THE RENAISSANCE, AND THE INFLUENCE OF MICHAEL ANGELO ON THE SPANISH SCULPTORS  
The Northern influences of Flanders and Germany, though far-reaching in their effects on Spanish sculpture, were not long-lived, and in the last decade of the fifteenth century they gave way to a new influence from Italy. Always responsive to newly imported art methods, her architecture, sculpture, and painting were invaded by the forms of the Italian Renaissance, and thanks to the flourishing condition of architecture and sculpture, and to a taste refined by the busy practice of these arts, the new influence found not only a willing, but an intelligent following. The Renaissance influences were not harmful to architecture and sculpture as they were to the sister art of painting. For one reason, both architecture and sculpture were much more advanced at this period than was painting. Then the new elements of taste made their way slowly, and the old influences remained active side by side with the new.{71}
But it must be remembered that in Spain the Renaissance was never a movement from within; rather its causes were external and political. In 1504 Naples had been conquered by Spain, and at the same time the Sicilies had become an appanage of the House of Aragon. Many Spaniards of position were attracted to Italy to take part in the wars, and with them travelled native artists. At the same time Italian artists came to Spain. Another influence was the close relation which at this time existed between Spain and Rome. Then a thriving trade communication arose between the cities of the two countries, and especially was this so between the prosperous harbours of Barcelona and Genoa. The impulse of art is curiously interbound with economic causes; interchange of trade inevitably results in interchange of culture.
The charm of the new style arose from its novelty; it inspired imitation and suggested new theories of art. It found an expression chiefly in the direction of decoration, where the old sumptuousness was united with elegance and delicacy of execution. Thus the Renaissance entered Spain by numerous channels. We find many Spanish nobles employing Italian workmen to decorate their palaces; for instance, Rodrigo de Mendoza entrusted the ornamentation of the castle of Cala{72}horra to Genoese workmen in 1510. Italian marble-cutters were occupied in the production of sumptuous monumental tombs, of which some were carved at Genoa, while a still greater number were executed in Spain by Lombard and Florentine artists summoned thither for the purpose. The mural monument of Archbishop Mendoza in Seville Cathedral was executed by Miguel of Florence about 1509, and by him too is the terra-cotta relief over the Puerta del Perdon, representing the Expulsion of the Money-changers from the Temple and the Annunciation, between the large figures of St. Peter and St. Paul. The monument of P. González de Mendoza in the Capilla Mayor of Toledo Cathedral, with the Madonna in the lunette, is absolutely Florentine, and is perhaps the work of Andrea Sansovino. The Marquis de Tarifa, while on a journey to Palestine in 1520, ordered at Genoa the tomb-monuments of his parents, Enriquez and Catalina de Ribera, the richest examples of Renaissance sculpture, which are in the University Church of Seville. The altar of the Capilla de Exalas, in the cathedral of the same city, which was erected by del Río in 1539, is also of Genoese workmanship. The new style was adopted in decorative sculptures applied to doorways, fa?ades, windows,{73} &c.; there are numerous examples, and especially is this so in the Cathedral of Toledo, which furnishes a museum of Renaissance work.
The Italian teaching was further assisted by the settlement in Spain of a family of Italian artists, Leone Leoni, Pompeo his son, and Michael the grandson, who for three generations were employed by Charles V. and Philip II. They carved for the Escorial statues of the Emperor, of Philip II., and members of the royal family, as well as the bas-reliefs of the retablo of the high altar, which Herrera had designed, and two groups in gilt-bronze placed under the tribunes to the right and left of the altar. In addition these artists executed many statues in bronze and in marble for the churches and royal palace. These works, by reason of their purity of line and beauty, exercised a beneficial and widespread influence on the native sculptors. Cean Bermudez, in Spain, unites with Vasari, in Italy, in praising the Leoni family.
