Chapter 8

see captionLXXIVVESSELS OF SPANISH GLASS(South Kensington Museum)

LXXIVVESSELS OF SPANISH GLASS(South Kensington Museum)

The glass of Cataluña maintained its ancient reputation all through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and part of the seventeenth, and at this time was still compared with the Venetian by observant travellers (Platelxxv.). Besides the capital, the principal glass-works in this province were at Almatret, Moncada, Cervelló, and Mataró. In 1489 a Barcelonese, by name Vicente Sala, and his sons applied to the City Council for leave to construct an oven at Moncada “in order to pursue the craft of glass-making,lo qual a present aci se obre axi bellament e suptil com en part del mon(seeing that the glass we manufacture in this neighbourhood competes with any in the world for subtlety and beauty).”

A document is extant from which we learn thatthe City Councillors of Barcelona made strenuous efforts to prevail upon Ferdinand the Catholic to abolish a certain monopoly or other form of exclusive privilege which he had conceded to a local glass-maker. The result of this appeal is not recorded. In 1503 Ferdinand presented his consort with two hundred and seventy-four glass objects made at Barcelona, and Philip the Second possessed a hundred and nineteen pieces proceeding from the same locality.

see captionLXXVVESSELS OF CATALAN GLASS(From Drawings by the Author)

LXXVVESSELS OF CATALAN GLASS(From Drawings by the Author)

An important development of this craft was the manufacture of coloured glass for churches and cathedrals. In the Peninsula, the earliest introducers of this branch of glass-making were principally natives of Germany, France, and Flanders, who came to Spain at the beginning of the fifteenth century.[108]Many of the oldest windows executed by these foreigners, or by the Spaniards who were taught by them, are still existing in the cathedrals of León, Toledo, Burgos, Barcelona,and the Seo of Zaragoza. León has several windows which date from as far back as the thirteenth century, and in which the glass is in small pieces, arranged as though it were mosaic. Some of the later and larger windows in the same cathedral are thirty-five feet high, and one, dating from the sixteenth century, is believed to have been presented to this temple by Mary of England, prior to her marriage with Philip the Second.

It was, however, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that the custom became general, in Spain as in other lands, of colouring the surface of white glass by partial fusing—a process which is mentioned in the treatise of Abolais, to which I have referred repeatedly. Between the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries the coloured windows of Spanish temples were still composed of pieces of glass united in the manner of mosaic, forming ornamental patterns of stars and similar devices; but subsequently to this period the decorative themes are said to be painteden caballete, and consist of figures, or the representation of scenes from Scripture. In Spain, and dating from the twelfth century, the workshops for preparing this coloured glass were commonly situated within theprecincts of important temples, such as Toledo cathedral, or else, as was the case at Burgos, in separate buildings anddependencias. Here, in the square ovens characteristic of that age, and before it was mounted in the ponderous leaden frame, the glass was coloured with exquisite solicitude and patience by the hand of the master-craftsman, sometimes with a colour upon one of its surfaces alone, sometimes with the same colour upon both, or sometimes with a different colour upon either surface. The cartoons from which such windows were constructed, and which were often designed by painters of renown, were usually three in number. The first contained, upon a reduced scale, a coloured outline of the window; the second, drawn to the exact scale of the window as it was to be, was composed of all the pieces cut out and numbered according to the various colours; and the third, also of the projected size of the window, was kept complete, to serve as a pattern in case the window should suffer any accident, and require to be restored or mended. Not one of these cartoons is known to be preserved to-day, but Rico y Sinobas points out that from the strong and simple character of their colouring and outline, the illuminated illustrationsof Spanish thirteenth century manuscripts, such as theCantigas, and theBook of Chessof Alfonso the Learned, may well have been utilized for, or else be copied from, glass windows of that period.

As soon as the cartoon was finished, the window-painter traced it upon the surface of the glass. This was in square pieces, fitted conveniently together, with sufficient space between the pieces to allow the passage of the leads. Before being laid upon the glass and being submitted to the fixing action of fire, the colours were mixed with honey, urine, vinegar, and other fluids or substances which served as mediums to attach the colour to the glass. Thus prepared, and in the form of powder, the colours were allowed to dry for two or three days before the glass was placed in the oven. Yellow, which was the strongest colour, and that which penetrated deepest beneath the surface of the glass, was made from certain combinations of silver and nitrate of potash, while oxides or other forms of copper, lead, iron, tin, silver, and manganese, were used for making black, white, red, green, blue, purple, violet, or flesh-colour. These colours penetrated the glass to the depth of about half a millimetre; but sometimes, after the colour hadbeen applied, the craftsman would submit the glass to friction by a wooden polisher or wheel, thus giving it an appearance of greater clearness and transparency at any spot he might desire.

