over the shoulders, where a row is fastened, forming a kind of bandage over the bosom. then another row lower than this; in short, a third and fourth row at some distance from each other. the last falls over the knee, with a large cross on the right side. these necklaces or chaplets are ornamented with a great many silver medals, stamped with the figure of saints. they only wear these decorations when not working, or on festivals." i have a manuscript account in french of spanish regional costumes at the same period. the dress of the peasant women of valencia is thus described: "elle se coiffe toujours en cheveux, de la manière appelée _castaña_, et elle y passe une aiguille en argent que l'on nomme _rascamoño_; quelque fois elle se pare d'un grand peigne (_peineta_) en argent doré. son cou este orné d'une chaine d'or ou d'argent (_cadena del cuello_) à laquelle est suspendue une croix ou un reliquaire." this was the valencian peasant's dress for every day. on festivals the same woman would adorn her ears with "pendants (_arracadas_) de pierres fausses; mais lorsque la jardinière est riche, elles sont fines. une relique (_relicario_) dans un petit médaillon en argent, est suspendue à son cou; ainsi qu'un chapelet très mince (_rosario_) en argent doré." the peasant women of iviza, in the balearics, are described in the same manuscript as wearing "un collier en verre, quelque fois en argent, et rarement en or"; while laborde wrote of minorca, another of these islands, that "the ladies are always elegantly adorned; their ornaments consist of necklaces, earrings, bracelets, rings, and chaplets. _the peasants wear these also._" of the women of barcelona he said: "silk stockings are very common in every class; and their shoes are embroidered with silk, gold, silver, pearls, and spangles." but spain, like italy or switzerland, or many another country, is throwing off her regional costumes, of which these various jewels form a prominent and even an essential feature. more rarely now we come across the gold and seed-pearl necklaces of salamanca, the moorish filigree silver-work of cordova, the silver-gilt necklaces of santiago, and the heavy _arracadas_, hung with emeralds and sapphires, of cataluña. murcia, nevertheless, retains her platería, a street of venerable aspect and associations, where to this hour the oriental-looking silver pendants of the neighbourhood are made and trafficked in. [illustration] iron-work the ancient iron mines of spain were no less celebrated than her mines of silver and of gold. nevertheless, the history of spanish iron-work begins comparatively late. excepting certain swords and other weapons which require to be noticed under _arms_, and owing to the commonness and cheapness of this metal, as well as to the ease with which it decomposes under damp, few of the earliest spanish objects made of iron have descended to our time.[ ] even riaño pays but little notice to this craft in the peninsula before the second half of the fifteenth century. henceforth, he says, "it continued to progress in the sixteenth, and produced, undoubtedly, at that period works which were unrivalled in europe." [ ] a small collection, formed by don emilio rotondo, of primitive iron rings, bracelets, brooches, and other ornaments, is preserved in the schools of aguirre at madrid. villa-amil y castro (_antigüedades prehistóricas y célticas_, and _castros y mamoas de galicia_, published in the _museo español de antigüedades_), describes some iron objects of uncertain use discovered in galicia, together with spear-heads and other weapons or pieces of weapons which will be noticed under _arms_, and also an object which he says may once have been a candlestick, or else a kind of flute. all these are probably pre-roman. dating from the roman period are an iron ploughshare and some sickles, discovered at ronda in andalusia, and now in the madrid museum. góngora, however (_antigüedades prehistóricas de andalucía_), inclines to think that previous to the roman conquest the occupants of betica were ignorant of this metal, though not of gold, from which they fashioned diadems and other articles of wear. see also caballero infante, _aureos y barras de oro y plata encontrados en el pueblo de santiponce_, seville, . the decorative iron-work of spain may suitably be dealt with in three classes: railings, screens, or pulpits of churches, chapels, and cathedrals; balconies and other parts or fittings applied to public or private buildings of a non-ecclesiastical character; and smaller, though not necessarily less attractive or important objects, such as knockers, locks and keys, and nail-heads. the last of these divisions, as embracing spanish-moorish craftsmanship, shall have, as far as order is concerned, our preferential notice. surely, in the whole domain of history, no object has a grander symbolism than the key. in mediæval times the keys of cities, castles, towns, and fortresses were held to be significant of ownership, or vigilance, or conquest. especially was this the case in spain--a nation incessantly engaged in war. probably in no country in the world has the ceremony of delivering up this mark of tenure of a guarded and defended place occurred so often as here. do we not read of it in stirring stanzas of her literature? do we not find it in her paintings, on her stone and metal _rilievi_, or carved in wood upon the stalls of her cathedrals? therefore the key, just like the sword, seemed, in the warm imagination of the spaniards, to be something almost sacred. the legislative codes of old castile are most minute in their relation of its venerated attributes. nor were the spanish muslims less alive to its importance than their foe, taking it also for an emblem of their own, and planting it in lordly eminence upon their gates and towers of cordova, and seville, and granada. for what was tarik's mountain but the key of the narrow gate that led to their enchanted land, as sunny as, and yet less sultry than, their sandy home; truly a land of promise to the fiery children of the desert, panting for the paradise that smiled at them across the storied strip of emerald and sapphire water? so was it that both moors and spaniards made their keys of fortresses and citadels almost into an object of their worship. in hearing or in reading of such keys, the mind at once recurs to those of seville (plate xix.), two in number, famed throughout the world of mediæval art, and stored among the holiest relics in the sacristy of her cathedral. the larger is of silver, in the style now known as mudejar, and dates from the second half of the thirteenth century. the length is rather more than eight inches, and the whole key is divided into five compartments, ornamented in enamels and in gold. castles, ships, and lions adorn the thicker portion of the stem between the barrel proper and the handle; and on the rim of the latter is this inscription, in hebrew characters:-- "_the king of kings will open; the king of all the land shall enter._"[ ] [ ] riaño's reading was, "_the king of the whole earth will enter_." but is not this contradicted by the other inscription on the same key? the wards are also beautifully carved into the following legend, distributed in two rows, one superposed upon the other, of two words and of ten letters apiece:-- "_dios abrirá; rey entrará._" "_god will open; the king shall enter._" the iron key is purely moorish, smaller than its fellow, and measures just over six inches. like the other, it consists of five divisions, and the wards are in the form of an inscription in african cufic characters, which gayangos and other arabists have variously interpreted. five of the commonest readings are as follows:-- ( ) "_may allah permit that the rule (of islam) last for ever in this city._" ( ) "_by the grace of god may (this key) last for ever._" ( ) "_may peace be in the king's mansion._" ( ) "_may god grant us the boon of the preservation of the city._" ( ) "_to god (belongs) all the empire and the power._" our earliest tidings of this iron key are from the jesuit bernal, who wrote in the seventeenth century. it was not then the property of the cathedral chapter, for ortiz de zúñiga says that it belonged, in the same century, to a gentleman of seville named don antonio lopez de mesa, who had inherited it from his father. tradition declares that both this key and its companion were laid at the feet of ferdinand the third by axataf, governor of seville, when the city capitulated to the christian prince on november rd, . but ortiz is careful to inform us that he neither countenances nor rejects the popular notion that the iron key was thus delivered as the token of surrender, "although," he says, "the owners of it are strongly of this judgment." what we do know is that on june th, , the iron key was presented to the cathedral by doña catalina basilia domonte y pinto, niece of the señor lopez de mesa aforesaid; and that the chapter forthwith accepted it with solemn gratitude as "one of the keys delivered by the moors to the rey santo on the conquest of the city," ordering it to be guarded in a special box. such is the popular fancy still accepted by the sevillanos. however, amador de los ríos has sifted out a good deal of the truth, showing that the iron and the silver key are wrought in different styles, and were intended for a different purpose. he places the iron instrument among the "keys of conquered cities," and its silver neighbour among the "keys of honour, or of dedication"; and he declares as certain (although the reasons he adduces do not quite convince me) that this iron key is actually the one which figured in the ceremony of surrender. the other he considers to have been a gift from the sevillians to the tenth alfonso, son of ferdinand the saint and conqueror, as a loyal and a grateful offering in return for his protection of their industries and commerce. however this may be, the decorative aspect of the larger key, together with the choice material of which it is made, appears to prove that it was not associated with the rigours of a siege, but served in some way as a symbol of prosperity and peace. it was a common custom at a later age for spanish cities to present their sovereign, when he came among them, with a richly ornamented key. such keys were offered to charles the fifth and philip the second when, in and , respectively, they visited seville; while riaño reminds us that "even in the present day the ceremony is still kept up of offering a key to the foreign princes who stay at the royal palace of madrid." similarly, as an ordinary form of salutation, does the well-bred spaniard place his house at your disposal. five moorish keys--one of bronze and four of iron--are in the museum of segovia, and bear, as amador observes, a general resemblance to the iron key of seville. the wards of four of them are shaped into the following inscriptions: the first key, "_in secovia_ (segovia)"; the second, "(_this_) _key was curiously wrought at medina huelma, god protect her_"; the third, "_open_"; and the fourth, "_this work is by abdallah._" the first and smallest of these keys informs us, therefore, that it was manufactured at segovia. the third key is that which is of bronze, and bears the word "_open_," probably addressed to allah. the second, which is also the largest and the most artistic and ornate, belonged, we read upon its wards, to huelma, a fortress-town upon the frontiers of the kingdom of granada. this town was wrested from the moors on april th, , by iñigo lopez de mendoza, first marquis of santillana, who possibly sent this key to castile as a present to his sovereign, juan the second, in company with the usual papers of capitulation. other moorish keys are scattered over spain in various of her public and private collections, though none are so remarkable as those of seville and segovia. the town of sepúlveda possesses seven early iron keys, several of which are moorish. others are at burgos, valencia, palma, jaen, and granada. at the last-named city the following key, dating undoubtedly from the period of the muslim domination, was discovered, in , among the débris of the palace of seti meriem.[ ] [ ] _la alhambra_ (from which this sketch is taken) for september th, ; article on the palace of seti meriem, by f. de paula valladar. [illustration] keys of awe-inspiring magnitude are still preferred among the spaniards to a handier and slighter instrument, this people seeming to believe that the bigger the key the more inviolable is the custody which it affords--a theory not at all upheld by modern experts in this venerable craft. perhaps this singular and local preference is derived from barbary. at any rate it still obtains across the strait. "our host," wrote mr cunninghame graham in _mogreb-el-acksa_, "knocks off great pieces from a loaf of cheap french sugar with the key of the house, drawing it from his belt and hammering lustily, as the key weighs about four ounces, and is eight or nine inches long." of such a length are nearly all the house-keys of contemporary spain; and with this apparatus bulging in his belt the somnolent _sereno_ or night-watchman of this sleepy, unprogressive, latino-mussulmanic land prowls to this hour along the starlit streets of barcelona, seville, or madrid. the city ordinances of granada form a valuable and interesting link between the spanish-moorish craftsmanship and that of spaniards christian-born. the _ordenanzas de cerrageros_, or locksmiths' ordinances, though not voluminous, are curious and informative beyond the rest, and show us that a general rascality was prevalent in granada after her reconquest from the moor. locksmiths were forbidden now to make a lock the impression of which was put into their hands in wax, even if the order should be sweetened by "a quantity of maravedis," since the effect of such commissions, whose very secrecy betrayed illicit and improper ends in view, was stated to be "very greatly perilous and mischief-making." another ordinance reveals the christian locksmiths of granada as arrant scoundrels, almost as troublesome to deal with as the pestering little shoeblacks of to-day. "word is brought us," groaned the aldermen, "how many locksmiths, foreigners that dwell within this city as well as naturals that go up and down our thoroughfares, in taking locks and padlocks to repair, do, at the same time that they set the keys in order, contrive to fit them with new wards inferior to the older ones, so as to be able to open and close them with the keys they have themselves in store, wherein is grave deceitfulness, seeing that the aforesaid locks and padlocks may be opened in such wise without a key at all."[ ] [ ] _ordenanzas de granada_, p. . 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 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."[ ] [ ] 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. [illustration: xix_a_ decorative nail-heads (_convent of san antonio, 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 , 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. [illustration: xx door-knockers (_ th century_)] 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_."[ ] [ ] 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 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. [illustration: xxi ceremonial maces and lantern (_ th century_)] "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.[ ] [ ] for a detailed account of these pulpits see villa-amil y castro's article in the _museo español de antigüedadess_. [illustration: xxii iron pulpit (_avila cathedral_)] 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.[ ] [ ] payments made to "master juan francés" are recorded by zarco del valle, _documentos inéditos para la historia de las bellas artes en españa_, pp. , . 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."[ ] [ ] _history of architecture_, p. . 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 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")[ ] at alcalá de henares, as well as, in , at osma, in whose cathedral he made the _rejas_ of the choir and high chapel.[ ] [ ] so, in spain, does war appear to have been connected even with the peaceful _reja_. similarly, in , 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_, st ed., p. , note. [ ] 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,[ ] 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. [ ] a dominican friar, summoned to seville in , to make her cathedral _rejas_. he also made the pulpits of the high altar in , and was working in this city as late as . 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. _et seq._ an excellent _rejero_ named hernando de arenas completed the grille of cuenca cathedral in . 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 th, , 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[ ], 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. [ ] consult his valuable studies, _artistas exhumados_, published in various numbers of the _boletín de la sociedad española de excursionistas_. in 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 . "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 , and on the inner side, plus ultra." [ ] [ ] rosell y torres; _la reja de la capilla del condestable en la catedral de burgos_, published in the _museo español de antigüedades_. [illustration: xxiii _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),[ ] who, in his estimate of june th, , engaged to finish it at a total cost of 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.[ ] in the same city they also made the _rejas_ for the baptismal chapel, and for the chapels of the reyes viejos and reyes nuevos. [ ] 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 , _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. [ ] conde de cedillo, _toledo en el siglo xvi_. reply to the count's address, by j. de dios de la rada y delgado. [illustration: xxiv _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 at a cost of ducats. in the same city is the _reja_ of the chapel of nuestra señora la blanca, finished in by juan relojero, a palencian, who received for his labour , _maravedis_ and a load and a half of wheat. the noble and colossal gilt and painted[ ] _reja_ of the chapel royal of granada cathedral was wrought between the years and 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,[ ] 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,[ ] and possibly, as sentenach suggests, the iron tenebrarium, ten feet high by five across, for the cathedral of jaen. [ ] 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. [ ] archives of simancas. _descargos de las r.c._; _legajo prov._ valladar, _guía de granada_ ( st ed.), p. , note. [ ] "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 th, , the same craftsman was paid , _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. . the _reja_ of the chapel royal of granada, "of two faces, the finest that was ever made of this material," [ ] 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;[ ] 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" [ ] (plates xxiii. and xxiv.). [ ] pedraza, _historia de granada_ ( ), p. . [ ] 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_. [ ] gómez moreno, _guía de granada_, p. . 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 , "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." [illustration: xxv _reja_ (_casa de pilatos, seville_)] 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_;[ ] and in my house (which is also your worship's) it would not look well for you to seem a window-climbing thief.'" [ ] _hierro_ means _iron_; _yerro_, a _fault, faux pas_. thus glossed, the somewhat feeble pleasantry or pun is able to explain itself. [illustration: xxvi _reja_ of the _casa de las conchas_ (_salamanca_)] it is curious, in the foregoing narrative, to read of morisco craftsmen working as late as , 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 th, , 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."