One of the first Spanish artists to frequent the schools of Italy, where he is wrongly stated to have been a pupil of Donatello, was Damian Forment, a native of Valencia, who lived and worked in the fifteenth and first third of the sixteenth centuries. Donatello died in 1466, and{74} as Forment returned to Spain in 1509, when still young, he could not have been the pupil of the great Italian. But whoever was his master, he was a great artist, the most famous of the Aragonese sculptors, and his works are the purest examples of the new Italian taste. That he esteemed himself we know, for he calls himself “the rival of Phidias and Praxiteles”; while the fact that he was allowed the unusual privilege of inserting life-size medallions of himself and his wife at the base of his great altar-screens at Zaragoza and Huesca shows how high a place he held in the popular estimation.
There are four altar-screens which are known certainly to be the work of Damian Forment, but of these only two are important. The first in date is the retablo of the Virgen del Pilar at Zaragoza (Plate 74), which was begun in 1509, the year in which Forment returned from Italy, and was finished eleven years later, in 1520. It has three large bas-reliefs, surrounded by a framing, and placed under a series of pinnacles and divided by pilasters, while above is a predilla containing seven small groups. In the centre of the three large groups is an exquisitely fine Annunciation of the Virgin, and on either side are the Birth and the Purification. In{75}judicious washings have ruined the polychrome, and no traces of colour remain except on two figures placed on the right and left of the altar. From these we can judge how fine the polychrome must once have been. It is interesting to note that while the bas-reliefs and statues, with their beautiful forms and great delicacy, so different from the realistic emaciated types of the late Gothic artists, show very clearly the influence Forment had experienced from his study of the Italian masters; in the architectural decorations he remained faithful to Gothic traditions. This mingling of styles is what we must expect in Spain; it is at once the interest and the weakness of her art. Nor was Forment alone in thus clinging to the old forms, while at the same time using the new. We find the same crossing of influences in the work of all the native artists, and in this way the Spanish Renaissance retained in sculpture a certain native style of its own.
Damian Forment’s second important retablo, which was executed for the celebrated Abbey of Mount Aragon, and is now in the parish church of Huesca, is entirely Italian in sentiment and in execution. It has a sensuous charm, such as is seen in scarcely any other work of Spanish art.{76}
Forment began the screen in 1520, worked at it for thirteen years, and died, so tradition tells us, almost at once after its completion. Like the Zaragoza altar-screen, it is of alabaster. It is in three registers, and is adorned with bas-reliefs of the Bearing of the Cross, the Crucifixion, and the Descent from the Cross. Between these bas-reliefs and on the pilasters, crowned with elegant pinnacles, are figures of women of incomparable beauty and grace. Some of the figures show traces of colour, but here also the polychrome has been destroyed by washings. The medallions of Forment and his wife are on the base of the altar.
The two remaining altar-screens of Forment are less important. San Pablo at Zaragoza has a retablo carved in wood, which, though designed by Forment, was probably carried out by his pupils. It was executed about the years 1516-1520. The second altar-screen is in the parish church of Velula de Ebro.
Besides these works, the retablo in the Cathedral of Santo Domingo de la Calzada, a small town twelve miles west of Najara, has been attributed to Forment. But this is a mistake. Not only the style of the carvings but the records of the date of the work prove that it cannot be by{77} Damian Forment. The confusion has arisen from its author having the name of Forment; he seems to have been an important imagerio, or image-maker. We owe the clearing up of this error to M. Marcel Dieulafoy, to whose admirable work we once more gratefully acknowledge our debt.
The same learned authority thinks that the admirable tomb of the Marquis Vasquez de Arco, which is in an annexe of the Sigüenza Cathedral, may, in spite of certain difficulties about dates, be the work of Damian Forment. For there seems no other artist working at this time who could have executed it. Forment left a considerable fortune, which would point to there having been many anonymous works of his; his four altar-screens not being sufficient to account for the amassing of this wealth. The Sigüenza tomb is one of the earliest monuments to show the decisive influences of the Renaissance. The figure is represented reclining, the attitude is new and free, the expression of the face is charming, and all the details are carried out with great perfection. The only colour that to-day remains is the crimson cross of Santiago. Behind the tomb an inscription on a slab of marble inlaid into the wall gives the history of the young hero, who was{78} killed during one of the many sieges which preceded the conquest of Granada.
