There are few sculptures left which can with any certainty be referred to the Visigothic period. The fragments discovered at San Romano de Hornija, at Toledo, and at Seville, though they bear vestiges of Visigothic workmanship, belong in reality to the Christian period. It would seem that the Visigoths for the most part limited their work to restoring the Roman buildings and adapting them for Christian uses. The ornamentation which they often added is usually of Byzantine origin, an influence reaching Spain through France. Yet the sumptuous character of their art is shown in the only important works of this period which remain: the splendid votive crowns of Kings Recceswinth and Swenthila, found in 1858 at Guarraza, near Toledo (Plate 1), and now in the Royal Armoury, Madrid, and in the Musée de Cluny in Paris. But these crowns are not Spanish works. Indeed many centuries separate the genuinely Spanish carvings of the Iberian artists from any work that again manifests the characters which belong to the native art. It has been said by Professor Carl Justi, in a short but excellent account of Spanish sculpture which is given in Baedeker’s “Guide to Spain,” that “the existence of works in stone can hardly be proved before the eleventh century.” This is a mistake. The early Christian carvings are in stone; they must be sought in Asturias, the provinces which first shook off the Moorish rule. In 791 Alfonso II., known as the Chaste, made Oviedo the capital of the then struggling kingdom of Asturias. He was a ruler of ability and culture, and spent all his time when he was not fighting in building both churches and palaces. On his return from his campaigns he consecrated the spoils taken from the enemy to embellish his growing city.