[ ] [ ] these laws affecting balconies were not, or not as time went on, restricted to granada. "nobody," prescribes the general spanish code in force in , "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[ ] which imitate a shell were used as personal ornaments by the men and women of the ancient spanish tribes. [ ] 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:-- [illustration] 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;[ ] 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. - of the _boletín de la sociedad española de excursiones_. [ ] see romero de castilla, _inventarios de los objetos recogidos en el museo arqueológico de la comisión de monumentos de badajoz_. badajoz, . plate xxvii. represents another of these objects. [illustration: xxvii "meleager's hunt" (_primitive spanish bronze_)] 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.[ ] 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. [ ] 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. [illustration: xxviii a _candil_ (_modern_)] 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_[ ] 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. [ ] "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." [illustration: xxix a _velÓn_ (_modern_)] 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_.[ ] [ ] 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." [illustration: xxx bronze lion (_found in the province of palencia_)] 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 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,[ ] 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. [ ] 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. . 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._" [illustration: xxxi bronze stag (_moorish. museum of cordova._)] 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). [illustration: xxxii bronze temple (_moorish. museum of granada_)] 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 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 .[ ] may (god) be praised." [ ] september th to october th, a.d. . 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 and , 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. [illustration: xxxiii moorish lamp and mortar (_museum 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.[ ] 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. [ ] 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 th, , 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. [illustration] 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. [illustration: xxxiv lamp of mohammed the third (_madrid museum_)] 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." the thimbles from which i quote these legends are in the national museum. the same collection includes a very finely wrought bronze bucket or _acetre_ (latin _situlus_; arabic _as-setl_, the utensil for drawing water for a bath). the outside is covered with delicate ornamentation, varied with inscriptions of no great interest, invoking allah's blessing on the owner or employer of the bucket, which is thought by amador to be of granadino workmanship, and to date from about the middle of the fourteenth century. not many specimens remain of early mediæval spanish bronzes wrought by christian hands. riaño, who admits that "we can hardly trace any bronze of this period other than cathedral bells," mentions as probably proceeding from abroad the altar-fronts and statuettes, in gilt enamelled bronze, of salamanca and elsewhere,[ ] and gives a short description of the bell, about six inches high (pl. xxxv.), known as the abbot samson's, now in cordova museum. this object bears an early date ( a.d.), and is inscribed, "_offert hoc munus samson abbatis in domum sancti sebastiani martyris christi, era_ d.c.c.c.c.xiii." [ ] see p. . it is curious that riaño should make no mention of spanish bronze processional crosses. in my chapter on gold, silver, and jewel work i mentioned those belonging to churches in the north of spain. a bronze crucifix (plate xxxvi.), believed to date from the beginning of the twelfth century, and proceeding from the monastery of arbós, in the province of león, is now in the possession of don felix granda builla. it is undoubtedly of spanish make, and probably was carried in processions. the style is pure romanic, and the drawing of the ribs, extremities, and limbs is typically primitive. the _sudarium_ is secured by the belt or _parazonium_. the feet, unpierced, rest on a _supedaneum_. a bronze renaissance parish cross of the sixteenth century, once hidden in a village of asturias, was bought some thirty years ago by the museum of madrid. the body of the cross is wood, covered on both sides with bronze plates wrought with figures of the saviour as the holy infant and as full-grown man, and also with a figure of the virgin. these figures were formerly painted, and traces of the colour yet remain. the cross was also silvered. the rest of the ornamentation consists of vases, flowers, and other subjects proper to renaissance art. [illustration: xxxv abbot samson's bell (_ th century. museum of cordova_)] a similar cross belongs to the parish church of san julian de recaré, in the province of lugo, while san pedro de donas, near santiago in galicia, possesses a processional cross of bronze, pierced along the edges in a pattern of trefoils and _fleurs-de-lis_, but otherwise undecorated. sometimes in spanish bronze we find the handiwork of moors and christians picturesquely intermingled, as in the gates of toledo cathedral ( ), and the puertas del perdón--forming the principal entrance to the court of orange trees--of the mosque of cordova, made of wood and covered with bronze plating decorated with irregular hexagons and gothic and arabic inscriptions. the knockers contain a scroll and flowers, and on the scroll the words, _benedictus dominus deus israel_. the gate of the same name of seville cathedral (pl. xxxvii.) is similar in workmanship, and is considered by riaño to be a good example of moresque bronze-work. while speaking of these doors, we should remember that moorish craftsmen were employed to decorate or to repair the mosque of cordova long after it had been converted to the worship of the christians. when he was acting as viceroy in the year , the infante don fernando confirmed a letter of his father, king alfonso, remitting tolls and taxes that would otherwise be leviable upon four moors who worked in the cathedral. the infante's confirmation, after recording that "one (of the four moors) is dead and the other blind, in such wise that he can work no more," consents to the engagement of another two, famet and zahec by name, to fill their places, and who also are hereby exempted from the payment of all dues. five years afterwards this privilege was reconfirmed by king alfonso, and we are further told on this occasion that two of the moorish four were _albañís_, or masons, and the others _añaiares_, or carpenters. as time progressed, the situation of the vanquished and humiliated mussulmans grew more irksome. on october th, , the infante don sancho, who had usurped the throne, proclaimed, in ratification of a letter issued by his father, that all the moorish carpenters, masons, sawyers, and other workmen and artificers of cordova must work in the cathedral (presumably without a wage) for two days in every year.[ ] [ ] _libro de las tablas_, pp. , . see madrazo, _cordova_, pp. _et seq._ [illustration: xxxvi bronze crucifix (_ th century_)] in the latter half of the sixteenth century, bartolomé morel, a sevillano, produced some notable work in bronze.[ ] three objects by his hand--namely, the choir lectern and the tenebrarium of seville cathedral, and the weathercock or _giraldillo_ which crowns the celebrated tower of the same enormous temple--are specially distinguished for their vigour and effectiveness. [ ] in documents which relate to him (see gestoso's _dictionary of sevillian artificers_) morel is often called an _artillero_. his father, juan morel, was also a founder of cannon, and signed a contract in to cast two bronze pieces or _tiros_, with the royal arms on them. the least important of these objects is the choir lectern, for which morel was paid six hundred ducats. the decoration is of statuettes and _rilievi_, well designed and better executed. the tenebrarium, aptly defined by amador as "an article of church furniture intended to make a show of light,"[ ] is more ambitious and original. "it was designed and made by morel in the year . juan giralte, a native of flanders, and juan bautista vazquez helped him to make the statues at the head of this candelabrum, and pedro delgado, another noted sculptor of seville, worked at the foot of it. it is eight and a half yards high, and the triangular head is three yards across. upon this upper part are fifteen statues, representing the saviour, the apostles, and two other disciples or evangelists. in the vacant space of the triangle is a circle adorned with leaves, and in the centre of this circle is a bust of the virgin in relief, and, lower down, the figure of a king. all of this part is of bronzed wood, and rests upon four small bronze columns. the remainder of the candelabrum is all of this material, and the small columns are supported by four caryatides, resting upon an order of noble design decorated with lions' heads, scrolls, pendants, and other ornamentation, the whole resting upon a graceful border enriched with harpies." [ ] the efficacy of light in illuminating, or may be in dazzling and confounding, christian worshippers is too self-evident to call for illustration. the symbolic meaning of church candles is, however, neatly indicated by the wise alfonso in his compilation of the seven _partidas_. "because three virtues dwell in candles, namely, wick, wax, and flame, so do we understand that persons three dwell in the trinity--father, son, and holy spirit; and we may understand three other things that dwell in jesus christ; to wit, body, soul, and godhead. hence the twelve lighted candles manifested to each quarter of the church exhibit unto us the twelve apostles who preached the faith of our lord jesus christ through all the earth, and manifesting truest wisdom illumined all the world." this description of the seville tenebrarium is translated from cean bermudez, and is the one most commonly quoted, though amador complains that it is not precise, and fails to dwell upon the symbolism of this mighty mass of bronze.[ ] thus, what cean affirms to be the bust of a king is declared by amador to be the head of a pope, probably saint gregory the great. metal, as cean remarks, is not employed throughout. in order to preserve its balance, the upper part of the tenebrarium, containing the triangle which is said by some to symbolize "the divinity of jesus as god the triple and the one," is merely wood bronzed over. amador adds that the foot and stem are intended to represent "the people of israel in their perfidy and ingratitude." he also says that the statue in the centre of the triangle is that of faith, and that which crowns the entire tenebrarium, of the virgin mary. [ ] the english rendering of cean's description inserted by riaño is inaccurate throughout. [illustration: xxxvii the _puerta del perdÓn_ (_seville cathedral_)] morel, like brunelleschi, was an architect as well as a craftsman in bronze.[ ] he completed this tenebrarium in , and the chapter of the cathedral were so contented with it that instead of paying him the stipulated price, namely, eight hundred ducats, they added of their own accord a further two hundred and fifty. they also commissioned him to make a handsome case to keep it in; but the case has disappeared, and the naked tenebrarium now stands in the sacristy of chalices of the cathedral.[ ] it is still used at the matin service during the last three days of holy week, and still, in the _oficio de tinieblas_, the custom is observed of extinguishing the fifteen tapers, one by one, at the conclusion of each psalm. [ ] as architect, he made a monument (which exists no longer) for the festivals of holy week at seville. [ ] in juan del pozo, an ironsmith, received one hundred _reales_ "on account of an engine which he made of iron for moving the tenebrarium of the cathedral, and other heavy things."--gestoso, _diccionario de artífices sevillanos_, vol. i. p. . the title of the object which surmounts the famed giralda tower of seville is properly "the statue of faith, the triumph of the church" (pl. xxxviii.); but it is known in common language as the giraldillo (weathercock), which name has passed into the word giralda, now applied to all the tower. the populace of seville also call it, in the _argot_ of their cheerful town, the _muñeco_ or "doll," the "victory," and the "santa juana." [illustration: xxxviii the weathercock of the giralda tower (_ th century. seville cathedral_)] this statue, made of hollow bronze, rotates upon an iron rod piercing the great bronze globe which lies immediately beneath the figure's feet. the globe is nearly six feet in diameter. the figure itself represents a roman matron wearing a flowing tunic partly covering her legs and arms. sandals are secured to her feet by straps. upon her head she wears a roman helmet crested by a triple plume. in her right hand she holds the semicircular roman standard of the time of constantine, which points the direction of the wind and causes the figure to revolve, excepting when the air is very faint, in which case it is caught by two diminutive banners springing from the large one.[ ] so huge are the proportions of this metal lady that the medal on her breast contains a life-size head which represents an angel. [ ] the statue, which looks so tiny from the street, measures nearly fourteen feet in height, and weighs more than two thousand two hundred pounds. the banner alone weighs close upon four hundred pounds. the figure was raised into its place in , in which year i find that eighteen moriscos were paid seventy-eight _reales_ between them all for doing the work of carriage (gestoso, _diccionario_). gestoso also mentions a large bronze plate made by morel for the pavement of the cathedral, and which has disappeared. it weighed pounds, or about the same as the weathercock of the giralda, and morel was paid for it the sum of , _maravedis_. the spanish moors were also well acquainted with the use of weathercocks. during the reign, in the eleventh century, of the zirite kingling of granada, badis ben habbus, a weathercock of strange design surmounted his _alcázar_. the historian marmol wrote in the sixteenth century that it was still existing on a little tower, and consisted of a horseman in moorish dress, with a long lance and his shield upon his arm, the whole of bronze, with an inscription on the shield which says: "badis ben habbus declares that in this attitude should the andalusian be discovered (at his post)." not many other objects in this substance can be instanced as the work of spanish craftsmen of the sixteenth and succeeding centuries, or of the later-gothic age immediately preceding. among them are the pulpits of santiago cathedral, made by celma, an aragonese, in ; the choir-screen ( - ) in the cathedral of zaragoza, made by juan tomás cela, also a native of aragon; the gilt lecterns of toledo cathedral, which are the work of nicolás vergara and his son; the gothic lectern of the mosque of cordova; the choir-lectern ( ) of cuenca, made by hernando de arenas, who will also be remembered as having made the _reja_ of the same cathedral; and the octagonal gilt-bronze pulpits of toledo, wrought by francisco de villalpando, as are the bas-reliefs ( ) upon the door of lions, executed by the same craftsman from designs by berruguete. these last-named pulpits are associated with a legend. within this temple, once upon a time, rested the metal sepulchre of the great don alvaro de luna, so constructed by his orders that upon the touching of a secret spring the statue of the constable himself would rise into a kneeling posture throughout the celebration of the mass. his lifelong and relentless foe, the infante enrique of aragon, tore up the tomb in ; and from its fragments, superstition says, were made these pulpits. spanish renaissance door-knockers in bronze are often curious. fifteen large bronze rings adorned with garlands, heads of lions and of eagles, or with the pair of columns and the motto plus oultre of charles the fifth, were formerly upon the pilasters of the roofless, semi-ruined palace of that emperor at granada. removed elsewhere for greater safety,[ ] they will now be found among the couple of dozen curiosities preserved in a chamber of the moorish royal residence of the alhambra. [ ] spaniards have a very scanty confidence in one another's honesty, as well as in the competence of their police. often, at madrid, and at this day, the porter of a house, as soon as it is dark, unscrews the knockers from the downstairs door, and guards them in his _conciergerie_ until the morning. 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. arms lovers of the old-time crafts approach a fertile field in spanish arms; for truly with this warworn land the sword and spear, obstinately substituted for the plough, seem to have grown well-nigh into her regular implements of daily bread-winning; and from long before the age of written chronicle her soil was planted with innumerable weapons of her wrangling tribesmen. the history of these ancient spanish tribes is both obscure and complicated. if pliny, strabo, ptolemy, and other authors may be credited, the celtic race invaded the peninsula some seven centuries before the christian era, crossing the river ebro, founding settlements, and fusing with the natives into the composite people known henceforward as the celtiberians. thus strengthened, they extended over nearly all the land, and occupied, by a dominative or assimilative policy, the regions corresponding to the modern andalusia, portugal, galicia, and the flat and central elevations of castile. these spanish tribes were ever quarrelling, and knew, in strabo's words, "no entertainment save in horsemanship and in the exercise of arms." quantities of their weapons have been found all over spain, such as the heads of spears and arrows, or the blades of daggers, hatchets, knives, and swords. with these iberian tribesmen, as with other peoples of the ancient world, the truly prehistoric age is that of stone; hence they advanced to bronze, and finally to iron. beuter, the historian of valencia, wrote in that near to the town of cariñena, in aragon, on digging out some earthen mounds the excavators came upon enormous bones, flint lance and arrow heads, and knives the size of half an ordinary sword; all these in company with "many skulls transfixed by the said stones." in the collection at madrid, formed by don emilio rotondo y nicolau, these primitive spanish weapons number several thousands; and many more are in the national museum.