The Arts and Crafts of Older Spain, Volume 3 (of 3)Williams, Leonard
History
The Arts and Crafts of Older Spain, Volume 3 (of 3)
Williams, Leonard
Decorative arts -- Spain -- History
founding the royal glass factory of San Ildefonso, did not dare to
ennoble the Castilian workmen.
[75] The treatment of distinguished craftsmen by the Spanish church was
often sheerly villainous. A document, inserted by Zarco del Valle
among his collection of _Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de
las Bellas Artes en España_, p. 362, and in the handwriting of
"Maestre" Domingo (see Vol. I., pp. 148, 149), states that after
making the choir-_reja_ for Toledo cathedral, "so richly wrought,
that in the elegance and rarity thereof it far surpasseth all that
has been witnessed in our time, whether in his majesty's dominions
or abroad," and expending on it "all the money I had earned in my
youth," this eminent _rejero_ found himself by now "owing a great
quantity of _maravedis_, seeing that I am utterly without
resources," concluding by an appeal to the archbishop to "take heed
how that I shall not perish through such poverty, and my wife and
children in the hospital."
In another document the same artificer complains that in producing
the aforesaid _reja_, he had sacrificed "not only my labour, but my
property to boot, having been compelled to sell my house and my
inheritance to compensate me for my losses," adding that the
cathedral authorities had violated their engagement with him.
In answer to a series of petitions such as this, the archbishop
tardily gave orders for the payment to Domingo of a lump sum of
fifteen thousand _maravedis_ and a pension for the rest of his life
of two silver _reales_ of Castilian money, "to aid him to support
himself." This was in A.D. 1563. By 1565 death had ended the
miseries of the master-craftsman, and again we find his widow and
children knocking at the archbishop's door, pleading that "extreme
is our necessity," and declaring that Domingo had succumbed
overburdened with debt, _affirming on his deathbed that the
cathedral owed him three thousand ducats, being half the value of
a reja he had made_.
In answer to this terrible appeal, the thrifty prelate ordered that
_since it was found to be true that Master Domingo had lost his
maravedis in making the rejas of the choir_, his widow and children
should receive a daily pension of one _real_, and that a suit of
clothes should be given to each of his sons and his two daughters.
[76] So rarely, that Salazar de Mendoza affirms in his book upon
_Castilian Dignities_ that this "high prenomen" (_alto prenombre
Don_) might properly be used by none but kings, _infantes_,
prelates, and the _ricos-homes_ of the realm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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