Leonard Williams

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[1]; 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[2] and the brasier (foculus) have descended to contemporary Spain.

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.[3] 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.[4] 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.[5] 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 1392. 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.”[6]

Another corner of the room was occupied by the dining-table,[7] 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,[8] 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).

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 1574 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 (1560) 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.”[9] The bedstead, fitted with hangings of double taffeta and scarlet cloth, was no less sumptuous than the other objects.

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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. 45 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.

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II
GOTHIC CHAIR
(15th 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:—

(1) Burial-chests.

(2) Chests for storing chasubles, chalices, candelabra, and other objects connected with the ceremonies of the church.

(3) Archive-chests, for storing documents.

(4) Chests for storing treasure (huches).

(5) Brides' chests.

(6) Chests for storing arms.

(7) 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 1052 by Ferdinand the First, together with his royal robe and crown,[10] 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,[11] 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.

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. 1033, 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.[12]

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III
ARCÓN
(15th 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.

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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,[13] 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 1663, “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.[14] 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 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.”

V
ARMCHAIR
(17th 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;[15] 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.

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.”[16]

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.”

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.”[17]

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;[18] 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.”

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 1605, 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,[19] 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.”

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 vv., 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.”

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 1616 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.”

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 1515 and 1536, “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.[20] 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.

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.

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.”[21]

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 1715.)

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.”[22]

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.

“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 1809, “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.

“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.”[23]

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.[24]

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.”

In 1197 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.[25]

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 1529, 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 1529 and 1543, 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.”

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.[26] 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 1557 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. 101 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.

Another interesting contract is dated April 17th, 1587. 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.

On August 26th, 1567, 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 1529. Those of 1543 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 1567 establish the penalty of death for every guadamacilero who shall seek, in silvering his wares, to palm off tin for silver.

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,[27] 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,[28] altar-fronts (such as one which is preserved in the chapel of San Isidro in Palencia cathedral), or crowns for images of the Virgin.[29] 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,[30] 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.

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.

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.”[31]

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.

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.”[32] 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.”

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.[33] 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,[34] appeared at Seville in 1633, and fresh editions were printed at the same city in 1727, and at Madrid in 1867. 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.[35] 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[36] 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.

I have said that the decoration of these ceilings is sometimes floral, sometimes geometrical, sometimes a combination of the two.[37] 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.

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 1890, 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 1635 by the master-carpenter Alonso MuÑoz de los RÍos, who received for his labour fourteen thousand reales.[38] 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 foelix 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.

XXIII
SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST
(San Juan de Dios, Granada)