[ ] [ ] according to tubino, the existence of a prehistoric age of stone was not suspected in spain until the year , when mann y mendoza affirmed that a state of society had existed in the peninsula before the age of metals. since then the celtic remains of spain and portugal have been investigated by many scientists, including assas, mitjana, murguía, and casiano de prado, who discovered numbers of these weapons. towards the middle of last century casiano de prado, aided by the frenchmen verneuil and lartet, explored the neighbourhood of san isidro on the manzanares, and found large quantities of arms and implements of stone. valuable service in the cause of prehistoric spanish archæology has also been performed by vilanova, torrubia, and machado. discoveries of ancient spanish arms of bronze occur less often and in smaller quantities than those of stone or iron. bronze hatchets, principally of the straight-edged class (_à bords droites_) have been found in galicia and certain other provinces. villa-amil y castro describes a bronze dagger of curious workmanship, which was found in galicia in . the point of the blade is missing. if this were included, the length of the weapon would be about six inches. other examples, now in the madrid museum, include two swords, two daggers, and two arrowheads. the swords, sharp-pointed, narrow in the blade, and used by preference for thrusting, were found not far from calatayud--the ancient town renowned, as roman bilbilis, for weapons of incomparable temper. the daggers were probably used for fighting hand to hand. at the time of the roman invasion we find, of course, the spaniards using iron weapons. i shall not tax the patience of my readers by enumerating all these weapons. their names are many, and the comments and descriptions of old authors which refer to them are constantly at variance. nevertheless, the sword most popular with the celtiberians at the period of the roman conquest seems to have been a broad, two-handed weapon with a point and double edge, and therefore serviceable both for cutting and for thrusting. another of the celtiberian swords, called the _falcata_, was of a sickle shape. it terminated in the kind of point we commonly associate with a scimitar, and which is found to-day in spanish knives produced at albacete. one of these swords, in good condition, is in the national museum. it has a single edge, upon the concave side of the blade, and measures rather less than two feet. other weapons in common use among the celtiberians were an iron dart--the _sannion_ or _soliferrea_; the javelin; the lance--a weapon so immemorially old in spain that patriotic writers trace its origin to the prehistoric town of lancia in asturias; and the _trudes_ or _bidente_, a crescent blade mounted upon a pole, mentioned by strabo and saint isidore, and identical with the cruel weapon used until about a quarter of a century ago for houghing coward cattle in the bull-ring. [illustration: xxxix crest of jousting helmet (_royal armoury, madrid_)] thus, when the romans entered spain the natives of this country were experienced in the use of arms, and made their own from such materials as their own soil yielded. their tempering was excellent, for diodorus siculus tells us that they had already discovered the secret of burying the metal in order that the moisture of the earth might eat away its baser portions. besides the ancient bilbilis in aragon, a spanish city famous for her faultless tempering of implements and weapons was toledo. martial,[ ] the most illustrious son of bilbilis, has sung the praises of the one; less celebrated poets, such as gracio falisco, of the other.[ ] even the armourers of rome were found to be less skilful and successful swordsmiths than the spaniards;[ ] and so, before the second punic war, the model or the models of the spanish sword had been adopted by the roman army. [ ] "_gerone qui ferrum gelat._" this river, the purity and coldness of whose waters lent, or so it is supposed, its virtues to the steel, rolls past the walls of calatayud, and is called in later ages the jalon. [ ] "_imo toletano præcingant ilia cultro._" [ ] "_romani patriis gladiis depositis hannibalico bello hispaniensium assumpserunt ... sed ferri bonitatem et fabrica solertiam imitari non potuerunt._"--suidas. various of the native peoples of iberia were distinguished by a special instrument or mode of fighting. strabo says that the iberians as a general rule employed two lances and a sword. those of lusitania were especially adroit in hurling darts. each of their warriors kept a number of these darts contained within his shield. upon the head they wore a helmet of a primitive pattern strapped beneath the chin. this helmet, called the _bacula_, protected all the wearer's face, and had a mitred shape, with three red feathers on the crest. together with these arms, the lusitanians used a copper-headed lance and the typical form of celtiberian sword. more singular and celebrated in their mode of fighting were the balearic islanders, who carried, through persistent exercise, the art of slinging stones and leaden plummets to the utmost limit of perfection. the beaches of these islands, we are told, abounded, then as now, in small, smooth pebbles, "weapons of nature's own contrivance," rarely suited to the sling.[ ] these slings were of three patterns, severally designed for near, far, and middling distances. the lead or stone projectile sometimes weighed a pound. accordingly--so strenuous was their zeal to be unrivalled in the practice of this arm--even as little children the baleares went without their dinner, till, with the formidable _funda_ in their hand, they struck the stick their parents planted for them in the soil. pliny and polybius, notwithstanding, state that the sling itself was not indigenous in this region, but imported from ph[oe]nicia. however this may be, the islanders within a little time contributed to swell the power of the roman legions. [ ] _descripciones de las islas pithiusas y baleares._ madrid, . the visigoths continued using many of the roman or ibero-roman arms. nevertheless, the solid armour of the romans, such as their greaves and thigh-pieces and breastplates, was now replaced by primitive chain-mail resembling scales of fishes. according to saint isidore, procopius, and other writers, the favourite weapons of the spanish visigoths were the sword or _spatha_, long, broad-bladed, with a double edge; the hatchet, the bow, the sling, the lance, the scythe, the mace, the _pilum_ or javelin (used extensively in spain throughout the middle ages),[ ] the _dolon_, a dagger which concealed itself within a wooden staff, and took the name of "treacherous" or "wily" from this circumstance; and the _conto_, a keenly pointed pike. we also find among the military engines of the visigoths the _balista_, for hurling stones and darts of large size, and the _ariete_ or battering-ram, constructed from a gnarled and powerful tree-trunk braced with iron and suspended by a cable. their defensive body-armour consisted of a coat of mail composed of bronze or iron scales, and called the _lóriga_ or _perpunte_. this was worn above the _thorachomachus_, a kind of tunic made of felt, in order to shield the body from the roughness of the mail. upon their heads they wore an ample helmet. [ ] a javelin made throughout of iron was found in spain some years ago, completely doubled up, so as to admit of its being thrust into a burial urn. the javelin in question is now in the madrid museum, and a similar weapon may be seen in the provincial museum of granada. a fragment of stone carving preserved in seville museum shows us two visigothic spanish warriors who wear a tunic and helmet of a simple pattern, and carry a two-edged sword and a large shield. garcía llansó says, however, that the nobles of this people wore close-fitting mail tunics covered with steel scales, a kind of bronze bassinet, tight breeches, and high boots, and carried, besides the sword which was slung from their belts, a large, oval shield.[ ] [ ] _historia general del arte_: garcía llansó; _armas_, pp. , . [illustration: xl spanish crossbowman (_late th century. royal armoury, madrid_)] from about the time of the moorish invasion, the changes in the arms and armour of the spaniards coincided in the main with those in other parts of western europe. nevertheless, as late as the eleventh century the spanish sword retained the characteristic which had endeared it to the roman legionaries--namely, a hilt of small dimensions and a broad and shortish blade. in course of time the blade grows narrower and begins to taper towards the point. the _quillons_ or crossbars (spanish _arriaces_, from the arabic _arrias_, a sword-hilt) were originally straight or semicircular, and ended in a knob (_manzana_, literally "apple"; latin _pomum_, english _pommel_). thus, in the _poem of the cid_ we find the verse:-- "_las manzanas é los arriaces todos de oro son._" throughout these early times the scabbard was of wood lined with leather or with velvet, and strengthened and adorned with leather bands; but when the owner was of high estate, it often bore enamels in the _cloisonné_ style; that is, with patches of the coloured, vitreous substance bordered and fastened in by metal wire. in spain this style, undoubtedly of foreign origin, was superseded in the thirteenth century by _champlevé_ enamelling, in which the enamel lies within a hollowed ground. spanish mediæval weapons down to the fourteenth century are specified in the _fuero_ of cáceres and other documents contemporary with their use. next always in importance to the sword we find the hatchet, lance, crossbow, and mace. montaner's _chronicle of the kings of aragon_ tells us that the sovereign, mace in hand, dealt one of his enemies "such a blow upon his iron hat that his brains came oozing out at his ears." covarrubias mentions a dart-shaped missile called the _azcona_--a word which some authorities derive from the arabic, and others from the basque _gascona_, an arm employed by the natives of gascony. the former derivation seems the likelier. the _fuero_ of cáceres mentions the _tarágulo_, described by the count of clonard as a kind of dagger; and at the close of the thirteenth century appears in spain the poniard, which was called among the germans _panzerbrecher_, or "breaker of cuirasses," and among the french the _misericorde_. the _fuero_ of cáceres tells us, furthermore, what was the regular equipment of the spanish foot and mounted soldier of that period. "each horseman shall go forth to battle with a shield, a lance, a sword, and spurs; and he that carries not all these shall pay each time five sheep wherewith to feed the soldiers.... each mounted man or pawn that trotteth not or runneth not to quit his town or village as he hears the call,--the first shall have his horse's tail cut off; the other shall have his beard clipped." defensive arms included various kinds of coverings for the head; the _lóriga_ or covering for the body, the _cálcias_ or covering for the legs, and the shield. the _lóriga_ (latin _lorica_) was the ordinary hauberk or shirt of mail, such as was worn all over military europe, made of rings or scales sewed strongly on a linen or leather under-tunic consisting of a single piece, and reaching to the knee. the _gran conquista de ultramar_ of alfonso el sabio also informs us that it was tied at certain openings known as _ventanas_ ("windows"), and that the collar of the tunic was called the _gorguera_. the resistance of the spanish _lóriga_ to a pointed weapon does not seem to have been great, for the chronicle of the monk of silos says that at the siege of viseo the arrows of the moorish bowmen went through the triple _lórigas_ of their foe. towards the twelfth century the custom arose of wearing over the coat of mail a loose, sleeveless frock (the _waffenrock_ of germany), woven of linen or some other light material, painted or embroidered with the owner's arms. as the count of clonard observes, it is clearly this kind of frock that is referred to in the following passage of the _leyes de partida_: "for some (of the knights) placed upon the armour carried by themselves and by their horses,[ ] signs that were different one from another, in order to be known thereby; while others placed them on their heads, or on their helmets." [ ] the horse was also covered with a _lóriga_, on which, from about the twelfth century, were thrown the decorative trappings of _cendal_ or thin silk, painted or embroidered with the warrior's arms. [illustration: xli the battle of la higueruela (_wall painting. hall of battles, el escorial_)] the normans used a form of hauberk with attached mail-stockings. in spain we find in lieu of this leg-covering, the roman _cálcia_ (latin _caliga_), extending from the foot to just below the thigh, and subsequently called the _brafonera_.[ ] this was, in fact, a separate mail-stocking, made of closely interlacing steel rings, and worn above the leather boots or _trebuqueras_. [ ] "_calzó las brafoneras que eran bien obradas con sortijas de acero, sabet bien enlazadas; asi eran presas é bien trabadas, que semejaban calzas de las tiendas taiadas._" _poem of the cid._ the spanish _escudo_ or shield was usually made of wood covered with leather, and painted with the arms or the distinguishing emblem of its lord. sometimes it was made of parchment. thus the chronicle of the cid informs us that this hero after death was equipped with "a painted parchment helm and with a shield in the same wise." another form of spanish shield, the _adarga_ (_atareca_, _atarca_; arabic _ad-darka_, to hold upon the arm), of which i shall subsequently notice specimens in the royal armoury, was commonly in the shape of a rough oval or of a heart, and made of various folds of leather sewn and glued together. the chronicle of alfonso the eleventh speaks of a certain famine which broke out among the spanish troops, and caused them such privation that "they chewed the leather of their shields."[ ] [ ] count of clonard, _op. cit._ the battle headgear of this people passed through many changes. "the helmet of the eighth century," says the count of clonard, "was the same which had been used by the cantabrians and vascones before the general peace proclaimed by augustus cæsar. helmets of this design are engraved upon the medals (reproduced by florez) of the imperial legate publius carisius. they covered the entire head and face, leaving only two holes for the eyes, as we see upon the carved stone fragments in relief at the door of the church of san pedro de villanueva, representing the struggle of king froila with a bear." another form of helmet which the spaniards began to use about this time was the _almofar_ (arabic _al-mejfar_), made of iron scales. it covered all the head, with the exception of the eyes, nose, and mouth, and corresponds to the _camail_ of the normans. beneath it was worn the linen _cofia_, a kind of bag or cap in which the warrior gathered up his hair. after about another century a round or conical iron helmet (_capacete_), fitted with cheek-pieces, was superposed on the _almofar_ and fastened round the chin with straps. the _capacete_ of a noble was often adorned with precious stones and coronets of pure gold, while a spike projecting from the top was tipped with a large carbuncle, in order to catch and to reflect the flashing sunbeams. the substitution for this spike of multiform and multicolor figures or devices dates from a later age. the chronicle of alfonso the eleventh describes as something altogether novel and surprising, the crests upon the helmets of the foreign knights who flocked, in , to algeciras to aid the cause of christianity against the moor. "all of them," says this narrative, "placed their helmets at the door of their dwellings, supporting them on stout and lofty staves; and the figures on the helmets were of many kinds. on some was the figure of a lion; on others that of a wolf, or ass's head, or ox, or dog, or divers other beasts; while others bore the likeness of the heads of men; faces, beards, and all. others, too, had wings as those of eagles or of crows; and so, between these various kinds there were in all as many as six hundred helmets." this brings us to the celebrated helmet or _cimera_ (plate xxxix.), now in the royal armoury of madrid, believed till recently to have belonged to jayme the first, conqueror of palma and valencia, and the greatest, both in spirit and in stature, of the old-time kings of aragon. such part of this interesting helmet as is left consists of two pieces, one of them resting loosely on the other. baron de las cuatro torres infers, from a detail which will presently be noted, that the lower of these two pieces is not original; and his opinion was shared by the count of valencia de don juan, who, notwithstanding, thought the spurious part to be coeval with the actual crest. the upper part consists of a fragment of a helm, made, like some flimsy theatre property, of linen, card, and parchment, and surmounted with the figure of the mythical monster known in the lemosin language as the _drac-pennat_, or winged dragon, which formed, conjointly with the royal crown, the emblem or device of all the aragonese sovereigns from pedro the fourth to ferdinand the second. [illustration: xlii parade harness of philip the third (_royal armoury, madrid_)] there is, however, no reason to doubt the helmet's authenticity. it is known to have remained for centuries at palma, in the balearics, where it was worn upon the day of saint sylvester in each year, by a person who walked in the procession of the _standart_ to celebrate the capture of the city by don jayme. this would explain the lower piece contrived and added to the crest itself, in order to adjust the incomplete and upper portion to the subsequent wearer's head. the helmet as originally made was meant for tourneying only, and is therefore fashioned, not of metal, but of the frail theatrical materials i have stated. copper and wood, says viollet-le-duc, were also used in making these objects. the earliest wearer of the helm cannot have been don jayme. baron de las cuatro torres remarks that on an aragonese coin of the reign of pedro the fourth, the monarch is wearing on his head something which looks identical with this _cimera_.[ ] demay has further told us that the vogue of such _cimeras_, whose principal purpose was to distinguish seigniories, lasted from till the introduction of movable visors at the end of the fourteenth or the beginning of the fifteenth century. the present helmet, therefore, probably belonged to don pedro the fourth of aragon ("the ceremonious"), and was made at some time in his reign--that is, between and . a document has been discovered in which this monarch's son, don martin of aragon, commands that year by year his own helmet, "_nostram emprissiam sive cimbram_," together with the banner of jayme the conqueror, is to be publicly exhibited in commemoration of the capture of majorca. therefore we may conclude from these important facts that here is the crest of a tourneying helmet which belonged either to don pedro the fourth of aragon, or else to either of, or possibly both, his sons, don juan and don martin. [ ] _boletín de la sociedad española de excursiones_; nos. and . the changes which occur in spanish arms and armour between the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries keep pace, upon the whole, with those in other parts of europe. it is, however, opportune to notice how the spanish armies of this time were organized. their regular cavalry consisted of: ( ) the force directly mustered by the king and under his immediate leadership; ( ) the mounted burghers who defrayed the whole or part of their expenses, being in certain instances assisted by a stipend which had been created by municipal and local _fueros_; ( ) the knights belonging to the military orders; and ( ) the barons, together with the men these last were called upon, obedient to the summons of the royal _mandadero_ (messenger), to mount, equip, provision, and bring to war with them. such was the heavy cavalry of later mediæval spain. a lighter class, said by the count of clonard to have been recruited from the southern regions of the land, was known as _alfaraces_, _almogávares_, or _omes de la gineta_. these latter lived in frugal fashion. water was their only drink; bread and the roots of plants their only food. their clothing, too, was of the slightest, consisting merely of a shirt, high boots, and a kind of net upon the head. they wore no armour, and carried as their only weapons an _azagaya_ and a lance. their principal value was in skirmishing. the infantry were also of two kinds. the first, collective or stipendiary, was levied by the towns and cities, and from them received its maintenance. the second was the _almogávares_, who served for scouting, like their mounted comrades of the same denomination. the stipendiary or regular troops proceeded chiefly from the northern provinces--alava, guipúzcoa, the asturias, and the mountains of león, and carried commonly the lance, sword, sling, crossbow, and the _azagaya_--this last a dart-shaped missile borrowed from the berber tribesmen,--the ancient moorish _azgaya_, the modern _assagai_ or _assegai_ of zululand.