Among the artists who produced the coloured windows of León cathedral were Master Joan de Arge (a.d.1424), Master Baldovín, and Rodrigo de Ferreras. Those of Toledo date from early in the fifteenth century, and were made by Albert of Holland, Vasco Troya, Luis Pedro Francés, Juan de Campos, and others, including the eminent Dolfín, who, according to Cean, began to work here in 1418, by order of the archbishop, Don Sancho de Rojas. The documents collected and published for the first time by Zarco del Valle tell us that on March 22nd, 1424, Dolfín received from Alfonso Martinez, treasurer and superintendent of works, two hundred gold florins and certain other moneys on account of his total payment of four hundred gold florins for “the eighth window he is making for the head of the cathedral.” Other certificates of payment relating to Maestre Dolfín (as he always signed himself) are included in the same collection. By 1427 he was “defunct, God pardon him!” and thewindows he had left unfinished were terminated by his assistant Lois (Louis).[109]

In 1458, and also at Toledo, a friar named Pablo began to repair the painted windows of thecrucero. His pay was fixed by the “abbot and superintendent of works” at fiftymaravediseach day, and that of “his lads, Ximeno and Juanico,” at one half of this amount. Other artists engaged in the same work were Pablo (not the friar just referred to), Peter, a German, and “Master Henry,” who was also German. Pablo received authority to purchase ten and a halfquintalesand thirteen pounds of coloured Flemish glass, at two thousandmaravedisfor eachquintal. By a contract dated 1485 (he died between 1487 and 1493), Master Henry was handed by the cathedral authorities a sum of 150,000maravedis“to proceed to Flanders or any other part he may desire, and where good glass is to be found, white, blue, green, scarlet, purple, yellow, or blackish (prieto), equal in thickness to the sample which he bears, and bring us thence such quantity as he has need of for the windows of our cathedral.”

It is evident from this notice that Spain wasthen unable to produce the finest quality of glass. With such as he brought with him from abroad, Henry engaged to fashion “every kind of figure, image, scroll, and other object whatsoever be commanded him, according to the place it is to fill; the colours of the glass to be well mingled and distributed.” He was also to make “the leaden casings stout and deep, so as to embrace and hold the glass aforesaid, that it may resist the air and wind.” In return for this, he was to be supplied with an erected scaffolding, with all the chalk and iron he might require, and with the proper number of assistants, receiving, in payment of his labour, one hundred and fifteenmaravedisfor every square palm of glass the preparation of which should satisfy the superintendent and examiners of works.

One of the witnesses to this document was Henry's wife, María Maldonada, who came forward to affix her signature “with the license and pleasure of the aforesaid Master Enrique, her husband.”

In 1433, Master Juan (perhaps the same as Joan de Arge, already mentioned) began to work at the windows of Burgos, where, later in this century, he was succeeded by Juan de Valdiviesoand Diego de Santillana. We learn from theDocumentos Inéditos(pp. 159, 160) that Santillana lived at Burgos, and that, on May 31st, 1512, he contracted to make three “historical windows” for the monastery of San Francisco, at a price of ninety-fivemaravedisfor each palm of glass, this to be “of good colours and shades,” and “measured by the Burgos standard.” Two other contracts are preserved, signed by the same craftsman and both relating to Palencia. By one of them Santillana is to receive for six “storied windows,” the subjects of which are specified, ninety-fivemaravedisthe palm, besides the scaffolding and his house and coals.

Arnao de Flandes (Arnold of Flanders) was appointed master glass-painter to Burgos cathedral in 1512. Other glass-painters who worked here in the sixteenth century were Francisco de Valdivieso, Gaspar Cotin, Juan de Arce, his son Juan and grandson Pedro, and, in the seventeenth century, Valentin Ruiz, Francisco Alonso, Simon Ruiz, and Francisco Alcalde. Most of the windows made by all these men have been destroyed by time and weather, and have been replaced by barren panes of white; but a few fine specimens of the original work may yet be seenin the chapels of the Presentation, the Constable, and San Jerónimo. Perhaps the most remarkable of any is the rose-window, above the Puerta del Sarmental.[110]

Other good cathedral windows prior to the sixteenth century are those of Avila, which date from about the year 1497, and were executed by Diego de Santillana, Juan de Valdivieso, and other artists; those of the Seo of Zaragoza, by the Catalans Terri and Jayme Romeu (1447); and some at Barcelona, painted in 1494 by Gil Fontanet.

It is, however, in the sixteenth century that Spanish ecclesiastical window-glass attains its highest grade of excellence.[111]Dating from thiscentury are windows in Toledo cathedral, painted in 1503 by Vasco de Troya, in 1509 by Alejo Jiménez, in 1513 by Gonzalo de Córdoba (these are considered by competent judges to be the finest of any), in 1515 by Juan de la Cuesta, in 1522 by Juan Campos, in 1525 by Albert of Holland, in 1534 by Juan de Ortega, and in 1542 by Nicolás Vergara the elder.[112]In 1537 Ortega was engaged to repair the damaged or broken panes at a yearly salary of 11,250maravedis. Where the panes were wanting, he was to replace them by new ones painted by his hand, receiving, for eachpalmoof new glass so painted, an extra payment of ninetymaravedis.[113]

