An Architect's Note-Book in Spain: principally illustrating the domestic architecture of that country.Wyatt, M. Digby (Matthew Digby), Sir
History
An Architect's Note-Book in Spain: principally illustrating the domestic architecture of that country.
Wyatt, M. Digby (Matthew Digby), Sir
Architecture -- Spain
To return for a moment to the picturesque doorway I have sketched. Its
sculpture, which in execution is very good of its kind, is as completely
Renaissance in character as its architecture is still Gothic; it in fact
corresponds to Mudejar work, with this difference, that the admixture
with the Gothic in this case is Plateresque, while in the Mudejar work
it is Moorish.
[Illustration: PLATE 94
BARCELONA
KNOCKER TO OLD HOUSE CALLE SANTA LUCIA.
MDW 1869]
PLATE XCIV.
_BARCELONA._
KNOCKER OF AN OLD HOUSE IN THE CALLE SANTA LUCIA.
IN the vicinity of the old church of Sta. Lucia yet exist at Barcelona
several interesting stone houses of the fifteenth century. Upon the
doors of these are to be still found specimens of excellent iron work of
the same period. It is not however to be supposed that the Barcelonese
possessed any very special gifts in this line, since evidences of almost
equal dexterity are to be found scattered over the whole extent of the
Peninsula. In the north and south alike, the "Rejas," or vast screens,
sometimes of iron only, sometimes of brass and bronze, and sometimes of
mixed metals, are yet to be found of great importance and interest. The
most famous of the "Rejeros," as they were called, or makers of Rejas,
were Francesco de Salamanca who flourished in 1533; Christobal Andino of
1540; Francesco de Vilalpando of 1561; and Juan Bautista Celma of 1600.
Because these men's names have become "household words" amongst all
students of Spanish Art, it should not be forgotten that great men "to
fortune and to fame unknown" lived before those whose good deeds and
works encountered fitting record. By some of these were executed many of
the various admirable specimens of metal work commented upon in terms
of high praise by Ford, Street, O'Shea and other writers. The finest
metal worker who really startled his contemporaries by the beauty and
splendour of his workmanship, its "elaboracion y prolixedad," was the
celebrated Henrique de Arfé, gold and silversmith of Leon, founder of a
family which for several generations supplied artist-workmen in the
precious metals whose fame rests upon the same platform as that of
Cellini and Caradosso di Milano. His principal works were, according to
the account given to us of them by his grandson Juan, in the "Varia
Commensuracion," the custodias (or "ciboria" for holding the sanctified
wafer) of the Cathedrals of Leon, Cordova, Toledo, and Sahagun. Of
crosses, paxes, censers, pixes, feretories, candelabra, monstrances,
lamps, &c., he scattered specimens broadcast throughout Spain. In all of
them he showed, as his descendant declared, "El valor de su ingenio
raro, con mayor efecto que puede escribirse."
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