There are some very curious and very interesting bas-reliefs in the lower section of the retablo of the Royal Chapel of Granada (Plate 75) belonging to this period, which show markedly the Italian Renaissance forms. They depict the Surrender of the City and the Baptism of the Moors. Unfortunately the author of these works is unknown.
In 1520, the same year in which Forment began the altar-screen of Huesca, a Catalan artist, Bartolomé Ordó?ez, went to Geneva to chisel from Carrara marble the tomb of Cardinal Ximénez, which is now in the Cathedral of Alcalá de Henares, but was formerly in the University Chapel of the city. The tomb had been already designed by the Florentine Domenico Alexandro, but on his death in 1520 Ordó?ez was chosen to complete it. With him worked two Genoese artists, Thomas Forne and Adam Wibaldo, and Ordó?ez assimilated so completely the Italian style that on his return to Spain he became one of the chief channels for introducing the new forms.
This explains how it is that the Spaniard’s chief works have been ascribed to his Florentine master, Domenico Alexandro. These are the funeral monu{79}ments of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic sovereigns, in the Royal Chapel of Granada (Plate 76), and that of Don Juan, their only son, which is in the Church of St. Thomas at Avila (Plate 77). This last monument is of great purity and beauty of style. Domenico Alexandro died in 1520, two years before the Granada tombs were executed. A recent discovery noted by M. Marcel Dieulafoy of three names of those who presided at the mounting of the monuments, all of whom belonged to the studio of Ordó?ez, gives further proof that we owe these splendid funeral monuments to him. There is confusion about all the works of this great sculptor. It is probable that he was the author of the tombs of Philip the Handsome and Juana la Loca, which are also in Granada’s Royal Chapel; while many anonymous sculptures of this date, as well as others that have been assigned to the early Renaissance artists, may well be his work. But the question of attributions, always difficult, is especially so in the case of an artist who, like Bartolomé Ordó?ez, assumes a style typical of his period.
The most famous of the early Renaissance artists was Philip Vigarni, better known by his surname Borgo?a. He was of Burgundian origin, but a{80} native of Burgos, and he spent his life in the country of his birth. We hear of him first in the year 1500, gaining a competition to execute the great retablo of the Tras-Sagrario in the Cathedral of Burgos.
The Tras-Sagrario altar-screen is the largest retablo in Spain, probably in the world (Plates 78-80). It is made entirely of larch wood, and is in five storeys, each having four compartments, which are decorated with elaborately carved bas-reliefs of the Passion and scenes from the life of the Virgin. Above is a colossal crucifix. The numerous niches and pinnacles contain a veritable crowd of prophets and saints. The style is flamboyant Gothic, for, like Forment, Philip Borgo?a did not use Renaissance forms until later in his career. He had as his collaborators Alfonso Sanchez, and his fellow-competitors Sebastian Almonacid, Peti Juan, Diego Copin of Holland, and seventeen other sculptors of renown. Enrique Egas, master architect of the cathedral, and Pietro Gumiel, architect of the archbishopric, directed and looked after the construction. The polychrome was entrusted to Juan de Borgo?a, the Toledan painter, and brother of Philip, and he was assisted by Francesco di Amberos, Fernando del Rincon, and others. With the aid of these numerous{81} collaborators the altar-screen was completed in four years, and was inaugurated in 1505. In spite of the merit of its carvings, its great architectural merits, and the profusion and beauty of its colour and gilding, the general effect of the retablo is disappointing. It is too large. Standing near to it, the eye cannot embrace its multitude of detail, while at a distance the parts become confused and lost. It is a splendid and surprising monument, and it is very Spanish, but it is unsatisfying as a work of art.
The real talent of Philip de Borgo?a is seen best in the admirable bas-reliefs in the Tras-Sagrario at the back of the Grand Altar. In the first, Jesus goes out of Jerusalem to Calvary, accompanied by St. Veronica, who dries his face, wet with drops of blood and sweat, and by St. Simon, who helps to carry the Cross; the second depicts the Crucifixion; the third is in two compartments, which show the Descent from the Cross and the Resurrection (Plate 81). Two bas-reliefs on either side are of a later date, belonging to the seventeenth century; they are the work of Alonso de Rios.