In the same century the windows of Seville cathedral, begun some years previously (Cean says in 1504) by Micer Cristóbal Alemán (“MasterChristopher the German”), were continued by Masters Jacobo, Juan Juan Vivan, Juan Bernai, Bernardino de Gelandia, Juan Jaques, Arnold of Flanders (1525), Arnao de Vergara (1525), Charles of Bruges, (1557), and Vicente Menandro (1557).[114]In 1562 Diego de Valdivieso, and in 1570 Pedro de Valdivieso and Gerald of Holland, painted windows for Cuenca cathedral. In 1542 the same work was done at Palencia by Diego de Salcedo, and in 1533 George of Burgundy, “master in the art of glass,” then resident at Burgos, proceeded to the same town and engagedto renew the cathedral windows at a cost of a hundredmaravedisfor every palm of coloured glass, and fifty for every palm of plain.[115]

In 1544, sixty-two windows in the nave of Segovia cathedral were filled with painted glass prepared chiefly at Valladolid and Medina del Campo, though some was brought from Flanders. The remaining windows were left unfilled till 1676, in which year a canon of the cathedral, named Tomás de la Plaza Aguirre, succeeded in rediscovering a formula for the practise of this craft, and the panes yet needed were made and coloured at Valdequemada by Juan Danis, under Plaza Aguirre's supervision. Thirty-three additional windows were completed from this factory. According to Lecea y García, the chapter of Segovia cathedral possess, or possessed for many years, two curious manuscripts relating severally toThe painting of glass windows, by Francisco Herranz, andGlass-making, by Juan Danis—the same who owned and worked the factory at Valdequemada. These interesting treatises were examined by Bosarte, who has described them. He says that the one on glass-making consisted of twenty-three sheets of clear writing, and theone on glass-painting of eight sheets; both manuscripts being in quarto size. The latter contained, distributed beside the text, sketches of the various instruments required for this craft. The other and longer monograph consisted of the following chapters:—(1) How to draw upon glass. (2) How to cut glass. (3) How to paint and shade glass. (4) Of the substances and ingredients for painting glass. (5) How to give a flesh-colour to glass. (6) How to give a yellow or golden colour to white or pale blue glass, but no other. (7) How to fire glass. (8) How to make the glass-oven.

Windows were painted in the cathedral of Palma de Mallorca by Sebastián Danglés in 1566 and by Juan Jordá in 1599, in that of Málaga by Octavio Valerio in 1579, and in those of Tarragona and Avila respectively, by Juan Guasch in 1571, and by Pierre de Chiberri in 1549. This craftsman was undoubtedly a foreigner. The following entry which concerns him is quoted by Rosell de Torres from theLibro de Fábricaof Segovia cathedral: “By order of the Canon Juan Rodriguez, on the twelfth day of August, I paid to Pierre de Chiberri, master-maker of window-glass, the sum of 56,560maravedis, 34,960 forthe casings of seven large windows with their side-windows—in all twenty-one casings—besides ten casings for the windows of the lower chapels, containing altogetherMMMCCCCXCVIpalms, amounting at tenmaravedisthe palm to the aforesaid 34,960 maravedis: also 19,125maravedisforCCCLXXIIpalms of glass for the said chapels at arealand a half each palm, plus 2476maravedisfor certain glass which had yet to be measured because it was in the skylights. The total sum amounts to the aforesaid 56,560maravedis.”[116]

During the seventeenth century, glass-work of various kinds continued to be produced upon a large scale at Barcelona, Mataró, Gerona, Cuenca, Toledo, Valmaqueda, and Seville. In 1680 the Duke of Villahermosa established a glass factory at San Martin de Valdeiglesias, and placed it under the direction of a native of Namur named Diodonet Lambot, aided by various other artists from the Netherlands. In 1683 Lambot was succeeded by Santiago Vandoleto, who proved incompetent, and caused, in 1692, the total stoppage of the factory.

I have said that glass was made at Medina delCampo, in the province of Valladolid. Pinheiro da Veiga'sPincigraphia, written at the beginning of the seventeenth century, contains an interesting notice of this glassware. “Really, the glass-work of Valladolid is most beautiful, and worth going to see if only for the pleasure of its contemplation. There are objects of considerable size, such as (glass) pitchers of every form and colour. Others are calledpenados, and are of a syphon shape, pouring out water in small quantities.[117]Besides this there are all manner of cunningly contrived retorts such as we never see in Lisbon, and yet in Valladolid their cost is only moderate…. The principal shops for selling these and porcelain are two in number, and the prices are the same as in Portugal.”

Two very important Spanish glass factories were founded in the eighteenth century. The first, which was under Crown protection, was established by Don Juan Goyeneche in the year 1720 at a place called Nuevo Baztán, in the province of Toledo. The royal privilege allowed this factory to produce “all articles of glass up toa height of twenty inches, working and polishing the same, embellishing, and coating them with metal; to make looking-glasses and similar ornaments, glass vessels of all descriptions, white glass for window-panes, and glass objects of any kind or shape, whether already known to us, or that may be invented in the future.”

