Mention of these typically Spanish objects known as _reposteros_,[46] induces me to quote an interesting notice relating to the visit of Philip the Second to Cordova, in the year 1570. The train of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, who journeyed to this city in order to receive his sovereign, consisted of a hundred and three mules covered with "new _reposteros_ of wool, and of six mules covered with _reposteros_ of purple velvet, embroidered with silver and gold, and bearing the duke's arms." [46] "_Reposteros_," says Riaño, "is the ancient name given to the hangings which are placed outside the balconies on state occasions in Spain. Several splendid examples of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries may still be seen at the houses of Spanish grandees, of which those belonging to the Conde de Oñate and Marques de Alcañices at Madrid are the most remarkable for their artistic design." It is surprising that Riaño should insert so incomplete a definition of this word, whose primitive and proper meaning, according to the Dictionary of the Spanish Academy, is "a square piece of cloth with the arms of a prince or Señor, which serves for covering baggage carried by beasts of burden, and also for hanging in antechambers." See also Vol. II., p. 16 (note) of the present work. If, as seems most likely, the woollen _reposteros_ above referred to were of woven work containing a device, this passage would demonstrate that the manufacture of the cloths in question was sometimes the province of the tapestry-maker and sometimes that of the embroiderer. Ramírez de Arellano, from whose instructive studies on the craftsmen of older Spain I quote the foregoing extract, says that the making of _reposteros_ constitutes a branch of craftsmanship distinct from embroidery of the common class, and that the men who produced them deserve to be included among artists of real merit. He gives the names of two, Hernán Gonzalez and Juan Ramos, who worked at Cordova in the middle of the sixteenth century. A document relating to the former of these men tells us that in those days the price of a _repostero de estambre_ measuring sixteen palms square, with a coat-of-arms worked in the centre, and a decorative border, was ninety _reales_. [Illustration: XXI THE SPINNERS (_By Velazquez. Prado Gallery_)]