Another of the causes of the falling-off in Spanish _orfebrería_ at this time, is stated to have been the craftsmen's overwhelming tendency to substitute the slighter though venerable and beautiful gold or silver filigree (Plate xviii.), for more artistic and ambitious, if less showy work in massive metal. Thus, in 1699, a supplementary chapter of the Ordinances of Seville complained in bitter phrases of this tendency, denouncing it as "a source of fraud and detriment to the republic," and deploring that "of the last few years we have forsaken our goodly usages of older times, in the matter of the drawings entrusted to the candidates who come before us for examination." In the same year the goldsmiths' and the silversmiths' guild of Seville enacted that none of its members were to work in filigree, unless they were qualified to execute the other work as well. Such efforts to suppress this evil were not new. More than a century before, on April 15th, 1567, the inspectors of the guild had entered the shop of Luis de Alvarado, silversmith, and seized some filigree earrings "of the work that is forbidden," breaking these objects on the spot, and imposing a fine of half-a-dozen ducats on the peccant or oblivious Alvarado.[60] [60] Gestoso, _Diccionario de Artífices Sevillanos_, vol. ii. p. 134. The modern gold and silver work of Spain is thus exempted from a lengthy notice, seeing that its typical and national characteristics have succumbed, or very nearly so. I may, however, mention the giant silver candelabra in the cathedral of Palma de Mallorca, which were made at Barcelona, between 1704 and 1718, by Juan Matons and three of his assistants. They measure eight feet high by four feet and a quarter across, weigh more than eight thousand ounces, and cost 21,942 pounds, 15 _sueldos_, and 11 _dineros_ of Majorcan money. The State seized them during the Napoleonic wars, in order to melt them down for money; but the chapter of the cathedral bought them back for eleven thousand dollars. [Illustration: XVIII EARLY CHALICE AND CROSS IN FILIGREE GOLD-WORK (_Church of Saint Isidore, León_)] During this century Riaño mentions several factories of silver articles established at Madrid, including that of Isaac and Michael Naudin (1772) and the Escuela de Platería (1778), protected by Charles the Third; but since the work of these was purely in the French or English manner, they call for no particular notice. The principal objects they produced were "inkstands, dishes, dinner-services, chocolate-stands, cruets, knives and forks, together with buckles, needle-cases, brooches, snuff-boxes, frames for miniatures, and similar trinkets."