[ ] [ ] one of these weapons may be seen in the royal armoury (no. i. ). it is made of iron covered with leather, and has a laurel-shaped blade with sharpened edges. the other end consists of two projecting pieces of the metal, shaped to resemble the plumes of an arrow. the length of this arm is feet inches. in a country which was plunged in ruinous and almost unremitting internecine strife; which was (and is) inherently averse to commerce or to agriculture; and where the bulk of all the national wealth was either locked away in churches and in convents, or in the coffers of great nobles who were frequently as wealthy as, or even wealthier than, the crown, the armour of the common mediæval spanish soldier consisted of the plain and necessary parts and nothing more. the aristocracy, upon the other hand, often adorned their battle-harness with the finest gold and silver work, and studded it with precious stones. even the esquires would sometimes imitate their masters in this costly mode. "we command," said juan the first in one of his pragmatics dating from the end of the fourteenth century, "that no shield-bearer shall carry cloth of gold or any manner of gold ornament upon his trappings, scarf, or saddle; or on his badge or arms, excepting only on the edges of his bassinet and his cuisses, together with the bit and poitral of his horse, which may be gilded." [illustration: xliii moorish crossbow and stirrup (_museum of granada_)] it is also evident from royal letters of this time, that the kings of spain depended very largely for the flower of their forces on the private fortune or resources of the spanish noblemen or even commoners; nor did they ever hesitate to turn these means of other people to their own particular good. the ordinance of juan the first, dated segovia, , commands that, "every man who possesses , _maravedis_ and upward shall have his proper set of harness, habergeons and scale-pieces, and lappet-piece, cuisses and vantbrasses, bassinet, camail, and war-cap[ ] with its gorget; or else a helmet, together with sword and dagger, glaive and battle-axe. and whoso possesses _maravedis_ and upward shall have his lance and javelin and shield, his lappet-piece and coat of mail, and iron bassinet without a camail, and a _capellina_, together with his sword, _estoque_, and knife. and whoso has between and _maravedis_ shall have his lance and sword or _estoque_ and knife, or a bassinet or _capellina_, together with a shield. and whoso has from to _maravedis_ shall have a crossbow with its nut and cord and stirrup, quiver and strap, and three dozen shafts. and whoso has from to _maravedis_ shall have a lance, a javelin, and a shield. and whoso has _maravedis_ shall have a javelin and a lance." [ ] _capellina_. the count of clonard says that this was in the shape of half a lemon, and fitted with a visor with a cutting edge. the wealthier classes responded lavishly to this command. describing the battle of olmedo and the forces of don alvaro de luna sent against the navarrese, the chronicle of the constable declares that among his entire host could hardly have been found a single cavalier whose horse was not covered with trappings, and its neck with mail. "for some there were that carried divers figures painted on the aforesaid trappings, and others that bore upon their helmets jewels that were a token from their mistresses. and others carried gold or silver bells suspended from their horses' necks by thick chains; or plates upon their helmets studded with precious stones, or small targes richly garnished with strange figures and devices. nor was there less variety in the crests upon their helmets; for some bore likenesses of savage beasts, and others plumes of various colours; while others carried but a plume or two upon their helmet crest, like unto those upon the forehead of their horses." the fifteenth century is often called in spain her golden age of arms--not in the sense that she invented anything new relating to this craft, but that her warriors were more fully and more frequently equipped with what had been imported from elsewhere. as in the case of crested helmets, foreign initiative brought about the substitution of plate or german armour--developed from the chain armour and the coat of mail--for the earlier sets of disconnected pieces. possibly, as a chronicle which describes the englishmen and gascons who were present at the siege of lerma in would seem to indicate, it was in consequence of this direct association with the foreigner that the older form of spanish harness yielded to the new. however this may be, plate armour certainly appeared in spain at some time in the fourteenth century, and grew in vogue throughout the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries. suits of armour worn by spanish pikemen and crossbowmen of this period may be profitably studied in the royal armoury (plate xl.); and the same harness is reproduced in the choir-stalls of toledo cathedral, carved by maestre rodrigo in . it is also useful to consult the prolix description of the _passo honroso_ ( ) of suero de quiñones, held at the bridge of orbigo, as well as the painting of the battle of la higueruela (plate xli.) in the sala de las batallas of the escorial. we find from these authoritative sources that spanish harness then consisted of the war-hat or _capacete_, with its _barbote_ or piece to cover the mouth and cheeks, and fringe of mail (_mantillos_) to protect the neck: the _coracina_ or korazin of tinned steel plates;[ ] the coat of mail; armlets and gauntlets; leg-pieces with closed greaves; and steel-pointed mail shoes. [ ] the following armourers' marks are stamped on various korazins in the royal armoury, made in aragon and dating from the fifteenth century:-- [illustration] the spanish man-at-arms of the sixteenth century is well described by martin de eguiluz, in his book, _milicia, discursos, y regla militar_. "the man is mounted and bears a lance. his head is covered with a visored helmet. he wears a double breastplate, of which the outer piece is called _volante_. his thighs are guarded by cuisses, his legs by greaves, and his feet by shoes of mail or iron. his horse's face, neck, breast, and haunches are covered with iron or with doubled leather. these coverings are called _bardas_, and the horses protected by them _bardados_, of which each man-at-arms is called upon to possess two." [illustration: xliv moorish sword (_casa de los tiros, granada_)] these plainer sets of war-harness for horses were made in spain. the costlier bards, whether for war or tournament, were made in italy and germany, and often match the outfit of the rider in the splendour and luxuriance of their decoration. striking examples of these bards are in the royal armoury, including one (plate xlii.) which formerly belonged to philip the third. probably it is the same referred to in the manuscript account of valladolid from which i have already quoted curious notices of other crafts. speaking of the duke of lerma in , this narrative says; "he rode a beautiful horse with richly decorated arms and gold-embroidered bard, fringed, and with medallions in relief. the trappings, reaching to the ground, were of black velvet covered with silver plates as large as dinner-plates, and others of a smaller size that represented arms and war-trophies, all of them gilt, and studded with precious stones. i heard say that this armour which the duke now wore, had once belonged to the emperor, and is now the king's."[ ] [ ] my theory that this harness and the one in the royal armoury are the same is strengthened by the official inventory, which specifies "a band of gold and silver, striped, and with devices in relief, studded with lapis lazuli, and yellow gems and luminous crystals." the count of valencia de don juan says that this fine outfit, except the portions which are represented in the plate, was mutilated and dispersed in later years, and that he has discovered fragments in the museums of paris and vienna, and in the collection of baron nathaniel de rothschild. the crossbow was an arm of great importance from about the eleventh century until the seventeenth, and spain, throughout the latter of these centuries, was celebrated for their manufacture. roquetas, a catalan, "master-maker of crossbows," constructed them of steel, so skilfully and finely that they could be carried concealed inside the sleeve of a coat, and discharged without awaking the suspicion of the victim. a letter of rené of anjou, quoted by the count of valencia de don juan, also refers to the skill of the catalans in making crossbows, and mentions one of these weapons constructed by "saracen," of barcelona, "who refuses to teach his craft to christians." the letter further states that this arm was of a curious shape, and that, "despite its small dimensions, it carries to a greater distance than any other i have yet possessed." a handsome moorish crossbow, inlaid with bronze (plate xliii.), exists in the provincial museum of granada. the royal armoury has no example of the rare form of crossbow fitted with wheeled gear, but all the commoner kinds employed for hunting or for war are represented here, including those with the _armatoste_ or goat's-foot lever, stirruped crossbows, and those which have the _torno_ or windlass (french _cranequin_). demmin appends the following note to an illustration in his handbook of a crossbow with a goat's-foot lever fixed to the stock:--"a similar weapon in ironwood, sixteenth century, belonged to ferdinand the first, proved by the inscription on the bow: dom fernando rei de romano, followed by four golden fleeces. it bears the name of the spanish armourer juan deneinas. this valuable crossbow once belonged to m. spengel, at munich, but it is at present in the collection of the count of nieuwerkerke." there is also in the royal armoury a crossbow of the scarcer kind known in spanish as _ballestas de palo_, in which the gaffle is not of steel, but put together from slips of springy woods, including yew. the wings are tipped with horn, and traces of heraldic and renaissance decoration, painted on parchment, yet remain upon the weapon. other portions are inlaid. except for the erasure of the painting, this arm is splendidly preserved, and still retains its double cord, nut, and pins, together with the separate lever. another interesting crossbow in this armoury belonged to charles the fifth, who used it for the chase. it has a _verja_ or yard of steel engraved with the letter c four times repeated and surmounted by a crown, and bears the inscription, pro · imperatore · semper · avgvsto · plvs · vltra ·, together with · iv de la fvete ·, for juan de la fuente, the name of a celebrated maker of these parts of a crossbow. the shaft (_tablero_), ornamented in bone and iron, is from the hand of another master, juan hernandez, whose signature is io: hrz. the count of valencia de don juan supposed that this was the one crossbow which charles took with him to the rustic solitude of yuste, and which is mentioned in a document at simancas as "a crossbow with its gear and gaffles (it is in his majesty's possession, but he has not paid for it)." [illustration: xlv sword of boabdil el chico (_museum of artillery, madrid_)] hitherto i have traced the war-equipment of the spanish christians only. in the early period of mohammedan rule, the conquerors used a simple dress for war, consisting of the _capacete_ or _almofar_ for the head, secured by a chain beneath the chin and covered by a piece of cloth called _schasch_, hanging to just below the shoulders; a wide sleeveless tunic; a shirt of mail; tight breeches, and leather shoes. their weapons were the lance and sword. the foot-soldiery wore the _djobba_, a tight-sleeved tunic of white wool, bound to the body by a scarf, and leather shoes, and carried as their arms a _capacete_ of beaten iron, without a crest or cheek-pieces; a large round shield with its projecting umbo; and either a lance, or a double-edged and double-handed sword. such are the details represented in the _codex of the apocalypse_, preserved in the cathedral of gerona. as time progressed, the weapons and defensive armour of these spanish moors grew more luxurious and ornate, being often decorated with enamels, precious stones, or inlaid metals such as silver, gold, and bronze. prominent centres of this industry were murcia, zaragoza, and toledo, which are even said to have surpassed damascus. andalusia, too, was celebrated for her gold-inlaid cuirasses and coats of mail; while, according to el idrisi, the town of jativa enjoyed a widespread fame for every kind of decorative armour.[ ] [ ] _historia general del arte_: garcía llansó; _armas_; pp. , . the military outfit of the spanish moors was, therefore, much the same as that of christian spain. toledo under muslim rule continued to be famous for her swords. moorish seville, ronda, and valencia were also favourably known for weapons, household knives, and scissors. cutlery in the moorish style is still produced in certain parts of eastern spain, and in his _history of the mohammedan dynasties_ of this country, gayangos tells us of a knife which bore upon one side of the blade the inscription in arabic characters, "_with the help of god i will inflict death upon thy adversary_," and upon the other side, in castilian, the words, "_knife-factory of antonio gonzalez. albacete, ._" the primitive spanish-moorish sword was an arm of moderate breadth used both for cutting and for thrusting. as time went on, this people gradually adopted swords of spanish make or pattern, such as the ponderous _brandimartes_ and _montantes_ made for wielding with both hands. the granadino writer aben said complains that the adoption of the arms, and even of the costume of the spanish christians, was prevalent at granada in the thirteenth century. "sultans and soldiers alike," he said, "dress in the manner of the christians, even to their arms and armour, crimson cloaks, standards, and saddlery. they wield in battle a shield and a long lance,[ ] which serves them to attack with; nor do they seem to care for arab bows or maces, but prefer to use the frankish ones." [ ] this weapon can have been no other than the typical iberian lance. nevertheless, the warriors of granada carried several weapons which were not of christian origin. the tribe of the beni-merines brought across from africa a kind of sword called often in the christian chronicles the _espada gineta_, used principally, as we gather from its name, by those addicted to the moorish mode of horsemanship, or riding with short stirrups. the use of it extended later to the christian spaniards, and it is said to have contributed in later times to the victory of the spanish army at pavia. other swords in use among the granadinos were the _alfange_, the _chifarra_, the _chifarote_, and the _nammexi_. the last of these is described in an old dictionary of the valencian and castilian languages as a kind of scimitar, although quatremère and fleischer believe it to have been a dagger. [illustration: xlvi dagger of boabdil el chico (_museum of artillery, madrid_)] another author who describes the arms and armour of the granadinos is al-jattib, who says in his _splendour of the new moon_; "there are in granada two kinds of soldiery--those of al-andalus and those of africa. their leader is a prince of royal blood, or some exalted personage at court. formerly they used the christian arms; that is, ample coats of mail, heavy shields, thick iron helmets, lances with broad points, and insecure saddles.... now they have discarded that equipment, and are beginning to use short cuirasses, light helmets, arab saddles, leather shields, and thin lances." of the african troops the same historian adds; "their weapons for attacking are spears, either short or long, which they propel by pressing with the finger. these arms they call _marasas_; but for daily exercise they use the european bow." descriptions of the spanish-moorish swords inserted in the chronicles and poems of the middle ages, together with the few examples that have been preserved until our time, enable us to form an accurate idea of the shape and decoration of these weapons generally. those of the sultans and the muslim aristocracy were, as a rule, profusely ornamented, either with precious stones or with enamels, or else with delicate and lavish damascening, or with the characteristic oriental _ataujía_-work of gold and silver inlay. inscriptions, too, were freely used upon the hilt or scabbard. thus we are told that the great almanzor kept for daily use a sword which bore the legend; "_strive in warfare till ye win great victories. battle with the infidels till ye win them over to islam_"; and similar inscriptions may be quoted in great number. but four or five of these magnificent arms have proved superior to the ravages of time, and naturally tell us more than any weapons whose renown survives in written records merely. among such extant spanish-moorish swords are two attributed respectively to aliatar and abindarraez; two others which are known to have belonged to the last ill-fated monarch of the moors of spain, boabdil el chico; and another, considered to have also been boabdil's property, now in possession of the marquises of campotejar, owners of the generalife and of the casa de los tiros at granada. the "sword of aliatar," preserved in the museum of artillery at madrid, is said to have been wrested from the clenched hand of that warrior, father-in-law of boabdil and governor of loja, as his corpse was swept away down stream after the rout of the moorish expedition at lucena. this arm is richly damascened as well as decorated with the characteristic _ataujía_. the centre of the hilt is made of ivory, and the pommel and crossbars--which latter terminate in elephants' heads with slightly upturned trunks--of damascened and inlaid iron, ornamented here and there with _ataujía_. part of the blade--probably about an eighth--is broken off. the sheath has disappeared. an idle superstition has attributed the so-called "sword of abindarraez" to the hero of the well-known sixteenth-century romance entitled _the abencerraje and the beautiful jarifa._ this weapon, which for many years was in possession of the narvaez family, belongs at present to the marquis of la vega de armijo. the decoration is not particularly rich, and part of it is worn away; but the narrow blade is still engraved with figures or portraits from the story which has given the sword its name. the