Although several valuable and voluminous catalogues of the Spanish Royal Armoury have, from time to time, been compiled, this “finest collection of armour in the world” has been subjected so often to the disturbing influences of fire, removal and rearrangement, that no hand catalogue of the Museum is available, and this book has been designed to serve both as a historical souvenir of the institution and a record of its treasures. GRANADA AND THE ALHAMBRA WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE MOSLEM RULE IN SPAIN AND OF THE ARCHITECTURE, AND THE DECORATION OF THE MOORISH PALACE, AND 460 PLATES This volume is the third and abridged edition of a work which the author was inspired to undertake by the surpassing loveliness of the Alhambra, and by his disappointment in the discovery that no such thing as an even moderately adequate illustrated souvenir of “this glorious sanctuary of Spain” was obtainable. Keenly conscious of the want himself, he essayed to supply it, and the result is a volume that has been acclaimed with enthusiasm alike by critics, artists, architects, and archæologists. * * * * * _UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME_ LEON, BURGOS AND SALAMANCA A HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT, WITH 462 PLATES In Leon, once the capital of the second kingdom in Spain; in Burgos which boasts one of the most magnificent cathedrals in Spain, and the custodianship of the bones of the Cid; and in Salamanca, with its university, which is one of the oldest in Europe the author has selected three of the most interesting relics of ancient grandeur in this country of departed greatness. Leon to-day is nothing but a large agricultural village, torpid, silent, dilapidated; Burgos, which still retains traces of the Gotho-Castilian character, is a gloomy and depleting capital; and Salamanca is a city of magnificent buildings, a broken hulk, spent by the storms that from time to time have devastated her. CATALONIA AND THE BALEARIC ISLANDS A HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT, WITH 250 PLATES Catalonia is the Spain of to-day and of the future. There are those who believe that Catalonia contains all the elements essential to the complete regeneration of Spain, and that she will raise the whole country to her industrial level. But the old county of Barcelona has a glorious and stirring past, as well as a promising future. Her history goes back to the days of Charlemagne, and has to tell of merchant princes and of hazardous commercial enterprise reminding one of the Italian maritime republics. The Balearic Islands, one of which (Minorca) was long an English possession, constitute one of the most flourishing provinces of the Kingdom. Delightful as a place of sojourn or residence, Majorca and her sister isles reveal many and conspicuous traces of that prehistoric race which once offered bloody sacrifices to the Sun on all the shores of the Inland Sea. THE ESCORIAL