More important than the foregoing was the famous factory of a village in Toledo province called Cadalso, or sometimes, from the nature of its only industry, Cadalso (or Cadahalso) de los Vidrios. The glass made here is mentioned in terms of high praise by various writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, such as Marineus Siculus and Mendez Silva. The former of these authors says in his work upon the _Memorable Things of Spain_: "Glass was produced in several towns of Castile, the most important being that of Cadalso, which supplied the whole kingdom." Ewers and bottles of Cadalso glass are mentioned in the Alburquerque inventory. Mendez Silva says that the number of ovens was originally three, and that their coloured glass was equal to Venetian (Plate lxxiv.). This was towards the middle of the seventeenth century. Larruga tells us that by the end of the eighteenth this local industry was languishing. One of the three ovens had been abandoned. The other two produced inferior glass, as well as in diminished quantities. [Illustration: LXXIV VESSELS OF SPANISH GLASS (_South Kensington Museum_)] The glass of Cataluña maintained its ancient reputation all through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and part of the seventeenth, and at this time was still compared with the Venetian by observant travellers (Plate lxxv.). Besides the capital, the principal glass-works in this province were at Almatret, Moncada, Cervelló, and Mataró. In 1489 a Barcelonese, by name Vicente Sala, and his sons applied to the City Council for leave to construct an oven at Moncada "in order to pursue the craft of glass-making, _lo qual a present aci se obre axi bellament e suptil com en part del mon_ (seeing that the glass we manufacture in this neighbourhood competes with any in the world for subtlety and beauty)." A document is extant from which we learn that the City Councillors of Barcelona made strenuous efforts to prevail upon Ferdinand the Catholic to abolish a certain monopoly or other form of exclusive privilege which he had conceded to a local glass-maker. The result of this appeal is not recorded. In 1503 Ferdinand presented his consort with two hundred and seventy-four glass objects made at Barcelona, and Philip the Second possessed a hundred and nineteen pieces proceeding from the same locality. [Illustration: LXXV VESSELS OF CATALAN GLASS (_From Drawings by the Author_)]