It was after the execution of these works at Burgos that Philip de Borgo?a underwent his artistic evolution and embraced Italian forms.{82} Whence the influence came we do not know; perhaps it was from Alonso Berruguete, for Philip de Borgo?a would seem never to have left Spain.
The great work of his late years was carving the thirty-five stalls on the Epistle side of the choir of Toledo Cathedral, the stalls on the Gospel side being by Alonso Berruguete (Plates 82-98). The carvings of Borgo?a are more delicate and more finished, while those of Berruguete show more creative talent and are more Spanish in their sentiment. Of these truly marvellous choir-stalls Théophile Gautier says: “L’art Gothique, sur les confins de la Renaissance, n’a rien produit de plus parfait ni de mieux dessiné.” In his Toledo Pintoresca, Amardor thus begins his description of the stalls: “Portent of Spanish art, in which two great geniuses of our golden century competed, the victory to our own times remains undecided, and astounded the judges who have endeavoured to give their opinion on this matter.” The bas-reliefs represent scenes from the Old and New Testament, and the single statues are of prophets, apostles, and saints. They are carved of walnut wood, separated by jasper and alabaster pillars.
M. Marcel Dieulafoy has pointed out the singular resemblance between the figures in these choir-{83}stalls and those in the altar-screen in the Capilla del Condestable of Burgos Cathedral. It seems probable that we owe this fine work to Philip de Borgo?a, or at least that it was produced in his studio. It is adorned with numerous reliefs and statues. The scene of the central panel, with life-size figures, depicts the Presentation in the Temple, and is charming by reason of its na?ve realism and the beauty of the heads. This altar-screen gains a further importance from the richness of its polychromes.
Philip de Borgo?a’s last work was the large retablo of the Capilla Real at Granada, with the statuettes of Ferdinand and Isabella kneeling. The reliefs, carved in wood in two sections, are of great historical interest (Plate 103). To the left is Boabdil surrendering the keys of the Alhambra, while that to the right represents the Baptism of the Moors by Spanish monks. Philip de Borgo?a died in 1543.
The Italian Renaissance became more universal and more strongly marked in the works of the sculptors that followed. This was due to the influence of Michael Angelo, which in the sixteenth century, in Spain, attained a power elsewhere unknown outside of Italy. There was a special reason for this. The great Italian’s work appealed{84} to the Spanish seriousness, to their strong dramatic instinct, and to the deeply emotional character which has always marked their art.
Alonso Berruguete, sculptor, painter, and architect, stands as the representative of this Michael-Angelesque influence, and his work is typical of the manner of his period, especially of the grotesque style which grew out of the Italian, and must be associated with his name. Berruguete was born at Paredes de Nava about the year 1480. He was the son of Pedro Berruguete, the king’s painter, from whom he received his first lessons in art. On his father’s death he went to Italy, where he at once became the pupil of Michael Angelo. Proof of his ability is given by the fact that the Italian master confided to him the copying of the celebrated Pisan cartoon which he had designed for the city. Later Berruguete accompanied Michael Angelo to Rome. He made such progress that Bramanti, following the advice of Raphael, chose him out of many competitors to make a copy of the Laoco?n to be cast in bronze. He also completed a St. Jerome by Filippino Lippi.
This is all we know of Berruguete’s sojourn in Rome. In 1520 he returned to Spain, when Charles V. appointed him royal sculptor and painter. This position gave him great power. He{85} worked for the emperor at Valladolid and Madrid, and all the great towns of Spain—Toledo, Zaragoza, Salamanca, Granada—competed for his services. In this way his influence was widespread, and all that he had learnt in Italy became known to the native artists. From Michael Angelo Berruguete acquired the power and vigour that distinguishes all his best work, but at the same time he retained his own personality and was faithful to national traditions. It was his Spanish temperament, with its tendency to over-emphasis, and not his imitation of Michael Angelo, which caused the violent attitudes and exaggerated gestures which characterise many of his works.