sword (pl. xliv.) belonging to the marquises of campotejar, and which is preserved in the casa de los tiros at granada, bears some resemblance to the "sword of aliatar," and has about the same dimensions. although it is commonly believed that boabdil was the original owner of this sword, gómez moreno considers that more probably it belonged to one of the moorish princes of almería. the handle and crossbars, as well as the shape of the sheath, are silver-gilt, covered with minute arabesque ornamentation forming leaves and stems, and further decorated with enamel. the sheath is of morocco leather worked with silver thread. the crossbars, curving abruptly down,[ ] terminate in elephants' trunks boldly upturned towards the pommel. the blade is stamped with a toledo mark consisting of castilian letters and a pomegranate. [ ] in the reign of ferdinand and isabella, this characteristically eastern downward curve of the crossbars grew to be popular even with the christian spaniards, as we observe from the swords of ferdinand himself, preserved in the royal armoury at madrid, and the chapel royal of the cathedral of granada. but the most important, interesting, and beautiful specimens of spanish-moorish arms preserved to-day are those which were captured from boabdil at the battle of lucena ( ), when the monarch was made prisoner by the young alcaide de los donceles, don diego fernandez de cordova. a manuscript _history of the house of cordova_, quoted by eguilaz yanguas,[ ] says that upon the day in question, irretrievably disastrous to the moorish cause in spain, boabdil carried "a short, silver-handled sword, a damascened dagger, and a lance and buckler of great strength" (plates xlv. and xlvi.). these arms, together with another and a larger sword (_montante_ or _estoque real_) for wielding with both hands, and certain articles of boabdil's clothing, continued in the captor's family for centuries, and were, some years ago, presented by the marquises of villaseca, his direct descendants, to the national museum of artillery. [ ] _las pinturas de la alhambra_, p. . [illustration: xlvii moorish sword (_hilt and upper part of sheath_)] the smaller or _gineta_ sword[ ] is handsomer and more important than the large _estoque_. the crossbars, as we find so often in weapons of this character and date, are bent abruptly down, and then curve up in a design of dragons' heads--the well-known emblem of the nasrite sultans of granada. part of the handle is of solid gold adorned with crimson, white, and blue enamel distributed about the top and bottom of the hilt, the pommel, and the _arriaces_ or crossbars. the centre of the hilt consists of ivory, richly carved. on either side of it are two octagonal intersecting figures, bearing upon one side, in semi-cufic characters, the words, "_achieve thy aim_," and on the other, "_in preserving his_ (_i.e._ the owner's) _life_." round the upper border of the ivory is carved the sentence; "_in the name of god; the power belongs to him, and there is no divinity but he. happiness proceeds from god alone_"; and round the lower border, "_the marvellous belongs to god. assuredly at the outset the ignorant do not know their god; seeing that error is their custom._" [ ] the count of valencia de don juan states that seven hispano-moresque _gineta_ swords are known to exist to-day: the one vwhich is here described, and those belonging to the marquises of viana and pallavicino, baron de sangarrén, the duke of dino, señor sánchez toscano, the archæological museum at madrid, the museum of cassel in germany, and the national library at paris, a _gineta_ sword in the madrid armoury popularly attributed to boabdil can never have belonged to him. the hilt is modern, and the blade proceeds from barbary. other inscriptions of a sacred character, combined with delicate _ataujía_-work, are on the pommel and the upper portion of the hilt; but it has been remarked that, although the entire decoration is amazingly elaborate and rich, these inscriptions nowhere indicate that the weapon belonged to a personage of royal blood. the sheath of this most sumptuous arm is also lavishly adorned with silver and enamel on a purple leather ground. the blade is of a later date than either sheath or hilt, and bears the letter s, believed to be the mark of alonso sahagun the elder, of toledo. the total length of this weapon is thirty-nine inches; and gayangos declares that it was worn suspended by a belt between the shoulders.[ ] [ ] a number of moorish swords are mentioned in the inventory, compiled in , of the dukes of alburquerque. one is particularly interesting. it is described as "a moorish _gineta_ sword which belongs to the count of monteagudo, and is pawned for six thousand _maravedis_. the sheath is of bay leather, worked in gold thread. the chape and fittings are of silver, decorated with green, blue, purple, and white enamel. there are two serpents' heads upon the fitting, together with the figure of a monster worked in gold thread on a little plate, and two large scarlet tassels: the little plate has three ends of the same enamel and a silver-gilt buckle." a note at the margin adds; "the chape is wanting, and is owed us by the marquis of comares, who lost it at the cane-play at madrid." the two serpents' heads formed part of the arms of the alahmar sultans of granada; so that from this and from the richness of this weapon we may infer that it had once belonged to mussulman royalty. the same inventory describes "a moorish scimitar with gilded hilt; the cross and pommel, and a great part of the scimitar itself, being of gilded _ataujía_ work. the sheath is green inside, and black and gilt upon the face; and hanging from the hilt is a gold and purple cord with a button and a black tassel." the large _montante_ which belonged to the same ill-fated monarch has a cylindrical hilt, narrower in the centre of the handle than at either end. this hilt is made of steel inlaid with _lacería_ or network ornament in ivory. in a small shield within the decoration of the pommel, appear the words "_to god_"; and in the centre of the handle, the familiar motto of the nasrite sultans of granada; "_the only conqueror is god._" part of the blade is broken off. that which is left is broad and straight, with two grooves (one of which extends about three inches only) on each side, and bears an oriental mark consisting of five half-moons. the sheath is of brown morocco decorated with a small gilt pattern forming shells and flowers. the mouth and chape are silver-gilt. in beautiful and skilful craftsmanship boabdil's dagger or _gumía_ matches with his swords. the handle is of steel inlaid in ivory with floral patterns, and terminates in a large sphere, similarly decorated. the blade has a single edge, and is exquisitely damascened in gold designs which cover more than half of all its surface. along one side we read the inscription; "_health, permanent glory, lasting felicity, permanent glory, lasting felicity, and lasting and permanent glory belong to god_"; and on the other side, "_it was made by reduan._" the sheath of this little arm is made of crimson velvet richly embroidered with gold thread, and hanging from it is a large tassel of gold cord and crimson silk. the chape and mouth are silver-gilt, profusely decorated, and the latter of these pieces is embellished with circular devices of a lightish green enamel, in addition to the chasing. the small, plain knife, also preserved among the spoil, was carried in this sheath, together with the dagger.[ ] [ ] to-day the craft of finely decorating arms is not forgotten in morocco. "a silversmith advanced to show a half-completed silver-sheathed and hafted dagger, engraved with pious sentences, as, "god is our sufficiency and our best bulwark here on earth," and running in and out between the texts a pattern of a rope with one of the strands left out, which pattern also ran round the cornice of the room we sat in, and round the door, as it runs round the doors in the alhambra and the alcazar, and in thousands of houses built by the moors, and standing still, in spain. the dagger and the sheath were handed to me for my inspection, and on my saying that they were beautifully worked, the caid said keep them, but i declined, not having anything of equal value to give in return."--cunninghame graham; _mogreb-el-acksa_, p. . [illustration: xlviii war harness of charles the fifth (_royal armoury, madrid_)] the royal armoury at madrid is often thought by foreigners[ ] to contain a representative collection of the arms, offensive and defensive, used by the spanish people through all their mediæval and post-mediæval history. this is not so. although it is the choicest and the richest gallery in europe, the armería real was formed almost entirely from the _cámaras de armas_ or private armouries of charles the fifth and of his son, and is, as mélida describes it, "a splendid gallery of royal arms," dating, with very few exceptions, from the sixteenth century. [ ] _e.g._, by townsend, who wrote of it, with ill-informed enthusiasm, as "an epitome of spanish history." swinburne's notice of the same armoury is also curious: "at the bottom of the palace-yard is an old building, called the armeria, containing a curious assortment of antique arms and weapons, kept in a manner that would have made poor cornelius scriblerus swoon at every step; no notable housemaid in england has her fire-grates half so bright as these coats of mail; they show those of all the heroes that dignify the annals of spain; those of saint ferdinand, ferdinand the catholic, his wife isabella, charles the fifth, the great captain gonsalo, the king of granada, and many others. some suits are embossed with great nicety. the temper of the sword blades is quite wonderful, for you may lap them round your waist like a girdle. the art of tempering steel in toledo was lost about seventy years ago, and the project of reviving and encouraging it is one of the favourite schemes of charles the third, who has erected proper works for it on the banks of the tagus." the greater part of its contents were made within a limited interval, as well as not produced in spain. such are the glittering and gorgeous harnesses constructed for the actual use of charles the fifth by celebrated german and italian armourers, ponderous suits for jousting or parade, or lighter suits for combat in the field, whether on foot or horseback (plate xlviii.), fashioned, chiselled, and inlaid by craftsmen such as the negroli and piccini of milan, bartolommeo campi of pesaro, or kollman of augsburg, bombastically called, by a spanish poet in the mode of gongora, "the direct descendant of vulcanus." this german and italian armour, with its multitude of accessorial pieces,[ ] falls outside the province of a book on spanish arts and crafts. nevertheless, i reproduce, as being too little known outside madrid, the sumptuous jousting harness (plate xlix.), of charles the fifth, made for the emperor when he was a lad of only eighteen years by kollman helmschmied of augsburg.[ ] laurent vital, describing the royal jousts at valladolid in , relates that "après marchait le roy bien gorgiasement monté et armé d'un fin harnais d'alemaigne, plus reluisant que d'argent brunti." this is the very harness told of by the chronicler. the helmet turns the scale at forty pounds; the entire suit at two hundred and fifty-three pounds; and the length of the lance exceeds eleven feet. [ ] throughout this time, the full equipment of the knight consisted of no less than four complete suits, for tournament or battle, or for foot or mounted fighting, together with their lances, swords, and targes. the alburquerque inventory describes in detail a complete set ("all of it kept in a box") of war and tourneying harness belonging to the duke. although the warriors of that day were short of stature, their muscular strength is undeniable, for one of their lances has to be lifted nowadays by several men. when the author of _mogreb-el-acksa_ wrote contemptuously of the "scrofulous champions tapping on each other's shields," he was perhaps, forgetful for a moment of this fact. [ ] the count of valencia de don juan has found, from documents at simancas, that in the year kollman visited toledo to measure charles for armour. it is also certain, adds the count, that, in order to produce this armour of a perfect fit, kollman first moulded charles' limbs in wax, and then transferred the moulds to lead. in a budget of accounts which coincides with kollman's visit to toledo appears the following item: "pour trois livres de cire et de plomb pour faire les patrons que maître colman, armoyeur, a fait"--followed by details of the cost. there is, however, also in this armoury a jousting harness (plate l.) formerly the property of philip the first of spain, a part of which, including the cuirass, is known to be of spanish make. the cuirass in question bears the mark of a valencia armourer, and the harness generally dates from about the year , at which time gachard tells us in his _chroniques belges_ that philip was learning to joust "à la mode d'espaigne." besides the enormous helmet and the spanish-made cuirass, covered with gold brocade, this ornament includes a tourneying lance with a blunt three-pointed head,[ ] and a curious form of rest, said by the count of valencia de don juan to be peculiar to the spaniards and italians. this rest is stuffed with cork, on which, just as the fray began, the iron extremity of the lance was firmly driven. another interesting detail is the _cuja_, fastened to the right side of the cuirass, and also stuffed with cork, made use of to support the lance upon its passage over to the rest. nor in this instance was the _cuja_ a superfluous device, seeing that the lance is over fifteen feet in length. [ ] this, in the later middle ages, was a favourite form of tourneying lance. these are the principal portions of the harness. the seemingly insufficient protection for the arms is explained by the fact that the solid wooden shield completely covered the fighter's left arm, while the right would be defended by the shield-like disc or _arandela_ of the lance. [illustration: xlix jousting harness of charles the fifth (_royal armoury, madrid_)] spanish shields and swords of great antiquity and interest are also in this armoury. the oldest of the shields dates from the twelfth century, and proceeds from the monastery of san salvador de oña, burgos. the material is a wood resembling cedar, although much eaten by moth, and is covered on both sides with parchment bearing traces of primitive painting of a non-heraldic character. inside the shield, this decoration consisted of a black ground crossed diagonally by a broad red band, and outside, of a red ground covered with rhomboid figures, some in gilt and some in colour. such figures were a popular pattern at this time and on this class of objects. the general stoutness of this shield shows that it was meant for war. it still retains the strap which slung it from the warrior's neck, as well as fragments of the braces--made of buffalo leather covered with crimson velvet--for the hand. another shield, proceeding from the same monastery, dates from the thirteenth century. the material, here again, is wood and parchment; but in this hundred years formal heraldic ornament had superseded fancy or conventional devices. accordingly, this shield is painted with a blazon, now much worn, of which, however, enough remains to show that it consisted once upon a time of four black chaperons crowned with gold _fleurs-de-lis_ upon a gold ground--said to have been the arms of don rodrigo gomez, count of bureba. the _scut_, or polished metal shield, with painted blazonry or other decoration, was limited to aragon and cataluña.[ ] [ ] _historia general del arte; armas_, by garcía llansó; p. . among the smaller and more modern shields preserved in this collection are two wooden bucklers dating from the sixteenth century. one is in the spanish-moorish style and of a convex shape, with iron bordering and umbo, and a lining of yellow brocade. the other, of the christian spaniards, is small and lined with painted parchment, and was intended, so the inventory says, "for going about at night."[ ] [ ] "dès que le soir arrive, on ne va point n'y à madrid ny ailleurs, sans cotte de maille et sans _broquet_ qui est une rondache."--bertaut de rouen, _voyage d'espagne_ ( a.d.), p. . the arms of spaniards promenading after dark were even fixed by law. the _suma de leyes_ of ordains that after ten o'clock nobody is to carry arms at all unless he also bears a lighted torch or lantern. no arquebus, on pain of a fine of ten thousand _maravedis_, may have a barrel less than a yard long. nobody may carry a sword or rapier the length of whose blade exceeds a yard and a quarter, or wear a dagger unless a sword accompanies it. sometimes these prohibitions extended even to seasons of the year. in an ordinance of granada proclaims that from the first of march until the last day of november nobody may carry a hatchet, sickle, or dagger, "except the dagger which is called a _barazano_, of a palm in length, even if the wearer be a shepherd." the penalty for infringement of this law was a fine of ten thousand _maravedis_; but labourers who worked upon a farm were exempted from the prohibition. swinburne wrote from cataluña, in , that "amongst other restrictions, the use of slouched hats, white shoes, and large brown cloaks is forbidden. until of late they durst not carry any kind of knife; but in each public house there was one chained to the table, for the use of all comers." there is also a richly gilt and silvered buckler of the seventeenth century, made at eugui in navarre, and covered with a scene--decadent in design and workmanship--which represents the judgment of paris. defensive armour, chiefly of a highly decorative kind, was made all through this century at the capital of navarre, pamplona. the royal armoury contains a pamplonese parade harness (plate lii.), offered as a gift to philip the third, as well as six diminutive sets of armour made to his order for the youthful princes don felipe, don fernando, and don carlos. the _adarga_ was a kind of targe used by the light cavalry, and had its origin in africa. those which were stored in the palace of the nasrite sultans of granada are described by al-makkari as "solid, without pores, soft to the touch, and famed for their imperviousness." the material was strong leather, such as cowhide, often embroidered with a scutcheon or with arabesques. two spanish-made _adargas_ in this armoury are particularly handsome. one is of moorish craftsmanship, and dates from the end of the fifteenth century. the other (plate liii.), apparently the work of a spanish christian and dating from a century later, is embroidered in silver thread and coloured silk with arabesque devices and also with four coats of arms, one of which belongs to the noble family of fernández de cordova. the dimensions of this shield are a yard in height by thirty inches in breadth. [illustration: l jousting harness of philip the handsome (_royal armoury, madrid_)] there also are preserved in this collection a shield (late sixteenth century) adorned by mexican indians with a most elaborate "mosaic of feather-work," and a number of spanish _adargas_ of the same period, for playing the _juego de cañas_ or "game of canes." the armoury contained in former days as many as forty-two _adargas_; but the fire of completely destroyed sixteen and badly damaged twenty-three, obliterating their heraldic and other decoration. a yet more sinister event befell on december st, , when the spanish mob, exasperated by the french, broke in and seized three hundred swords, not one of which was afterwards recovered. mention of these disasters leads me to recall the quantity of beautiful or historic military gear that spain has lost through many tribulations and vicissitudes. formerly her noble families had excellent collections in their palaces or castles. such were the private armouries of the dukes of pastrana at guadalajara, and of the dukes of alburquerque at cuéllar castle, near segovia. bertaut de rouen describes the first as "une des plus belles qui se voyent pour un seigneur particulier. il y a quantité d'armes anciennes, et l'on y void une épée qui s'allonge et s'accourcit quand on veut, de deux pieds et demy."