+SPAIN.+ The flamboyant Gothic style sufficed for a while to meet the requirements of the arrogant and luxurious period which in Spain followed the overthrow of the Moors and the discovery of America. But it was inevitable that the Renaissance should in time make its influence felt in the arts of the Iberian peninsula, largely through the employment of Flemish artists. In jewelry and silverwork, arts which received a great impulse from the importation of the precious metals from the New World, the forms of the Renaissance found special acceptance, so that the new style received the name of the _Plateresque_ (from _platero_, silversmith). This was a not inept name for the minutely detailed and sumptuous decoration of the early Renaissance, which lasted from 1500 to the accession of Philip II. in 1556. It was characterized by surface-decoration spreading over broad areas, especially around doors and windows, florid escutcheons and Gothic details mingling with delicately chiselled arabesques. Decorative pilasters with broken entablatures and carved baluster-shafts were employed with little reference to constructive lines, but with great refinement of detail, in spite of the exuberant profusion of the ornament. To this style, after the artistic inaction of Philip II.’s reign, succeeded the coldly classic style practised by _Berruguete_ and _Herrera_, and called the _Griego-Romano_. In spite of the attempt to produce works of classical purity, the buildings of this period are for the most part singularly devoid of originality and interest. This style lasted until the middle of the seventeenth century, and in the case of certain works and artists, until its close. It was followed, at least in ecclesiastical architecture, by the so-called _Churrigueresque_, a name derived from an otherwise insignificant architect, _Churriguera_, who like Maderna and Borromini in Italy, discarded all the proprieties of architecture, and rejoiced in the wildest extravagances of an untrained fancy and debased taste. +EARLY MONUMENTS.+ The earliest ecclesiastical works of the Renaissance period, like the cathedrals of Salamanca, Toledo, and Segovia, were almost purely Gothic in style. Not until 1525 did the new forms begin to dominate in cathedral design. The cathedral at +Jaen+, by _Valdelvira_ (1525), an imposing structure with three aisles and side chapels, was treated internally with the Corinthian order throughout. The Cathedral of +Granada+ (1529, by _Diego de Siloe_) is especially interesting for its great domical sanctuary 70 feet in diameter, and for the largeness and dignity of its conception and details. The cathedral of Malaga, the church of San Domingo at Salamanca, and the monastery of San Girolamo in the same city are either wholly or in part Plateresque, and provided with portals of especial richness of decoration. Indeed, the portal of S. Domingo practically forms the whole façade. [Illustration: FIG. 195.--DOOR OF THE UNIVERSITY, SALAMANCA.]