In this account we clearly trace each various and successive influence that had permeated older Spain, leaving her, at the close of every period, a nation that produced illustrious artists, but never a nation deeply versed in, or devoted to, the arts. The beds and brasiers of these modern Spaniards were derived from ancient Rome; their general dearth of comfortable furniture, together with the lower, and therefore more humiliating, seats for women, from the Spanish Moors; the typically ponderous hangings from mediæval Spain herself; the fresco wall-paintings, such as may still be seen in many a Spanish country home, from classic or Renaissance Italy; and the finicking gilt, rococo cornucopias from France; while the use of mirrors and of lustres in hideous combination with straw-bottomed chairs, almost reminds us of the days of Visigothic barbarism. LEATHER _Guadamacilería_, or the art of decorating leather with painting, gilding, and impressions in relief, is commonly believed to have crossed from Africa to Spain at some time in the Middle Ages. According to Duveyrier, the word _guadamecí_ or _guadamecil_ is taken from Ghadames, a town in Barbary where the craft was practised long ago; but Covarrubias gives it an origin directly Spanish, supposing that the title and the craft alike proceeded from a certain town of Andalusia. However this may be, the preparation of these leathers grew to be a most important industry in various parts of Spain, and spread, as time went on, to Italy, France, and other European countries.[24] [24] "Spain lays claim to the invention of the art of gilding leather; it is asserted that, after being discovered there, the secret was carried to Naples by Peter Paul Majorano."--Laborde, vol. v., p. 231. In the Peninsula, the principal centres of this work were Cordova, Seville, Lerida, Barcelona, Ciudad Real, and Valladolid. Cordova, however, was so far ahead of all the rest that leathers decorated in this style were known throughout the world as _cueros de Córdoba_, or "Cordova leathers." Another name for them is said to have been _cordobanes_; but possibly the application of this latter word was less restricted. Bertaut de Rouen wrote in the seventeenth century of Ciudad Real:--"C'est une ville située dans une grande plaine, et dont l'enceinte est assez grande, qui estoit mesme fort peuplée autrefois, mais elle est quasi deserte à present. Il ne luy reste plus rien sinon que c'est là où l'on appreste le mieux les peaux de _Cordouan_, dont on fait les gans d'Espagne. C'est delà aussi d'où elles viennent pour la pluspart à Madrid. J'en achetay quelques-unes." [Illustration: XIV DOOR OF THE CAPILLA DE LOS VARGAS (_Madrid_)]