[ ] the cuéllar armoury was pulled to pieces by philip the fourth to arm his troops against the french. "send me," he wrote to the duke from madrid, in a letter dated april th, , "all your pistols, carbines, harness for horses, breastplates and other arms for mounted fighting"; and the loyal nobleman complied upon the spot, despatching more than five hundred pieces, many of which were doubtless of the greatest interest.[ ] [ ] _voyage d'espagne_, p. . [ ] gonzalo de la torre de trassierra; articles on cuéllar published in the _boletín de la sociedad española de excursiones_. had i the erudition and the time, i would attempt to write, as it deserves to be written, an introduction to the history of spanish swords. of all the objects mentioned in these volumes, here is the most inherently symbolic of the spanish character and history. the spanish moors and spanish christians spoke of it as something superhuman. "once the sword is in the hand of man," observed, in solemn tones, the wise alfonso, "he hath it in his power to raise or lower it, to strike with it, or to abandon it." the spanish mussulmans talked of putting "clothes and breeches" on a sword that had a sheath, as though it were a breathing person; while a spaniard of the time of gongora would often use such language as the following: "truly in point of look there is as great a difference between a costly sword and a _toledan loyalty_ or _soldier's dream_, as between a marquis and a muleteer, or a washerwoman and the infanta. yet every sword is virtually an hidalgo. does not the basest of our toledanas, even to the _perrillos_ and _morillos_, which have no core, and cost a dozen _reales_ merely, afford a chivalrous lesson to its wearer, as it bids him _no me saques sin razon, ni me envaines sin honor_?[ ] the horse and the sword," he continued, taking a magnificently damascened rapier, and stroking it caressingly, "are the noblest friends of man, albeit the nobler is the sword; for the horse at times is obstinate or faint-hearted, but the sword is ready continually. the sword, moreover, possesses the chiefest of all virtues--justice, or the power of dividing right and wrong; a soul of iron, which is strength; and, last and greatest, the cross, which is the symbol of the blessed catholic faith."[ ] [ ] "draw me not without a cause, nor sheathe me without honour." a sword with this inscription is in the royal armoury--(g. of the official catalogue). [ ] leonard williams; _toledo and madrid: their records and romances_; p. . notices of early spanish sword-makers are far from common. don manuel g. simancas quotes the following, dated in the thirteenth century:-- "_master almerique._ by letters of the king and queen, to master almerique, for making the (sword) blades for the king; out of the mcc _maravedis_ of his salary he received cccc _maravedis_." "_master enrique._ by letters of the king and queen, to master enrique, for making the swords, mcccc, (of which) he received ccccxii _maravedis_." other entries of the same period relate to juan ferrández, armourer, who received a sum for making coverings for arms and saddles; and to master jacomin, who was paid three gold _doblas_, or sixty-three _maravedis_, for making a breastplate. in the inventory ( ) of the dukes of alburquerque occurs a very curious notice which seems to show that mediæval spanish swords were manufactured even in the rural districts. the entry runs; "an old grooved sword of a broad shape, bearing the words _juanes me fezió_ ("john made me"). in the middle of the same a p within a parted wave, with portuguese fittings, varnished, black silk hilt and fringes, and double straps of black leather, with varnished ends and buckles and black leather sheath. _juan de lobinguez made this sword at cuéllar._" [illustration: li moorish buckler (_osier and metal. royal armoury, madrid_)] the spanish guilds of armourers enjoyed high favour,[ ] since the examination for admission to this craft was very strict, as well as fenced about with curious prohibitions. thus at seville, "no moor, jew, black man, or other person such as the law debars, shall set up a shop for making and selling defensive arms, or undergo examination in this craft."[ ] the penalty for infringement of this law was confiscation of the arms, together with a fine of twenty thousand _maravedis_. [ ] in the corpus christi festival at granada the banner which preceded all the rest was that of the armourers and knife-makers, followed by that of the silk-mercers. _ordenanzas de granada_; tit. . [ ] _armourers' ordinances of seville_, extant in ms. (quoted by gestoso; _diccionario de artífices sevillanos_; vol. i., p. xxxvi). throughout these times the armourer's and the gilder's crafts are found in closest union; just as the armourer's craft would often alternate with that of the goldsmith or the silversmith. at seville, the ordinance of prescribed that every candidate who came to be examined must make "a set of horse harness, complete with stirrups, headstalls, spurs, poitral, and the fittings of a sword; and he must silver several of these pieces and blue them with fine blue; and make of iron, and gild the spurs and fittings of the sword. thus shall he make, and gild, and silver the aforesaid pieces." equally severe and comprehensive are the swordsmiths' ordinances ( to ) of granada. the aspirant to the title of _oficial_ "shall mount a sword for wear with ordinary clothes, fitted in black, together with its straps, and fringed and corded hilt; besides a sword gilded a low gold, together with its straps and other parts, all of a single colour. also he shall fit a velvet-scabbarded, silver-hilted sword, and a two-handed sword, fully decorated, with the knife attaching to the same, one-edged and with a smooth hilt; also a sword whose scabbard shall be fitted with knives numbering not less than three; and a hilt of _lacería_ (network ornament); and another sword in a white sheath, with woven hilt; and another of a hand and a half."[ ] [ ] "_de mano y media_"; _i.e._ for wielding either with one hand or both. specimens of this kind of sword existing at madrid will be described immediately. the royal armoury at madrid contains an excellent collection of these weapons. among the earliest known to be of spanish make are two which date from the thirteenth century. one of them (plate liv., no. ), with fittings of a later time, is frequently miscalled the "cid's colada," and seems to have been confounded with the genuine weapon of that hero which was acquired in the thirteenth century by one of the sovereigns of castile, and which has probably disappeared. the blade of this remarkable sword has two edges and tapers gradually to the point. part of the blade is slightly hollowed, and bears, extending through about a quarter of the hollow or _canal_, the following inscription or device:-- [illustration] this is believed by some authorities to represent the words si, si, no, non ("yes, yes, no, no"); and by others to be a purely meaningless and decorative pattern. the weapon, in any case, is in the best of preservation, and is especially interesting from the fact that engraved blades dating from this early period are very seldom met with. the count of valencia de don juan believes this weapon to be the same _lobera_ which belonged to ferdinand the third, and aptly quotes the following passage from the chronicle. when ferdinand, conqueror of seville, was lying on his death-bed in that capital, surrounded by his children, he gave his blessing to his younger son, the infante don manuel, and addressed him in these words. "i can bequeath no heritage to you; but i bestow upon you my sword lobera, that is of passing worth, and wherewith god has wrought much good to me." if the count's surmise be accurate, another passage which he quotes from the work _nobleza y lealtad_, written by the twelve councillors of ferdinand, fully explains the legend on the blade. "_sennor, el tu si sea asi, e el tu non, sea non; que muy gran virtud es al príncipe, ó á otro qualquier ome ser verdadero, e grand seguranza de sus vasallos, e de sus cosas._"[ ] [ ] "señor, let thy yea be yea, and thy nay be nay; for of great virtue is it in the prince, or any man, to be a speaker of the truth, and of great security to his vassals and to his property." i said that the chiselled and gilded iron fittings to the blade are of a later period. they date from the earlier part of the sixteenth century, and are the work of salvador de avila, of toledo. [illustration: lii armour made at pamplona (_ th century. royal armoury, madrid_)] the other sword in this collection, and which also belongs to the thirteenth century, has a long, broad blade with two edges and a central groove, thinly engraved with circles (pl. liv., no. , and pl. lv.). the crossbars are of silver-gilt, engraved with _ataurique_, curving towards the blade and terminating in trefoils. a shield midway between them bears the arms of castile upon one side, and those of león upon the other. the grip is of wood, covered with silver plates with decorated borders, and the pommel is of iron, also covered with ornamental plates of silver-gilt. formerly this arm was studded with precious stones, but all of these excepting one have disappeared. the scabbard is of wood lined with sheepskin, and is covered with a series of five silver-gilt plates, profusely decorated with hispano-moresque _lacería_, studded with various kinds of gems. these gems upon the scabbard amounted once upon a time to seventy-six, which sum, through pilfering or accident (probably the former, since the finest stones are gone), has been diminished by one-half. an inventory, made in the reign of philip the second, states that the inner side of the sheath, now wholly worn away, was covered with lions and castles, and that the belt was of broad orange-coloured cloth, with silver fittings. this sword has been absurdly attributed to the nephew of charlemagne, who lived not less than half a thousand years before its date of manufacture. the count of valencia de don juan thought that it may have been the property of a spanish monarch of the thirteenth century,--perhaps alfonso the learned, or ferdinand the third, alfonso's father. ferdinand, we know, possessed a sword which he delivered with due ceremony to his elder son, the infante don fernando, upon his leading out a force against the town of antequera. this sword the chronicler alvar garcía de santa maría described as having "a sheath in pieces, with many precious stones." of even greater interest than the foregoing weapon is the great two-handed and two-edged _estoque_ or ceremonial sword of ferdinand and isabella, which measures forty-two inches in length. the fittings are of iron, gilded and engraved. the crossbars, terminating in small half-moons, with the concave side directed outward, are inscribed with the well-known motto of the catholic sovereigns, tanto monta, and with a supplication to the virgin, memento mei o mater dei mei. the pommel is a flat disc, suggestive in its outline of a gothic cross, and bears upon one side the figure of saint john together with the yoke, emblem of ferdinand the catholic, and upon the other the sheaf of arrows, emblem of his consort isabella. the hilt is covered with red velvet bound with wire. the sheath of this most interesting sword--affirmed by the count of valencia de don juan to have been used by ferdinand and isabella, and subsequently by charles the fifth, in the ceremony of conferring knighthood, and also, during the hapsburg monarchy, to have been carried by the master of the horse before the king upon his formal visit to a city of his realm--is made of wood covered with crimson silk, bearing in "superposed" embroidery the arms of spain posterior to the conquest of granada, together with a repetition of the emblems of the catholic sovereigns (plate liv., no. ). in the same collection are two other swords which probably belonged to ferdinand the catholic. one of them (pl. lvii., no. ), has a discoid pommel and a gilded iron handle. the flat crossbars grow wider and bend down towards the blade, and on the hilt we read the words paz comigo nvnca veo, y siempre gvera deseo ("never does peace attend me, and always do i yearn for war"). this sword has been attributed to isabella. the evidence for this belief is slight, although the count of valencia de don juan discovered that in the year isabella was undoubtedly the possessor of certain weapons and armour which she sometimes actually wore. among these objects were several milanese breastplates, a small dagger with a gold enamelled hilt in the shape of her emblem of the sheaf of arrows, and two swords, one fitted with silver and enamel, and the other with iron. the other sword, which probably belonged to ferdinand the catholic, is of the kind known as "of a hand and a half" (_de mano y media_; see p. , _note_), and also of the class denominated _estoques de arzón_, or "saddle-bow swords," being commonly slung from the forepart of the saddle upon the left side of the rider. ferdinand, however, had reason to be chary of this usage, for lucio marineo sículo affirms that at the siege of velez-málaga the sword which he was wearing thus suspended, jammed at a critical moment of the fray, and very nearly caused his death. sículo adds that after this experience ferdinand invariably wore his sword girt round his person, just as he wears it in the carving on the choir-stalls of toledo. [illustration: liii _adarga_ (_royal armoury, madrid_)] the royal armoury contains another sword improperly attributed both to ferdinand the third and ferdinand the catholic. it dates from the fifteenth century, and has a blade of unusual strength intended to resist plate armour. this blade, which has a central ridge continued to the very point, is very broad towards the handle, tapers rapidly, and measures thirty-two inches. at the broader end, and on a gilded ground embellished with concentric circles, are graven such legends as:-- "the lord is my aid. i will not fear what man may do to me, and will despise my enemies. superior to them, i will destroy them utterly." "make me worthy to praise thee, o sweet and blessed virgin mary." the handle is of iron, with traces of gilded decoration, and corded with black silk. the count of valencia de don juan says that no reliable information can be found concerning this fine arm. its length and general design would allow of its being used with one hand or with both, and either slung from the saddle-bow or round the middle of a warrior on foot. another handsome sword, wrongly attributed by the ignorant to alfonso the sixth, is kept at toledo, in the sacristy of the cathedral. the scabbard is adorned with fourteenth-century enamel in the _champlevé_ style. baron de las cuatro torres considers that this sword belonged to the archbishop don pedro tenorio (see p. ), and adduces his proofs in the _boletín de la sociedad española de excursiones_ for march . the prelate in question, appointed to command an army sent against granada, was, like so many of the spanish mediæval clerics, of a warlike temper, and "exchanged with great alacrity his rochet for his harness, and his mitre for his helm." one of the most ridiculous and barefaced forgeries in the royal armoury is a sixteenth-century sword which has inscribed upon its blade the name of the redoubtable bernardo del carpio. the count of valencia de don juan says he remembers to have met with other blades of later mediæval make, engraved with such legends as "belonging to count fernán-gonzalez," or even "recaredus rex gothorum," while others in this armoury are ascribed, without the least authority of fact or common sense, to garcía de paredes, alvaro de sande, and hernando de alarcón. others, again, with less extravagance, though not on solid proof, are said to have belonged to hernán cortés, the count of lemos, and diego hurtado de mendoza. some, upon the other hand, belonged undoubtedly to celebrated spanish warriors of the olden time. such are the swords of the count of coruña, of gonzalo de córdova, and of the conqueror of peru, francisco pizarro. the first of these weapons (pl. lvii., no. ) has a superb hilt carved in the style of the spanish renaissance, with crossbars curving down, a _pas d'âne_, and a toledo blade of six _mesas_ ("tables") or surfaces, grooved on both sides, and ending in a blunt point. the armourer's mark, which seems to represent a _fleur-de-lis_ four times repeated, is that of the swordsmith juan martinez, whose name we read upon the blade, together with the words in te domine speravi, and on the other side, in spanish, para don bernardino xvarez de mendoza, conde de corvÑa. the sword of "the great captain," gonzalo de córdova ( - ), is not of spanish make (plate lvii., no. ). it has a straight blade with bevelled edges. the pommel and _quillons_ are decorated with renaissance carving, and the bars, which are of gilded iron, grow wider at their end and curve towards the blade. the pommel, of gilded copper, is spherical, and bears, upon one side, a scene which represents a battle, together with the words gonsalvi agidari victoria de gallis ad cannas. upon the other side are carved his arms. other inscriptions in latin are also on the pommel and the blade. the count of valencia de don juan believed that this sword was a present to gonzalo from the corporation of some italian town, and that it replaced, as an _estoque real_, or sword of ceremony, the state sword (see p. ) of ferdinand and isabella. [illustration: liv spanish swords (_royal armoury, madrid_)] pizarro's sword remained in possession of his descendants, the marquises of la conquista, until as recently as , in which year this family presented it to a scotch officer named john downie, who had fought in the peninsular war against the french. downie, in turn, bequeathed it to his brother charles, lieutenant-colonel in the spanish army, from whom it passed into the hands of ferdinand the seventh. the appearance of this sword is not remarkable. it has a stout, four-surfaced blade, with a powerful _recazo_ or central ridge, engraved with the christian name of mateo duarte, a swordsmith who was living at valencia in the middle of the sixteenth century. the hilt is of blued (_pavonado_) steel, inlaid with leaves and other ornament in gold. the pommel is a disc; the _quillons_ are straight, or very nearly so, and there is a _pas d'âne_ (plate lvii., no. ). the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries are famous as the epoch of the spanish rapier. toledo, as the world is well aware, enjoyed an undisputed name for the production of these weapons. within this ancient and historic capital generations of artists bequeathed, from father to son, and son to grandson, the secret (if there were a secret) of the tempering of these matchless arms; nor have toledo blades deteriorated to this day. many an idle superstition seeks to justify the talent and dexterity of these swordsmiths; though probably the key to all their skill was merely in the manual cunning, based