The factory of Nuevo Baztán continued working for some years, and turned out excellent glass for exportation to America and other parts; but it was killed eventually by the rising price of fuel, and above all by competition from abroad. “When the foreigners,” says Larruga in hisMemorias políticas y económicas, “saw that the factory was in full swing, they conspired to bring about its ruin, and begged their ambassadors to communicate against it with the ministers; but finding this of no avail, and recognising the importance to themselves of overthrowing this manufacture, they decided to sell glassware at a price at which it would be impossible to sell the products of Nuevo Baztán. The amount of this reduction was the one-third part of the entire value. By this means the foreigners made it impossible for the factory to support itself, since the objects it produced were laid away and foundno purchaser for years. This, and the cost of the wood required to keep the ovens burning day and night, not excepting feast-days (for to stop the fires for a moment would have meant the spoiling of the oven), induced the downfall of this celebrated factory, as soon as the fuel of all the neighbouring forests had been consumed.”

Nevertheless, upon the closing of these works, one of the experts who had been employed there, a Catalan named Ventura Sit, attracted by the forests of Valsain and the excellent and abundant sand obtainable in this locality—principally from near the villages of Espirdo and Bernuy de Porreros—decided to open another glass-works at La Granja. Here is the royal summer residence of San Ildefonso, and Sit was fortunate enough to secure at the outset—that is, in 1728—the firm protection of Philip the Fifth and of his consort, Isabel Farnese. Instructed by the sovereigns to make some mirrors, he produced these objects of a moderate size at first, increasing it, after the year 1734, to a maximum length of 145 inches by 85 in breadth. Larruga says that these mirrors were the largest produced anywhere at that time, and they continued to be made until very nearly the end of the century. They are often referredto in the narratives of travellers. Swinburne wrote in 1776: “Not far from Carthagena is a place called Almazaron, where they gather a fine red earth called Almagra, used in the manufactures of Saint Ildephonso, for polishing looking-glasses. In Seville, it is worked up with the tobacco, to give it a colour, fix its volatility, and communicate to it that softness which constitutes the principal merit of Spanish snuff.”

Describing the royal palace at Madrid, the same author says that the walls of the great audience-chamber “are incrustated with beautiful marble, and all round hung with large plates of looking-glass in rich frames. The manufactory of glass is at Saint Ildefonso, where they cast them of a very great size; but I am told they are apt to turn out much rougher and more full of flaws than those of France.”

According to Townsend (1786), “The glass manufacture is here carried to a degree of perfection unknown in England. The largest mirrors are made in a brass frame, one hundred and sixty-two inches long, ninety-three wide, and six deep, weighing near nine tons. These are designed wholly for the royal palaces, and for presents from the king. Yet even for such purposes the factoryis ill-placed, and proves a devouring monster in a country where provisions are dear, fuel scarce, and carriage exceedingly expensive.”

Laborde wrote of the same factory a few years later: “There is also a glass-house, in which bottles are wrought of a superior quality; and white glasses, which are carved with much ingenuity (Plateslxxvi. andlxxvii.). Near this glass-house has been founded a manufactory for mirrors, in a large and well-arranged edifice. There are two furnaces, and a considerable number of stoves, in which the plates are left to cool after they have been precipitated. They are of all dimensions, and the largest that have yet been fabricated. They are sometimes from a hundred, a hundred and thirty, or a hundred and thirty-five inches in height, to fifty, sixty, or sixty-five inches in breadth: they are expanded in the hand. The process for polishing them is performed by a machine;[118]they are then transported to Madrid, for the purpose of being metallised. It is not uncommon to see tables of bronze, on which mirrors are extended, a hundred and sixty inches in length, and ninety in breadth.”

These tables are described by Bowles: “The largest measures a hundred and forty-five inchesin length by eighty-five in breadth, and weighs four hundred and fivearrobas. The smallest measures a hundred and twenty inches in length, and seventy-five in breadth, and weighs three hundred and eightyarrobas.”