Among the numerous altar-screens which Berruguete carved, either entirely or in part, the most important was that of San Benito el Real at Valladolid, some fragments of which remain in the museum of the city. The choir-stalls of the monastery, also in the museum, which are often mistakenly attributed to Berruguete, were carved by Andres de Najera in 1520, a contemporary sculptor, too little known, if we may judge by the power and beauty of these choir-stalls (Plates 104-111). Carved in wood, they do not appear ever to have been painted. Najera has also left excellent carvings in the Cathe{86}drals of Calahorra and of Santo Domingo de la Calzada.
The contracts for the altar-screen of San Benito, signed in 1526, show that Berruguete undertook “to carve and finish with his own hands the heads and feet of the statues.” This gives special importance to these works, for the execution of many of Berruguete’s carvings was left to his pupils. The most beautiful of the figures is that of St. Sebastian (Plate 113). It is one of the finest possible examples of polychrome. The flesh-tints are subdued, the face somewhat warmer in colour than the body, with skilful touches of carmine on the lips, nostrils, ears, and eyelids. The eyebrows are light, the hair red-brown. Some drops of blood show upon the wounds. The general effect is powerful and true to life.
There are some fine bas-reliefs; among them we may mention the Sacrifice of Abraham and the Adoration of the Magi (Plate 113); the heads of the Virgin and the Child Christ in the second panel are splendid examples of Berruguete’s art. Two more panels show the Birth of Christ and the Flight into Egypt, and in these again Berruguete’s special personality makes strong appeal; and hardly less powerful are the panels, with gold backgrounds, of the two Evan{87}gelists, St. Mark and St. Matthew. All these bas-reliefs are coloured.
Berruguete has left many noteworthy tombs. The monument of Archbishop Tavera, in the Afuera Hospital at Toledo, is generally accounted his masterpiece (Plate 114). But this tomb, carved in his old age—it was Berruguete’s last work—is not really finer than many of his other monuments. The bas-reliefs on the sarcophagus are mannered, and suggest an over-excited imagination. It seems probable that the Toledo tomb owes its fame rather to its being better known than to the superiority of its execution. A finer example of Berruguete’s works in marble, according to M. Marcel Dieulafoy, are the tombs of Don Juan de Rojas and his wife the Marquesa de Poza, in the Church of San Pablo at Palencia. The kneeling figures of the Marquis and his wife, with the fine heads of strongly marked character, prove Berruguete an accomplished carver of portraits in marble. The bas-reliefs, and the numerous figures of saints, evangelists, and angels, are vigorously carved; especially fine is the form of God the Father, which dominates the whole. The monumental tomb of San Jeronimo at Granada, which has been attributed to the Italian Pedro Torrigiano, and also to Ber{88}ruguete’s successor, Gaspar Becerra, is almost certainly the work of Berruguete (Plate 115). This is the opinion of M. Marcel Dieulafoy. It furnishes a different expression of Berruguete’s powers, and is one of the most characteristically Spanish of his works. Of a similar character to the Palencia tombs, and worthy of notice, are the excellent portrait-bust of the engineer Juanelo Turriano, in the Convent of San Juan de los Reyes at Toledo, the statue-tomb of St. Secundus, Bishop of Avila, in the Church of San Secundo in that city (Plate 116), and the busts of the archbishops which adorn the retablo of the Colegio del Arzobispo at Salamanca. The student of Berruguete should visit his native town Paredes de Nava, where numerous carvings are preserved in the Church of Santa Eulalia, for in these early works we see how carefully he studied the antique. In the wooden panels in the sacristy of Mercia Cathedral we notice again the over-excited imagination which was the defect of Berruguete’s work. Much finer is the retablo of Santa Barbara in the sacristy of the Cathedral of Avila. It is carved in alabaster and coloured; the finest of the reliefs represents the Scourging of Christ, a subject specially suitable to Berruguete’s power.
The influence of Berruguete was decisive and{89} widespread, and a number of native carvers and sculptors arose who were either his pupils or imitated his style.