on constant practice, of the craftsman, as well as in the native virtues of the water of the tagus. in one of my books i have described the workshop of an armourer of toledo in the sixteenth century. "after a few moments we entered the calle de las armas, which struck me as having grown a good deal narrower; and my companion, pausing beside an open doorway topped with a sign depicting a halberd and a sword, invited me to enter. two or three steps led downwards to a dark, damp passage, and at the end of this was a low but very large room, blackened by the smoke from half a dozen forges. the walls were hung with a bewildering variety of arms and parts of armour--gauntlets and cuirasses; morions, palettes, and lobster-tails; partisans and ranseurs; halberds, bayonets, and spontoons; as well as swords and daggers without number. several anvils, with tall, narrow buckets filled with water standing beside them, were arranged about the stone-paved floor; and beside each forge was a large heap of fine, white sand. "the showers of sparks, together with a couple of ancient-looking lamps whose flames shook fitfully to and fro in the vibration, showed thirty or forty workmen busily engaged; and what with the clanging of the hammers, the roaring of the bellows, and the strident hissing of the hot metal as it plunged into the cold water, the racket was incessant. "my cicerone surveyed the discordant scene with all the nonchalance of lifelong custom, daintily eluding the columns of scalding steam, or screening his _chambergo_ from the sparks. finding, however, that i was powerless to understand the remarks he kept addressing to me, he finally held up his finger and gave the signal to cease work; upon which the _oficial_ handed him a bundle of papers which i took to be accounts, and the men, doffing their leathern aprons, and hanging them in a corner, filed eagerly away. "'it is quite simple,' said my companion, as though divining the query i was about to put to him; 'and indeed, i often wonder why we are so famous. they say it is the water; but any water will do. or else they say it is the sand; and yet this sand, though clean and pure, is just the same as any other. look! the blade of nearly all our swords is composed of three pieces--two strips of steel, from mondragón in guipúzcoa, and an iron core. this latter is the _alma_, or soul. the three pieces are heated and beaten together; and when they grow red-hot and begin to throw out sparks, they are withdrawn from the fire, and a few handfuls of sand are thrown over them. the welding of the pieces is then continued on the anvil; and, finally, the file is brought to bear on all unevennesses, and the weapon passes on to the temperer, the grinder, and the burnisher.' "'it is in the tempering that we have earned our principal renown, although this process is quite as simple as the rest. upon the forge--see, here is one still burning--a fire is made in the form of a narrow trench, long enough to receive four-fifths of the length of the weapon. as soon as the metal reaches a certain colour' (i thought i noted a mischievous twinkle in the armourer's eyes, as though this _certain colour_ were the key to all our conversation), 'i take these pincers, and, grasping the portion which had remained outside the fire, drop the weapon so, point downwards, into the bucket of water. any curve is then made straight by beating upon the concave side, and the part which had been previously kept outside the trench of fire returns to the forge and is duly heated. the entire blade is next smeared with mutton fat, and rested against the wall to cool, point upwards. there is nothing more except the finishing. your sword is made.'"[ ] [ ] _toledo and madrid: their records and romances_; pp. - . [illustration: lv sword (_ th century. royal armoury, madrid_)] the following passage from bowles' _natural history of spain_, written in , is also of especial interest here:--"at a league's distance from mondragón is a mine of varnished, or, as miners term it, frozen iron. it lies in the midst of soft red earth, and produces natural steel--a very curious circumstance, seeing that, as i am assured, there is no other mine of this description in the kingdom. a tradition exists that the iron from this mine was used for making the swords, so celebrated for their tempering, presented by doña catalina, daughter of the catholic sovereigns, to her husband, henry the eighth of england. a few of these swords are yet extant in scotland, where the natives call them _andré ferrara_,[ ] and esteem them greatly. the famous sword-blades of toledo, and the perrillo blades of zaragoza, which are still so highly valued, as well as others made elsewhere, are said to have been forged from the iron of this mine, which yields forty per cent. of metal. it is, however, somewhat hard to melt. with a little trouble it is possible to secure excellent steel, because this mine, like many another, possesses in itself the quality of readily taking from the coal of the forge the spirit which is indispensable for making first-rate swords; but without cementation i do not think it would serve for making good files or razors." [ ] andrés ferrara was a well-known armourer of zaragoza. "the swords of which i spoke as being so famed were generally either of a long shape, for wearing with a ruff; or broad, and known as the _arzón_, for use on horseback. it is probable that when the ruff was suddenly abandoned at the beginning of this century, large quantities of ready-fitted swords began to be imported from abroad, of such a kind as was demanded by the novel clothing. this would account for the decline and the eventual collapse of our factories, and the loss of our art of tempering swords. concerning the mode of executing this, opinions differ. it is said by some that the blades were tempered in winter only, and that when they were withdrawn for the last time from the furnace, the smiths would shake them in the air at great speed three times on a very cold day. others say that the blades were heated to a cherry-colour, then plunged for a couple of seconds into a deep jar filled with oil or grease, and changed forthwith to another vessel of lukewarm water, after which they were set to cool in cold water; all these operations being performed at midwinter. others, again, declare that the blades were forged from the natural iron of mondragón by placing a strip of ordinary iron along their core so as to give them greater elasticity; and that they were then tempered in the ordinary manner, though always in the winter. such are the prevailing theories about the iron swords of mondragón, which are, in truth, of admirable quality." magnificent examples of toledo sword-blades, produced while her craft was at the zenith of its fame--that is, throughout the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries--are in the royal armoury (pl. lvii., nos. , , ). among them are a series of _montantes_ made for tournament or war, and a superb blade, dated , forged for philip the second by miguel cantero. the count of valencia de don juan considered this to be one of the finest weapons ever tempered; adding that the sword-blades of the city of the tagus were held in such esteem all over europe that he had seen, in numerous museums of the continent, weapons professing to be toledo-made, in which the blade and mark are evidently forged; bearing, for instance, _ernantz_ for hernandez, _johanos_ for juanes, and _tomas dailae_ for tomás de ayala. it is generally agreed that the changes in the national costume, together with the importation of a lighter make of sword from france, were directly responsible for the decline of the toledo sword-blades early in the eighteenth century. however, this decline was only temporary. townsend wrote in : "from the alcazar we went to visit the royal manufactory of arms, with which i was much pleased. the steel is excellent, and so perfectly tempered, that in thrusting at a target, the swords will bend like whalebone, and yet cut through a helmet without turning their edge. this once famous manufacture had been neglected, and in a manner lost, but it is now reviving." laborde endorsed these praises subsequently: "within a few years the fabrication of swords has been resumed at toledo; the place allotted to this object is a handsome edifice, a quarter of a league distant from the city, which commands the banks of the tagus. this undertaking has hitherto been prosperous; the swords are celebrated for the excellence of their blades, which are of finely tempered steel." [illustration: lvi old sword (_erroneously attributed to the cid. collection of the marquis of falces_)] the modern small-arms factory of toledo, situated on the right bank of the tagus, a mile from the city walls, had, in fact, been opened in , when the same industry was also reviving at vitoria, barcelona, and elsewhere. toledo worthily maintains to-day her ancient and illustrious reputation for this craft. the tagus still supplies its magic water for the tempering, while part of the prime material of the steel itself proceeds from solingen and styria, and the rest from trubia and malaga. cutlery continued to be made in spain all through the eighteenth century. colmenar says that the knives of barcelona were considered excellent. according to laborde, cutlery was made at solsona and cardona in cataluña, at mora in new castile, and at albacete in murcia. "the cutlery of solsona is in great repute; but the largest quantity is made at albacete. in the latter place are about twenty-eight working cutlers, each of whom employs five or six journeymen, who respectively manufacture annually six or seven thousand pieces, amounting in the whole to about one hundred and eighty thousand pieces."[ ] [ ] vol. iv. p. . firearms cannon of a primitive kind were used in spain comparatively early. a large variety of names was given to these pieces, such as _cerbatanas_, _ribadoquines_, _culebrinas_, _falconetes_, _pasavolantes_, _lombardas_ or _bombardas_, and many more; but the oldest, commonest, and most comprehensive name of all was _trueno_, "thunder," from the terrifying noise of the discharge. this word was used for both the piece and the projectile. the count of clonard quotes pedro megía's _silva de varias lecciones_ to show that gunpowder was known in spain as early as the eleventh century. "thunders" of some description seem to have been used at the siege of zaragoza in ; and a moorish author, writing in , describes in fearsome terms "the horrid noise like thunder, vomiting fire in all directions, destroying everything, reducing everything to ashes." al-jattib, the historian of granada, wrote at the beginning of the fourteenth century that the sultan of that kingdom used at the siege of baza "a mighty engine, applying fire thereto, prepared with naphtha and with balls." the chronicle of alfonso the eleventh describes in a quaint and graphic passage the crude artillery of that period, and the panic it occasioned. at the siege of algeciras in , "the moors that were within the city threw many 'thunders' at the (christian) host, together with mighty balls of iron, to such a distance that several overpassed the army, and some did damage to our host. also, by means of 'thunders' they threw arrows exceeding great and thick, so that it was as much as a man could do to lift them from the ground. and as for the iron balls these 'thunders' hurled, men were exceedingly afraid thereof; for if they chanced to strike a limb they cut it off as clean as with a knife, and though the wound were but a slight one, yet was the man as good as dead; nor was any chirurgery that might avail him, both because the balls came burning hot, like flame, and because the powder which discharged them was of such a kind that any wound it made was surely mortal; and such was the violence of these balls, that they went through a man, together with all his armour." towards the close of the same century the testament of don pedro tenorio (see p. ), the bellicose archbishop of alcalá de henares, who ruled that diocese from to , contains the following passage:--"_item_. we bought crossbows and bassinets both for foot and horse, together with shields, pikes, javelins, darts, lombards, hemp, powder, and other munitions for the castles of our church; of which munitions we stored the greater quantity at talavera and at alcalá de henares, purposing to deposit them at cazorla and in the castles of canales and of alhamin, which we are now repairing after they were thrown down by the king don pedro, and for the tower of cazorla, which we are now erecting. and it is our will that all of these munitions be for the said castles and tower; and that no one lay his hand on them, on pain of excommunication, excepting only the bishop elected and confirmed who shall succeed us; and he shall distribute them as he holds best among the aforesaid castles. and all the best of these munitions shall be for the governorship of cazorla, as being most needed there to overthrow the enemies of our faith; and we have duly lodged the shields and crossbows, parted from the rest, upon the champaign of toledo; whither should arrive more shields from valladolid, that all together may be carried to cazorla." [illustration: lvii spanish swords (_royal armoury, madrid_)] the article from which i quote this passage adds that the palace of the archbishop at alcalá de henares was fortified with cannon until the beginning of the nineteenth century.[ ] [ ] escudero de la peña; _claustros, escalera, y artesonados del palacio arzobispal de alcalá de henares_; published in the _museo español de antigüedades_. cannon are mentioned with increasing frequency throughout the fifteenth century; and in the reign of ferdinand and isabella we read of lombards of enormous size, which had to be dragged across the andalusian hills and plains by many scores of men and beasts; which frequently stuck fast and had to be abandoned on the march; and which, even in the best of circumstances, could only be discharged some twice or thrice a day. in reading documents and chronicles of older spain, it is easy to confound the early forms of cannon with the engines similar to those employed by the crusaders in the holy land, and built for hurling stones or arrows of large size. such engines were the _trabuco_, the _almajanech_ or _almojaneque_, the _algarrada_, and the _fundíbalo_ or catalan _fonevol_. beuter, in his _chronicle of spain and of valencia_, describes the latter as "a certain instrument which has a sling made fast to an extremity of wood ... made to revolve so rapidly that the arm, on being released, projects the stone with such a force as to inflict much harm, even in distant places, whither could reach no missile slung by the hand of man." turning to portable spanish firearms, we find that the precursor of the arquebus, musket, and rifle seems to have been a weapon which was introduced about the middle of the fifteenth century, and called the _espingarda_. alfonso de palencia says it was employed against the rebels of toledo in ; and the chronicle of don alvaro de luna relates that when this nobleman was standing beside don iñigo d'estúñiga, upon a certain occasion in , "a man came out in his shirt and set fire to an _espingarda_, discharging the shot thereof above the heads of don alvaro and of iñigo d'estúñiga, but wounding an esquire." [illustration: lviii marks of toledan armourers ( th- th centuries), from swords in the royal armoury at madrid] as time advanced, portable firearms of first-rate quality were made throughout the northern spanish provinces, and also in navarra, cataluña, aragon, and andalusia. the inventory of the dukes of alburquerque mentions, in , "four flint arquebuses of zaragoza make ... another arquebus of zaragoza, together with its fuse," and "arquebuses of those that are made within this province" (_i.e._ of segovia). cristóbal frisleva, of ricla in aragon, and micerguillo of seville were celebrated makers of this arm; but probably these and all the other spanish masters of this craft derived their skill from foreign teaching, such as that of the brothers simon and peter marckwart (in spanish the name is spelt _marcuarte_,) who were brought to spain by charles the fifth.[ ] [ ] the brothers marckwart, or possibly one or other of them, are believed to have stamped their arquebuses with a series of small sickles, thus: [illustration] the royal armoury contains some finely decorated guns, made for the kings of spain at the close of the seventeenth century and early in the eighteenth, by juan belen, juan fernandez, francisco baeza y bis, and nicolás bis. the last-named, pupil of juan belen, was a german; but all these gunsmiths lived and worked at madrid. nicolás was arquebus-maker to charles the second from , and afterwards held the same post from philip the fifth. he died in , and the count of valencia de don juan says that in --that is, before it was plundered by the mob--the royal armoury contained no fewer than fifty-three weapons of his manufacture. one of the guns which bear his mark, and still exist, is inscribed with the words, "i belong to the queen our lady" (isabel farnese, first wife of philip the fifth), combined with the arms of león and castile, and of the bourbon family. this weapon was used, or intended to be used, for hunting. diego esquivel, another gunsmith of madrid, was also famous early in the eighteenth century, as, later on, were manuel sutil, josé cano, francisco lopez, salvador cenarro, isidro soler (author of a _compendious history of the arquebus-makers of madrid_), juan de soto, and sebastián santos. swinburne wrote from cataluña in ; "the gun-barrels of barcelona are much esteemed, and cost from four to twenty guineas, but about five is the real value; all above is paid for fancy and ornament; they are made out of the old shoes of mules." [illustration: lix _bridona_ saddle (_ th century. royal armoury, madrid_)] until , the smaller firearms of the spanish army were made at plasencia in guipúzcoa. in that year the government factory, where hand-labour alone continued to be used till , was removed to oviedo. to-day this factory employs about five hundred workmen. in laborde wrote that "firearms, such as fusees, musquets, carbines, and pistols are manufactured at helgoivar, eybor, and plasencia; at oviedo, barcelona, igualada, and at ripoll; the arms made at the latter city have long had a distinguished reputation. seven hundred and sixty-five gunsmiths, it is estimated, find employment in the factories of guipúzcoa." both townsend and the foregoing writer give a good account of spanish cannon at this time. according to laborde, "two excellent founderies for brass cannon are royal establishments at barcelona and seville; in the latter city copper cannon are cast, following the method recommended by m. maritz. iron ordnance are made at lierganez and cavada." townsend wrote of barcelona, in ; "the foundery for brass cannon is magnificent, and worthy of inspection. it is impossible anywhere to see either finer metal, or work executed in a neater and more perfect manner. their method of boring was, in the present reign, introduced by maritz, a swiss. near two hundred twenty-four pounders are finished every year, besides mortars and field-pieces." saddlery and coaches probably no relic of the former of these crafts in spain is older or more curious than the iron bit (plate lvii., no. ), inlaid with silver dragons' heads and crosses, and attributed, from cruciform monograms which also decorate it, to the visigothic king witiza (who died in ), or sometimes to the conqueror of toledo, alfonso the sixth (eleventh century). the spurs or _acicates_ (plate