see captionLXXVIGLASS OF THE FACTORY OF SAN ILDEFONSO

LXXVIGLASS OF THE FACTORY OF SAN ILDEFONSO

The best account of any is contained in theNouveau Voyage en Espagne(1789) of Bourgoing. This author wrote: “A côté de cette Fabrique naissante de première nécessité” (i.e.the royal linen factory at La Granja) “il y en a une de luxe qui remonte au regne de Philippe V; c'est une Manufacture de glaces, la seule qu'il y ait en Espagne. On s'étoit d'abord borné à une Verrerie qui subsiste encore, et donne des bouteilles d'une assez bonne qualité, et des verres blancs qu'on y cisele avec assez d'adresse. J'en ai rapporté quelques-uns où l'on a gravé des chiffres, des lettres, et jusqu'à de jolis paysages. Cette Verrerie étoit un acheminement à une entreprise plus brillante. La Manufacture de glaces de Saint Ildephonse est comparable aux plus beaux établissements de ce genre; on en peut voir les dessins dans les Planches de l'Encyclopédie. L'édifice est vaste et très bien distribué; il contient deux fourneaux et une vingtaine de fours où l'on fait refroidir lentement les glaces après les avoircoulées. On y en coule dans toutes les dimensions depuis les carreaux de vitres jusqu'aux plus grands trumeaux. Elles sont moins blanches et peut-être moins bien polies que celles de Venise et de St-Gobin; mais nulle part on n'en a encore coulé d'aussi grandes. L'opération du coulage s'y fait avec beaucoup de précision et d'ensemble. Monseigneur Comte d'Artois eut la curiosité d'y assister; la glace qu'on y coula devant lui avoit, autant que je puis m'en souvenir, cent trente-trois pouces de long, sur soixante-cinq de large, et l'on m'a assuré qu'il y en avoit encore de plus grandes. On les dégrossit à mains d'hommes dans une longue galerie qui est attenante à la Fabrique, et il y a à un quart de lieue une machine que l'eau fait mouvoir, et où on acheve de les polir; on les porte ensuite à Madrid pour les étamer. Le Roi consacre les plus belles à la parure de ses appartements; il en fait des cadeaux aux Cours qui ont des relations intimes avec lui. En 1783, S.M.C. en fit joindre quelques-unes aux présens qu'il envoyoit à la Porte Ottomane, avec laquelle elle venoit de conclure un traité. C'est une idée agréable pour un cosmopolite tolérant, de penser qu'en dépit des préjugés de religion et de politique qui divisoient autrefois les Nations, la main des arts a établientr'elles un échange de jouissances d'un bout de l'Europe à l'autre, et que les beautés du serrail se mirent dans les glaces coulées à Saint-Ildefonse, tandis que les tapis de Turquie sont foulés par des pieds François. Ce qui sort d'ailleurs de la Manufacture de Saint-Ildefonse est vendu, pour le compte du Roi, à Madrid et dans les provinces; mais on sent bien que ce profit est trop mince pour couvrir les frais d'un établissement aussi considérable qui, le bois excepté, est éloigné de toutes les matières premières qu'il employe, qui est situé fort avant dans l'intérieur des terres, au sein des montagnes, et loin de toute rivière navigable; aussi doit il être compté parmi ces fondations de luxe qui prosperent à l'ombre du Trône, et qui ajoutent à son éclat.”[119]

A few more details are added by Swinburne: “Below the town is the manufactory of plate-glass belonging to the crown, carried on under the direction of Mr Dowling; two hundred and eighty men are employed. The largest plate they have made is one hundred and twenty-six Spanish inches long; the small pieces are sold in looking-glasses all over the kingdom; but I am told the king makes no great profit by it; however, it isa very material point to be able to supply his subjects with a good commodity, and to keep in the country a large sum of money that heretofore went out annually to purchase it from strangers. They also make bottles and drinking-glasses (Plateslxxvi.,lxxvii.); and are now busy erecting very spacious new furnaces to enlarge the works. To provide fuel for the fires, they have put the pinewoods under proper regulations and stated falls; twenty-seven mule-loads of fir-wood are consumed every day; and four loads cost the king, including all the expenses of cutting and bringing down from the mountains, about forty reals.”

see captionLXXVIIGLASS OF THE FACTORY OF SAN ILDEFONSO

LXXVIIGLASS OF THE FACTORY OF SAN ILDEFONSO

In 1736, the first factory which had been established at San Ildefonso was nearly destroyed by fire; but the damage was repaired, and the factory placed under state control. Its finances were at no time prosperous. In 1762 Charles the Third granted a privilege reserving to it the exclusive sale of glass within a radius of twenty leagues from Madrid and Segovia; but the sales did not improve. In spite of this, the monarch, a few years later, erected a new and costly factory from designs by Villanueva and Real. There were two departments in this ample building. One, for the manufacture of theplainest glass, was directed by a Hanoverian, named Sigismund Brun; and the other, devoted to smaller and more elaborate articles, by Eder, a Swede. “The greater number of the objects made at these important works were of transparent, colourless glass, possessing a marked French style, and were either richly engraved and cut, or gilded, or sometimes (though less often) they were made of coloured and enamelled glass. At this time, too, were manufactured mirrors for the royal palaces, as well as candlesticks and chandeliers of great beauty, following the Venetian method, and embellished with coloured flowers.”[120]

In spite of all these efforts, the works at the dawn of the nineteenth century were in a moribund condition. In 1829 they passed into the handsof private persons, who also failed to make them pay, and subsequently, owing to the ineptitude of Spanish governments and the severity of foreign competition, have definitely closed their doors.

“In Catalonia,” wrote Laborde, towards the year 1800, “are two glass houses; but the glass blown in them is dark, and destitute of lustre. Aragon has four, one at Alfamen, one at Peñalva, one at Utrillas, and one at Jaulin, which is the largest; but the quality of the glass is not superior to that of Catalonia. The glass-house at Utrillas produces both flint and common glass. Glass houses are also established at Pajarejo and at Recuenco in Castile, which manufacture the most beautifully white and transparent glass.”