Gaspar de Tordesillas, born at the end of the fifteenth century, is reputed to have been a pupil of Berruguete, and the vigour of his style, shown chiefly in the attitudes and movements of his figures, and in the folds of his draperies, supports this pupilship. He was first an entallador, or carver in wood, and afterwards escultor—sculptor—an artist of higher rank. He carved in wood a small retablo for the parish church of Simancas, a small town near to Valladolid, which Antonio Vasquez, another native artist, coloured in oils. As an escultor Tordesillas executed many important works, among them the fine statue of San Benito (Plate 117), now in the Museum of Valladolid, and also two altar-screens for the old monastery of San Benito.
Many of the works of Tordesillas have been attributed to his better-known contemporary Juan de Juni, the extravagant follower of Berruguete’s style. The altar-screens in the Church of Santiago and the Church of San Francisco at Valladolid—the first representing the Adoration of the Magi and the other the Entombment of Christ—are all the work of Tordesillas. M.{90} Marcel Dieulafoy’s verdict of this little known carver is that he was “a great artist.”
Francisco Giralte, a sculptor of Palencia, who, like so many of the Spanish artists of this period, studied in Italy, was the principal collaborator with Berruguete in carving the celebrated choir-stalls of Toledo Cathedral. The last of the works which he executed alone is the altar-screen, formerly in the chapel of the Obispo, Palencia Cathedral, but now at Madrid. This screen is described and highly praised by Ponz in his Viage de Espa?a. The polychrome was carried out by Juan de Villodo, under the direction of Francisco de Vilalpando, an able architect of Palencia. Giralte carved many other retablos, and was assisted by Juan Manzano and other carvers. The most important of his works are the altar-screen of Cardinal Ximénez, that of the Monastery of Valbuena, the great altar at Espinar, another for the parish church of Pozeido, and finally the retablo of the Corral’s chapel in the Church of the Magdalena, Valladolid, remarkable for its bas-reliefs, but unsatisfying in its whole effect on account of the poverty of composition. Giralte died in 1576.
Esteban Jordan was the contemporary of {91}Giralte. He was born at the beginning of the sixteenth century and died in 1598 or 1599. We read that Berruguete was the godfather of his son, which seems to suggest an intimate relationship, if not pupilship, between the two artists. But Jordan has very little of the vigorous style of Berruguete. Like Giralte, he was a carver of second-rate merit, who attained fame in his lifetime, but was afterwards forgotten. His best works are the retablo of Santa Maria Magdalena at Valladolid and the tomb of Archbishop Don Pedro Gasco in the same church.
Another Spaniard who learnt his art in Italy was Tudelilla, a native of Tarragona. He was born at the end of the fifteenth century, and after studying in Italy, in 1527 returned to Spain, in which year we find him charged with the construction and decoration of the choir enclosure of Zaragoza Cathedral (Plate 118). The style in which it is carried out is known in Spain as Plateresque, a name derived from plateros, or silver-work, and applied to this form of carving from its elegance and delicacy of execution. The choir is composed of twelve highly ornamented columns, which have a frieze and pediments of delicate workmanship. In the centre is placed a Crucifixion, while between the columns and on either side are statues of saints and four bas-reliefs representing{92} scenes in the lives of St. Vincent and St. Valere, the patrons of the church. In Spain it is held in great estimation, but it must be admitted that the decoration is mannered and of a professional stamp. Tudelilla was largely employed by the nobility of Zaragoza in the decoration of their palaces. We read in contemporary writers of the splendour of these buildings, but almost without exception they have been destroyed. It was the common custom at this period of artistic wealth to lavish large sums on the decoration with statues and sculpture of both the outside and the interior of private dwellings. Wherever these palaces remain they should be studied, as they contain many fine examples of Spanish carving.