lvii., no. ) of ferdinand the third of castile, who conquered seville from the moors, are also treasured in the royal armoury, and bear upon an iron ground remains of gold and silver decoration representing castles. the count of valencia de don juan believed these spurs to be authentic, because they are identical with the ones which ferdinand wears in his equestrian seal, preserved among the national archives of france, and dating from the year . saddles of various kinds were used in spain throughout the middle ages. among them were the ordinary travelling-saddle or _silla de barda_ (arabic _al-bardá_); saddles _de palafrén_,[ ] the _silla de la guisa_, or _de la brida_ or _bridona_, for riding with long stirrups, and consequently the antithesis of the _gineta_ saddle;[ ] or saddles made for use exclusively in war, on which the rider was accustomed to make the sign of the cross before or after mounting, such as the _lidona_, _gallega_ ("_siellas gallegas_" are mentioned in the _poem of the cid_), and _corsera_ or _cocera_ (arabic _al-corsi_), or else the _silla de conteras_, "whose hindmost bow," according to the count of valencia de don juan, "terminated in converging pieces to protect the wearer's thighs." [ ] an old account copied into a book (see p. , _note_) in the national library at madrid, and dating from the reign of sancho the fourth, states that pedro ferrández, saddler, received a certain sum for making various saddles, including two "_de palafrés_, wrought in silk with the devices of the king." [ ] "in mediæval spain, good riders were often designated as 'ginete en ambas sillas,' that is, accustomed to either saddle, _i.e._ the moorish and the christian, and i now understand why chroniclers have taken the trouble to record the fact. strangely enough, the high-peaked and short-stirruped saddle does not cross the nile, the arabs of arabia riding rather flat saddles with an ordinary length of leg. the arab saddle of morocco, in itself, is perhaps the worst that man has yet designed; but, curiously enough, from it was made the mexican saddle, perhaps the most useful for all kinds of horses and of countries that the world has seen." cunninghame graham: _mogreb-el-acksa_, p. . the same writer naïvely adds the following footnote to the words _ginete en ambas sillas_. "this phrase often occurs in spanish chronicles, after along description of a man's virtues, his charity, love of the church, and kindness to the poor, and it is apparently inserted as at least as important a statement as any of the others. in point of fact, chronicles being written for posterity, it is the most important." a saddle known as the _silla de rua_, or "street saddle," was generally used in spain throughout the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. it was intended, not for war, but promenade and show, and therefore richly decorated. the royal armoury has nineteen of these saddles, all of which are spanish-made. in the same collection is a plain _bridona_ saddle (plate lix.), with iron stirrups and two gilt-metal bells, such as were commonly used in tournaments or other festivals. this saddle has been erroneously ascribed to the thirteenth century. it dates from the beginning of the fifteenth century, and proceeds from majorca. [illustration: lx hanging _jaeces_ for horses] the old belief that one of the saddles in this armoury, whose bows are chased with a design in black and gilt of leaves and pilgrim's shells, was once upon a time the cid campeador's, has been exploded recently. the saddle in question is known to be italian, dates from the sixteenth century, and bears the arms of a town in the duchy of montferrato. the inventory ( ) of the dukes of alburquerque mentions some curious saddles, including one "_de la brida_, of blue velvet, with the bows painted gold, and on the front bow a cannon with its carriage, and on the hind bow another cannon with flames of fire." among the rest were "a _gineta_ saddle of red leather, used by my lord the duke," together with saddles of bay leather, of dark brown leather, of "smooth leather with trappings of blue cloth," of cordova leather, and "a date-coloured _gineta_-saddle, complete." the same inventory specifies innumerable smaller articles of harness, such as stirrups, spurs, reins, headstalls, and poitrals or breast-leathers. many of these pieces were richly ornamented; _e.g._, "some silver headstalls of small size, enamelled in blue, with gilt supports of iron,"[ ] as well as "some silver headstalls, gilded and enamelled green and rose, with shields upon the temples." others of these headstalls were made of copper, and nearly all were colour-enamelled. [ ] as i have stated in another chapter, the precious stones and metals were continually employed in arms and harness, both of spanish moors and spanish christians. in pedro ruderiz bequeathed to the monastery of arlanza all his battle harness, together with his silver bit (_frenum argenteum_). thousands of such bequests have been recorded. the chronicle of alfonso the eleventh says that after the victory of the rio salado, this monarch found among his spoil "many swords with gold and silver fittings, and many spurs, all of enamelled gold and silver.... and all this spoil was gathered by the king into his palaces of seville (_i.e._ the alcázar), the doubloons in one part, and the swords in another part." the testament (sometimes considered to be a forgery) of pedro the cruel mentions "my sword in the castilian manner, that i caused to be made here in seville with gems and with _aljofar_." in yusuf, king of granada, presented juan the second and the infante don enrique with silver-fitted swords. referring to a later age, davillier discovered at simancas a detailed list of weapons sumptuously decorated with gold and coloured enamels, made for philip the second by juan de soto, "_orfebrero de su alteza_." _recherches_, pp. - . the stirrups included "two moorish stirrups of gilded tin, for a woman's use";[ ] "some large moorish stirrups, gilt, with two silver plates upon their faces, enamelled gold, green, and blue, and eight nails on either face"; "some other moorish stirrups, wrought inside with _ataujía_-work in gold, and outside with plates of copper enamelled in green, blue, and white; the handles gilt, with coverings of red leather"; and "some silver stirrups with three bars upon the floor thereof, round-shaped in the manner of an urinal, with open sides consisting of two bars, a flower within a small shield on top, and, over this, the small face of a man." [ ] the women of mediæval spain had few amusements besides riding. another--though owing to the temperate climate it must have been on few occasions--was skating, since this inventory mentions "two pairs of skates, for a man, for travelling over ice. two pairs of skates, for the same purpose, for a woman." this entry almost matches in its quaintness with the "irons for mustaches," or the "triggers for extracting teeth," set forth in spanish documents such as the _tassa general_ of . the many sets of reins included several of granada make, coloured in white, red, and bay; while one of the most elaborate of the poitrals was of "red leather, embroidered with gold thread, with fringes of rose-coloured silk, buckles, ends, and rounded knobs; the whole of copper enamelled green, and blue, and white." small but attractive accessories to these handsome sets of mediæval spanish harness were the decorative medals (plate lx.) hung from the horse's breast in tourneying or in war. in france these medals were known as _annelets volants_, _branlants_, or _pendants_; although in spain, where it is probable that they were used more widely than in other countries, they have no definite name. the term _jaeces_ is sometimes applied to them; but _jaez_ properly means the entire harness for a horse, and the word is thus employed by classic spanish authors, such as tirso de molina. a recent term, invented by a living writer, is _jaeces colgantes_, or "hanging _jaeces_." these ornaments, which had their origin among the romans and byzantines, are figured in certain of the older spanish codices such as the _cántigas de santa maria_. in christian spain, however, their vogue was greatest in the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries. they disappeared altogether in the sixteenth century; and among the spanish moors their use, though not unknown, was always quite exceptional. the mottoes and devices on these little plates are very varied. sometimes the motto has an amorous, sometimes a religious import. sometimes the vehicle of the motto is latin, sometimes spanish, sometimes french. sometimes the device contains, or is composed of, a blazon, and commonly there is floral or other ornament. a collection of nearly three hundred of these medals belonged to the late count of valencia de don juan, all of which were probably made in spain. the material as a rule is copper, adorned with _champlevé_ enamelling, and the colours often used to decorate and relieve the interspaces of the gilded metal are red, blue, black, white, and green. [illustration: lxi travelling litter (_attributed to charles the fifth. royal armoury, madrid_)] according to florencio janer, coaches were not known in spain until the middle of the sixteenth century. before that time the usual conveyance was the litter. the madrid armoury contains an object which is thought to have been the campaigning-litter of charles the fifth (plate lxi.). the count of valencia de don juan also inclined to this belief from the circumstance that an engraving exists in the british museum which represents a german litter of the sixteenth century, identical in all respects with this one. probably, however, these litters were the same all over europe. the inventory of the dukes of alburquerque includes, in , a "cowhide litter, black, lined with black serge; also poles stained black, and harness for mules." this, together with other travelling gear, belonged to "my lady the duchess"; and it is worth noting that the litter attributed to charles, though cased with a protective covering of whitish canvas, is also of black leather and lined with black serge, besides being evidently built for carriage by two mules. the interior contains a small armchair rising some inches only from the floor, and which, requiring him to keep his legs continually outstretched, could hardly fail to prove excruciatingly uncomfortable to the traveller. mendez silva says that the precise date of the introduction of coaches into spain was , and other writers do not greatly differ from him. the alburquerque inventory includes "two four-wheeled coaches," as well as "a triumphal car with four wheels, its body painted with red and gold stripes." vanderhamen, who says that the first coach ever seen in spain was brought here by a servant of charles the fifth in , adds that within a little time their use became "a hellish vice that wrought incalculable havoc to castile." certainly this vehicle for many years was far from popular among the spaniards, and was assailed with special vehemence by all who lacked the income to support one. the duke of berganza is said to have remarked that "god had fashioned horses for the use of men, and men had fashioned coaches for the use of women"; while a priest, tomás ramón, declared that it was "a vast disgrace to see bearded men, with rapiers at their side, promenading in a coach." even the governing powers thought fit to interfere. in , , and the cortes demanded the total prohibition of these modish yet detested vehicles, while the cortes of decreed four horses as the statutory and invariable number for a private carriage. a further law enacted in that coaches must be strictly private property, and not, on pain of rigorous chastisement, be lent or hired by their owner;[ ] while the owner, to own or use a coach at all, required a special licence from the crown. [ ] this prohibition was not inopportune. swinburne wrote towards the end of the eighteenth century; "having occasion one day for a coach to carry us about, the stable-boy of our inn offered his services, and in a quarter of an hour brought to the door a coach and four fine mules, with two postillions and a lacquey, all in flaming liveries; we found they belonged to a countess, who, like the rest of the nobility, allows her coachman to let out her equipage when she has no occasion for it; it cost us about nine shillings, which no doubt was the perquisite of the servants." some curious facts relating to these vehicles in older spain are instanced by janer. in the seventeenth century a spanish provincial town would normally contain a couple of hundred coaches. among such boroughs was granada. here, in , the authorities, backed by nearly all the citizens, protested that the coaches ploughed the highway into muddy pits and channels, and gave occasion, after nightfall, to disgraceful and immoral scenes.[ ] after a while the protest grew so loud that the use of coaches in this capital was totally suppressed. one of the first persons to employ a coach in granada had been the marquis of mondejar; and yet, in spite of his extensive influence, this nobleman, each time he wished to drive abroad, required to sue for licence from the town authorities, and these, in making out the written permit, took care to specify the streets through which he was allowed to pass. [ ] towns still exist in spain where vehicles are not allowed to proceed at more than a walking-pace through any of the streets. one of such towns is argamasilla de alba (of _don quixote_ fame), where i remember to have read a notice to this effect, painted, by order of the mayor, on a house-wall of the principal thoroughfare. assailed by numerous pragmatics,[ ] chiefly of a sumptuary tenor and repeated at spasmodic intervals until as late as , the private coach became at last an undisputed adjunct to the national life of spain. doubtless the use by royalty of gala-coaches or _carrozas_ went far to sanction and extend their vogue. however, i will not describe these lumbering, uncouth, and over-ornamented gala-carriages (some of which were made in spain) belonging to the spanish crown, but quote the following pragmatic, dated , as aptly illustrative of the progress of this industry, and other industries akin to it, in the peninsula:-- "in order to restrain the immoderate use of coaches, state-coaches, _estufas_, litters, _furlones_,[ ] and calashes, we order that from this time forth no one of these be decorated with gold embroidery or any kind of silk containing gold, nor yet with bands or fringes that have gold or silver points; but only with velvets, damasks, and other simple silken fabrics made within this realm and its dependencies, or else in foreign countries that have friendly commerce with us. also, the fringes and galloons shall be of silk alone; and none, of whatsoever dignity and degree, shall cause his coach, state-coach, etc., to be decorated with the fringes that are known as net-work, tassel-pointed, or bell-pointed; but only with undecorated, simple fringes, or with those of santa isabel; nor shall the breadth of either kind of these exceed four fingers. also, he shall not cause his coach, state-coach, etc., to be overlaid with any gilt or silvered work, or painted with any manner of design--meaning by such, historic scenes, marines, landscapes, flowers, masks, knots of the pattern known as coulicoles, coats of arms, war devices, perspectives, or any other painting, except it imitate marble, or be marbled over of one single colour chosen at the owner's fancy; and further, we allow in every coach, state-coach, etc., only a certain moderate quantity of carving. and this our order and pragmatic shall begin to rule upon the day it is made public; from which day forth no person shall construct, or buy, or bring from other countries, coaches or _estufas_ that infringe our law herein expressed; wherefore we order the _alcaldes_ of this town, our court and capital, to make a register of all such vehicles that each house contains, without excepting any. nevertheless, considering that if we should prohibit very shortly those conveyances that now be lawful, the owners would be put to great expense, we grant a period of two years wherein they may consume or rid themselves thereof; upon the expiration of which term our law shall be again made public, and thenceforward all, regardless of their quality and rank, shall be compelled to pay obedience to the same. also we order that no person make or go abroad in hand-chairs fitted with brocade, or cloth of gold or silver, or yet with any silk containing gold and silver; nor shall the lining be embroidered or adorned with any of the stuffs aforesaid; but the covering of the chair, inside and out, shall only be of velvet, damask, or other unmixed silk, with a plain fringe of four fingers' breadth and button-holes of the same silk, and not of silver, gold, or thread, or any covering other than those aforesaid; but the columns of such chairs may be adorned with silken trimmings nailed thereto. and we allow, as in the case of coaches, a period of two years for wearing out the hand-chairs now in use.... also, we order that the coverings of coaches, _estufas_, litters, calashes, and _furlones_ shall not be made of any kind of silk, or yet the harness of horses or mules for coaches and travelling litters; and that the said coaches, gala-coaches, _estufas_, litters, calashes, and _furlones_ shall not be back-stitched (_pespuntados_), even if they should be of cowhide or of cordwain (goatskin); nor shall they contain any fitting of embroidered leather." [ ] a royal degree of disposed that "every one who sows and tills twenty-five _fanegas_ of land each year, may use a coach." [ ] the _estufa_ (literally _stove_) was a form of family-coach. the _furlon_ is described in an old dictionary as "a coach with four seats and hung with leather curtains." printed by neill and company, limited, edinburgh. * * * * * * transcriber's note: the original spelling and minor inconsistencies in the spelling and formatting have been maintained. inconsistent hyphenation and accents are as in the original if not marked as an misprint. the text decoration above iv de la fvete has been omitted on page . the table below lists all corrections applied to the original text. p. xii: old keys; seville cathedral -> p. : for securing the cloak; the _torquis_ -> _torques_ p. : _fibulae_ -> _fibulæ_ p. : amador de los rios -> ríos p. : amador de los rios -> ríos p. : de joyaux les plus precieux -> précieux p. : is generally of the fifteeenth -> fifteenth p. : he carried, too, a -> "a p. : the goldsmiths' and the silversmiths -> silversmiths' p. : mores ont caché leurs tresors -> trésors p. : a friar of guadelupe -> guadalupe p. : juan gonzález -> gonzalez p. : as soon as cristobal -> cristóbal p. : fué deste cuento, jan -> juan p. : et cela luy feioit -> fetoit p. : pearls or other stones. -> stones." p. : in the _museo español de antigüedades_ -> antigüedades_) p. : museo español de antiguedades -> antigüedades p. : museo español de antiguedades -> antigüedades p. : the emir of the mussulmans abi-abdillah -> abu-abdillah p. : d.c.c.c.c.xiii. -> d.c.c.c.c.xiii." p. : and the puertas del perdon -> perdón p. : consisted of "a -> a !!! p. : among the germans _panzerbrecher_ -> _panzerbrecher_ p. : frock (the _waffenrock_ -> _waffenrock_ p. : which specifies "a bard -> band p. : it has a _verga_ -> _verja_ p. : as well as the chape -> shape p. : button and a black tassel. -> tassel." p. : published in the _boletin -> _boletín p. : and the burnisher. -> burnisher. p. : making good files or razors. -> making good files or razors." p. : of segovia). cristobal -> cristóbal