In 1791 there were six glass-ovens in the kingdom of Valencia, situated at Valencia, Alicante, Salines, Olleria, and Alcira. They turned out 2100 pieces in this year, some of which were exported to Castile and Aragon.[121]

Early in the eighteenth century the glass of Barcelona was praised by Alvarez de Colmenar (“Il s'y fait de belles verreries”), and we knowthat all through this period herforns de vidrecontinued to produce good work, including holy-water vessels of uncoloured glass relieved with blue or with the fine whitelatticinio, the localarruixadorsorborrachas, and the typicalporrón. The former of these vessels is of small size, and has several spouts. Commonly it is filled with scented water for gallants to sprinkle on girls at dances in the public square. Theporróninvariably excites the curiosity of foreigners,[122]and is often thought to be of purely Spanish origin. This is not so. Upon a Roman lampstand in Naples museum is a figure of Bacchus riding on a tiger and “holding in his hand the horn from which the ancients drank, using it as, among some other peoples, do the modern Catalans—that is, not placing the vessel in their mouth, but holding it aloft and thus imbibing it; a method which requires no small amount of practice.” In fact, there is reason to believe that theporrónis derived from a similar vessel in use among the ancientPersians, who poured their liquor from it into the hollow of the hand, and thence imbibed it in the fashion called, in Cataluña and Valencia,al gallet. For just as a certain class of American displays his marksmanship in spitting, so does the Catalan who is accomplished in the art, amuse himself and others by causing the ruby wine to spout from hisporrónon to the very apex of his nose, continuing from this point, in the form of a fine and undulating rivulet, over his upper lip and down his throat.

Windows of Spanish houses were seldom glazed until about one hundred years ago. When Bertaut de Rouen travelled here in 1659, this fact impressed him disagreeably. Even in the royal palace at Madrid he found that there were chambers “qui n'ont point du tout de fenestrés, ou qui n'en ont qu'une petite, et d'où le jour ne vient que d'enhaut, le verre estant fort rare en Espagne, et la pluspart des fenestrés des maisons n'ayant pas de vitres.” In 1787, Arthur Young was no less horrified at the glassless condition of the houses in Cataluña. “Reach Sculló; the inn so bad that our guide would not permit us to enter it, so he went to the house of the Curé. A scene followed so new to English eyes, that we could not refrain fromlaughing very heartily. Not a pane of glass in the whole town, but our reverend host had a chimney in his kitchen; he ran to the river to catch trout; a man brought us some chickens which were put to death on the spot…. This town and its inhabitants are, to the eye, equally wretched, the smoke-holes instead of chimneys, the total want of glass windows—the cheerfulness of which, to the eye, is known only by the want.”

However, as an exception to this doleful rule, the town of Poeblar had “some good houses with glass windows, and we saw a well-dressed young lady gallanted by two monks.”