Among other carvers who were the contemporaries of Berruguete we may mention Diego Morlanes, who completed the portal of the convent church of Santa Engracia at Zaragoza, which was begun by his father Juan in 1505, while a further example of his sumptuous style is the chapel of St. Bernard in the cathedral, with the monument of Archbishop Fernando of Aragon and his mother. Juan de Talavere and Etienne Veray executed the sumptuous portal of the Church of the Virgin at Calatayud; Diego de Ria?o and Martin Gainoza worked at Seville, and their carvings in the{93} Sacristia Mayor and in the Capilla Real of the cathedral illustrate the elaborate and fantastic forms in which the native workers now took increasing delight. Of greater importance are Juan Rodriguez and Gerónimo Pellicier, who executed the retablo of the Monastery del Parral at Segovia (Plate 119).
All these sculptors and carvers were in greater or less degree imitators of Berruguete. We have in addition numerous anonymous works, some of splendid merit. The enumeration of these carvings would fill a separate volume. Burgos, Seville, and many churches are veritable museums of polychrome sculpture; while many churches, such, for instance, as the Convent of Poblet, now robbed and left bare, were formerly treasure-houses of sculptures. The limit of space makes it impossible to do justice to this multitude of work. The epoch was marked by a wealth of production which shows the enthusiasm that then prevailed for the plastic arts.
The history of Spanish sculpture would be incomplete did we omit to mention the Custodias which almost no large church in Spain is without. These idealistic tower-like structures, always wrought in silver and finely carved, are the great architectural achievements of the metal-workers.{94} The first examples belong to the Gothic period. The Custodia of the Cathedral of Gerona, richly adorned with enamels and precious stones, is one of the most beautiful, while another of almost equal merit is that of Barcelona. The sixteenth century was the great period for the production of these silver works, and this was due mainly to the talented Arfes, a Spanish family of German origin, who produced Custodias for most of the important cathedrals. To Enrique de Arfe (1470-1550), the first of the family, we owe the Custodias of Cordova and Toledo; these works are in the late Gothic style. But the most celebrated member of the family was Juan Arfes, the grandson of Enrique, who was born about the middle and died at the close of the sixteenth century. He was the creator of the celebrated Custodia of Avila (Plate 120). He also executed two Custodias for the city of Valladolid—one for the Convent of Carmel and the other for the cathedral. This work bears an inscription, “Juan de Arfe y Villafa?e, f. MDXC.,” and the price paid for it was 1,518,092 maravedis. At about the same time he made another Custodia for the Cathedral of Burgos, and yet another for that of Seville. Besides excelling as a silversmith, Juan was an{95} excellent carver of statues, though he always used the title escultor de plata y oro (sculptor of gold and silver). His skill as a sculptor is proved by the group of Adam and Eve, which was executed to occupy the centre of the first stage of the Valladolid Custodia, but is now on the pedestal. His greatest sculptured piece was the kneeling statue of Cristobal de Royas y Sandoval, Archbishop of Seville, in the Church of San Pedro de Lerma at Burgos (Plates 121 and 122). Juan died before the completion of the work, which was finished by Fernandez del Moral, under the direction of Pompeo Leoni; and for this reason this splendid monument for long has been wrongly attributed to Leoni.
With the silversmiths we may class the orfrays, or embroiderers, who at this time attained a position of great importance. Cean Bermudez praises especially Marcos Covarrubias, the master embroiderer of Toledo Cathedral, who in 1514 carried out the beautiful decorations of Cardinal Cisneros’ monument. Other celebrated “embroiderers” were Gabriel Carvajal of Seville Cathedral, and a French Hieronimite monk named Monserrate, who settled in Spain in the sixteenth century and worked for the monastery of the Escorial. He was a master of the delicate{96} art of “needlework in stone.” Nor must we forget the Spanish metal-workers, who wrought the exquisite railings in the cathedrals of Burgos, Seville, Salamanca, Toledo, Pampeluna, and elsewhere, which are masterpieces of art. These works, besides flowers, foliage, and decorations, contain medallions of men’s and women’s heads, sometimes oxidised, but often gilded and polychromed. For this reason, if for nothing else, these church railings must be studied by those who wish to know the Spanish polychromes. These small medallions are carried out with exquisite delicacy and beauty.