As regards Spanish art we cannot do better than adopt the statements of Señor J. F. Riaño, who says that "the brilliant epoch of sculpture in wood belongs to the sixteenth century, and was due to the great impulse it received from the works of Berruguete and Felipe de Borgoña. He was the chief promoter of the Italian style, and the choir of the cathedral of Toledo, where he worked so much, is the finest specimen of the kind in Spain. Toledo, Seville, and Valladolid were at that time great productive and artistic centres. As a specimen of wood carving of the Italian renaissance period, applied to an object of furniture, the magnificent wardrobe by Gregorio Pardo (1549) outside the chapter house at Toledo may be mentioned as one of the most beautiful things of its kind. These various styles of ornamentation were applied to the cabinets 'Bufetes' of such varied form and materials which were so much the fashion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The most characteristic of Spain are such as are called 'Vargueños.' These cabinets are decorated outside with fine ironwork, and inside with columns of bone painted and gilt. The other cabinets or escritoires belonging to that period, which are so frequently met with in Spain, were to a large extent imported from Germany and Italy, _while others were made in Spain in imitation of these_" (the italics are ours), "and as the copies were very similar it is difficult to classify them. It may be asserted, however, that cabinets of inlaid wood were made in great perfection in Spain at the end of the sixteenth century, for in a memorial written by a maker of tapestry, Pedro Gretierez, who worked for queen Isabella, he says, 'The escritoires and cabinets brought from Germany are worth 500, 600, and 700 reales each, and those of the same kind made in Spain by Spaniards are to be had for 250 and 300 reales.' Besides these inlaid cabinets others must have been made in the sixteenth century inlaid with silver. An edict was issued in 1594 prohibiting, with the utmost rigour, the making and selling of this kind of merchandise, in order not to increase the scarcity of silver. The edict says that 'no cabinets, desks, coffers, brasiers, shoes, tables, or other articles decorated with stamped, raised, carved, or plain silver, should be manufactured.'" CHAPTER IX. TUDOR AND STUART STYLES.