Footnotes:[103]“Jam vero et per Gallias Hispaniasque simili modo harenæ temperantur.”—Pliny, Bk. xxxvi; Chap. 66.The chief centres of glass-making were Tarragona, several towns of Betica (Andalusia), and the Balearic Islands.[104]The distinction which Riaño attempts to draw between glass and glass paste is unsatisfactory. He remarks, too, that the manufacture of glassmayhave existed in Spain at an earlier period than the last three centuries, but continues: “The earliest mention of glass-works in Spain will be found in Pliny, who, while explaining the proceedings which were employed in this industry, says that glass was made in a similar manner in France and Spain.”[105]Rico y Sinobas,Del Vidrio y de sus artifices en España (Almanaque del Museo de la Industria, 1870).[106]Oliver,Granada y sus monumentos árabes.[107]The inventory (a.d.1560) of the Dukes of Alburquerque mentions “a white box with four small bottles of Valencia glass containing ointment for the hands.” Other objects specified in this inventory are “a large glass cup, with two lizards for handles, and two more lizards on the cover”; “three glass cocoanuts, partly coloured and with gold blown into them, together with their covers”; and “a large glass cup, of Barcelona, blown with gold.” The value of these cups, if they existed now, would not be less than two or three hundred pounds apiece.[108]Before this time, however, Aymerich had written, in or about the year 1100, that sixty large windows in Santiago cathedral were closed by glass, which probably was coloured. We also hear of Francisco Socoma, who made or fitted windows of coloured glass at Palma, in the island of Majorca, in 1380, and of Guillermo de Collivella, who, in 1391, fitted at Lerida the glass which had been coloured for the cathedral of that town by Juan de San-Amat.[109]Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de las Bellas Artes en España, p. 282et seq.[110]In the monastery of Miraflores, near this city, the queen of Ferdinand the Catholic built, at her expense, a rich pantheon to guard the ashes of her parents and her brother. The coloured glass was made by Simon of Cologne. One day, while visiting Miraflores, Isabella noticed upon the windows of this sanctuary the shield of a gentleman named Martin de Soria. Furious at the liberty thus taken with a fabric of her own, “afferte mihi gladium” she called in Latin to one of her attendants, and, raising the sword, dashed the offending window into a thousand pieces, crying that in that spot she would allow no arms but those of her father.[111]Señor Lázaro, who has recently made at Madrid windows for León cathedral imitating those of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, remarks that with the sixteenth century the process grew more complicated, patterns composed with pieces of a single colour being replaced by glass containing a variety of tints. He has also discovered the following usage of the older Spanish craftsmen: “By way of furnishing a key to their arrangement, all the pieces used to be marked with the point of a diamond, and this mark indicates the tone the glass requires for such and such a part of the design. The signs most often employed were three, namely X, L, and V, for red, blue and yellow respectively, intermediate tones being shown by combinations of these letters—XL, LV, XV, with “lines of unities” placed before or after to indicate the necessary gradation in the tone.”[112]This artist painted a series of magnificent windows representing scenes from the life of San Pedro Nolasco, for the convent of La Piedad, at Valencia.[113]Zarco del Valle,Documentos Inéditos, etc., pp. 339et seq.[114]According to Cean (La Catedral de Sevilla), Menandro painted in 1560 the conversion of Saint Paul on a window in the Chapel of Santiago, in 1567 another window with the scene of the Annunciation, over the gate of San Miguel, and in 1569 the companion to it, representing the Visitation, over the Puerta del Bautismo. “In all these windows,” wrote Cean, prejudiced, as was customary in his day, in favour of the strictly classic style, “the drawing, pose, and composition are good,althoughin the draperies and figures we observe the influence of Germany.”In Cean's own time—that is, towards the close of the eighteenth century—the coloured windows of Seville Cathedral amounted to ninety-three, five of which were circular, and the rest with the pointed Gothic arch. The dimensions of the latter are twenty-eight feet high by twelve feet broad, and the subjects painted on them include the likenesses of prophets, patriarchs, martyrs, confessors, and virgins, or scenes from the New Testament, such as the rising of Lazarus, Christ driving the merchants from the temple, the Last Supper, and the anointing by Mary Magdalene.[115]Zarco del Valle,Documentos Inéditos, p. 159[116]Isidoro Rosell de Torres,Las Vidrieras pintadas en España(published in theMuseo Español de Antigüedades).[117]“Penado.A narrow-mouthed vessel that affords the liquor with scantiness and difficulty.” Connelly and Higgins' Dictionary;a.d.1798.[118]This machine was invented by a Catalan named Pedro Fronvila.[119]Vol. I., pp.144–147.[120]Breñosa and Castellarnau;Guide to San Ildefonso(1884), p. 53. Rico y Sinobas observes that in the objects produced at the factory of La Granja, the glass itself is inferior to the engraving or cutting with which it is adorned. This leads him to infer that the foreigners brought over by the kings of Spain to superintend the factory, were cutters and engravers of glass, rather than skilled glass-makers. He also draws attention to the fact that the Spanish monarchs chose these foreign craftsmen from too limited a class, entrusting the most important posts at all the royal factories to Frenchmen who were stated to descend from the old nobility of their native country. In this manner the progress and welfare of the craft itself was sacrificed to an insane prejudice in favour of the aristocratic origin of the craftsman.[121]Ricord;Noticia de las varias y diferentes Producciones del Reyno de Valencia, etc.: segun el estado que tenían en el año 1791.Valencia, 1793.[122]“The mode of drinking in this country is singular; they hold a broad-bottom'd glass bottle at arm's length, and let the liquor spout out of a long neck upon their tongue; from what I see, their expertness at this exercise arises from frequent practise; for the Catalans drink often and in large quantities, but as yet I have not seen any of them intoxicated.”—Swinburne.

Footnotes:

[103]“Jam vero et per Gallias Hispaniasque simili modo harenæ temperantur.”—Pliny, Bk. xxxvi; Chap. 66.The chief centres of glass-making were Tarragona, several towns of Betica (Andalusia), and the Balearic Islands.

[103]“Jam vero et per Gallias Hispaniasque simili modo harenæ temperantur.”—Pliny, Bk. xxxvi; Chap. 66.

The chief centres of glass-making were Tarragona, several towns of Betica (Andalusia), and the Balearic Islands.

[104]The distinction which Riaño attempts to draw between glass and glass paste is unsatisfactory. He remarks, too, that the manufacture of glassmayhave existed in Spain at an earlier period than the last three centuries, but continues: “The earliest mention of glass-works in Spain will be found in Pliny, who, while explaining the proceedings which were employed in this industry, says that glass was made in a similar manner in France and Spain.”

[105]Rico y Sinobas,Del Vidrio y de sus artifices en España (Almanaque del Museo de la Industria, 1870).

[106]Oliver,Granada y sus monumentos árabes.

[107]The inventory (a.d.1560) of the Dukes of Alburquerque mentions “a white box with four small bottles of Valencia glass containing ointment for the hands.” Other objects specified in this inventory are “a large glass cup, with two lizards for handles, and two more lizards on the cover”; “three glass cocoanuts, partly coloured and with gold blown into them, together with their covers”; and “a large glass cup, of Barcelona, blown with gold.” The value of these cups, if they existed now, would not be less than two or three hundred pounds apiece.

