An excellent _rejero_ named Hernando de Arenas completed the grille of Cuenca Cathedral in 1557. Three years before, a Cordovese, Fernando de Valencia, had made the intricate Renaissance _reja_ of the Chapel of the Asunción in the mosque of that most ancient capital--a noble piece of work, which still exists. Other _rejeros_ who were either natives of, or who resided in, this city were Pedro Sanchez, Alonso Perez, Pedro Sanchez Cardenosa, Francisco Lopez, Juan Martinez Cano, and Diego de Valencia. One of these men, Alonso Perez, a native of Jaen, contracted, on April 13th, 1576, to make the _rejas_ of the Capilla Mayor in the church of the convent of the Trinity at Cordova. He was to finish them within one year, at a cost of fifty-one _maravedis_ for every pound of iron, of sixteen ounces to the pound. Ramírez de Arellano, who has extracted these notices of Cordovese artists from the city archives[73], says that the _reja_ in question is no longer standing; but a document of the time informs us that it was of an elaborate character, and carried architraves, cornices, and the usual decorative detail of the Spanish Renaissance. [73] Consult his valuable studies, _Artistas exhumados_, published in various numbers of the _Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursionistas_. In 1593 Pedro Sanchez agreed to make, within four years, a grille for the old chapel of the Concepción, also in Cordova, at a cost of forty-nine maravedis for every pound of iron that the finished _reja_ should contain; and a year later the same artist signed a contract for what is thought to be his masterpiece--the _reja_ of the chapel of the Holy Cross, in the nave of the _sagrario_ of the same temple. The stipulated time was two years only; but the cost amounted in this instance to one hundred maravedis for every pound of the completed _reja_. Marvels of power and of patience are among the _rejas_ of this land. In them, obedient to the genius of the craftsman, the ponderous metal assumes the gossamer lightness of the finest gauze, now seeming to be breathed rather than built across the entrance to some side-chapel, now tapering skyward till we fancy it to melt away, like vapour, on the surface of the lofty roof. Such are the screens--which here demand a brief description--of Toledo and Palencia and Granada; that of Cuenca, where Arenas plied his master-hand; and, first in merit of them all, the peerless _reja_, royal in magnificence and faultless taste, that closes in at Burgos the no less royal-looking chapel of a Count of Haro, sometime Constable of all Castile.