[108]Before this time, however, Aymerich had written, in or about the year 1100, that sixty large windows in Santiago cathedral were closed by glass, which probably was coloured. We also hear of Francisco Socoma, who made or fitted windows of coloured glass at Palma, in the island of Majorca, in 1380, and of Guillermo de Collivella, who, in 1391, fitted at Lerida the glass which had been coloured for the cathedral of that town by Juan de San-Amat.

[109]Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de las Bellas Artes en España, p. 282et seq.

[110]In the monastery of Miraflores, near this city, the queen of Ferdinand the Catholic built, at her expense, a rich pantheon to guard the ashes of her parents and her brother. The coloured glass was made by Simon of Cologne. One day, while visiting Miraflores, Isabella noticed upon the windows of this sanctuary the shield of a gentleman named Martin de Soria. Furious at the liberty thus taken with a fabric of her own, “afferte mihi gladium” she called in Latin to one of her attendants, and, raising the sword, dashed the offending window into a thousand pieces, crying that in that spot she would allow no arms but those of her father.

[111]Señor Lázaro, who has recently made at Madrid windows for León cathedral imitating those of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, remarks that with the sixteenth century the process grew more complicated, patterns composed with pieces of a single colour being replaced by glass containing a variety of tints. He has also discovered the following usage of the older Spanish craftsmen: “By way of furnishing a key to their arrangement, all the pieces used to be marked with the point of a diamond, and this mark indicates the tone the glass requires for such and such a part of the design. The signs most often employed were three, namely X, L, and V, for red, blue and yellow respectively, intermediate tones being shown by combinations of these letters—XL, LV, XV, with “lines of unities” placed before or after to indicate the necessary gradation in the tone.”

[112]This artist painted a series of magnificent windows representing scenes from the life of San Pedro Nolasco, for the convent of La Piedad, at Valencia.

[113]Zarco del Valle,Documentos Inéditos, etc., pp. 339et seq.

[114]According to Cean (La Catedral de Sevilla), Menandro painted in 1560 the conversion of Saint Paul on a window in the Chapel of Santiago, in 1567 another window with the scene of the Annunciation, over the gate of San Miguel, and in 1569 the companion to it, representing the Visitation, over the Puerta del Bautismo. “In all these windows,” wrote Cean, prejudiced, as was customary in his day, in favour of the strictly classic style, “the drawing, pose, and composition are good,althoughin the draperies and figures we observe the influence of Germany.”In Cean's own time—that is, towards the close of the eighteenth century—the coloured windows of Seville Cathedral amounted to ninety-three, five of which were circular, and the rest with the pointed Gothic arch. The dimensions of the latter are twenty-eight feet high by twelve feet broad, and the subjects painted on them include the likenesses of prophets, patriarchs, martyrs, confessors, and virgins, or scenes from the New Testament, such as the rising of Lazarus, Christ driving the merchants from the temple, the Last Supper, and the anointing by Mary Magdalene.

In Cean's own time—that is, towards the close of the eighteenth century—the coloured windows of Seville Cathedral amounted to ninety-three, five of which were circular, and the rest with the pointed Gothic arch. The dimensions of the latter are twenty-eight feet high by twelve feet broad, and the subjects painted on them include the likenesses of prophets, patriarchs, martyrs, confessors, and virgins, or scenes from the New Testament, such as the rising of Lazarus, Christ driving the merchants from the temple, the Last Supper, and the anointing by Mary Magdalene.

[115]Zarco del Valle,Documentos Inéditos, p. 159

[116]Isidoro Rosell de Torres,Las Vidrieras pintadas en España(published in theMuseo Español de Antigüedades).

[117]“Penado.A narrow-mouthed vessel that affords the liquor with scantiness and difficulty.” Connelly and Higgins' Dictionary;a.d.1798.

[118]This machine was invented by a Catalan named Pedro Fronvila.

[119]Vol. I., pp.144–147.

[120]Breñosa and Castellarnau;Guide to San Ildefonso(1884), p. 53. Rico y Sinobas observes that in the objects produced at the factory of La Granja, the glass itself is inferior to the engraving or cutting with which it is adorned. This leads him to infer that the foreigners brought over by the kings of Spain to superintend the factory, were cutters and engravers of glass, rather than skilled glass-makers. He also draws attention to the fact that the Spanish monarchs chose these foreign craftsmen from too limited a class, entrusting the most important posts at all the royal factories to Frenchmen who were stated to descend from the old nobility of their native country. In this manner the progress and welfare of the craft itself was sacrificed to an insane prejudice in favour of the aristocratic origin of the craftsman.

[121]Ricord;Noticia de las varias y diferentes Producciones del Reyno de Valencia, etc.: segun el estado que tenían en el año 1791.Valencia, 1793.

[122]“The mode of drinking in this country is singular; they hold a broad-bottom'd glass bottle at arm's length, and let the liquor spout out of a long neck upon their tongue; from what I see, their expertness at this exercise arises from frequent practise; for the Catalans drink often and in large quantities, but as yet I have not seen any of them intoxicated.”—Swinburne.

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The original spelling and minor inconsistencies in the spelling and formatting have been maintained.

Inconsistent hyphenation and accents are as in the original if not marked as a misprint.

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