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WORK.

THE HISPANIC SOCIETY
OF AMERICA

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HISPANIC SOCIETY
1927

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SPANISH IRONWORK
HISPANIC SOCIETY PUBLICATIONS
NO. 89

GILDED IRON PULPIT IN AVI LA CATHEDRAL.
Renaissance. Circa 1520.

SPANISH IRONWORK

BY
ARTHUR BYNE
AND
MILDRED STAPLEY

WITH ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY EIGHT
ILLUSTRATIONS

THE HISPANIC SOCIETY
OF AMERICA 1915

COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY
THE HISPANIC SOCIETY
OF AMERICA

TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS  vii
Introduction  xxi
I Spanish Ironwork Previous to the
Gothic Period  1
II Gothic Rejas and Pulpits  20
III Gothic Hardware and Domestic-
Utensils  45
IV The Development of the Renais
sance Reja  69
V Renaissance Church Rejas  80
VI Smaller Renaissance Productions. . 102
VII The Last of Spanish Ironwork ... 120
Index  131
Catalogue of Ironwork in the Collection
of the Hispanic Society of America. 139

CELTIBERIAN SWORD. Found at Amarejo . . 1
Fig. l. Early Catalan Forge  3
Fig. 2. Santa Cruz Reja, Pamplona Cathe
dral. Early XIII Century  2
Fig. 3. Reja Arabe, Capilla del Sagrario,
Palencia Cathedral. XIII Century 4
Fig. 4. Window Reja, Nuestra Sefiora del
Mercado, Leon. Late XIII Century . 4
Fig. 5. Iron Nails with Wrought Heads.
Moorish. XIV Century  IS
Fig. 6. Iron Nails with Wrought Heads.
Spanish. XVI Century  IS
Fig. 7. Detached Nailheads or Bosses.
XVI Century  6
Fig. 8. Bosses and Knockers. Count of To
ledo's house. XVI Century  10
Fig. 9. Iron-mounted Door. Avila. Early
XVI Century  10

viii list of illustrations PAGE
Fig. 10. Copper-plated Doors. Puerta del Per-
don, Mosque of Cordova. 1377 .... 12
Fig. n. Details of Paneling and Knocker,
Puerta del Perdon  12
Fig. 12. Bronze-mounted Doors. From Se-
villa Cathedral, now in the Museo Na-
cional, Madrid. Late XIV Century . . 12
Fig. 13. Iron-plated Doors. Main Portal of
Tarragona Cathedral. 1510  14
Fig. 14. Cloister Rejas, Barcelona Cathedral.
Early XIV Century  16
Fig. 15. Reja of a Cloister Chapel, Barcelona
Cathedral  18
Fig. 16. Reja of a Cloister Chapel, Barcelona
Cathedral  20
Fig. 17. Detail of Reja Lock. Cloister Chapel,
Barcelona Cathedral  23
Fig. 18. Reja, Capilla de Nuestra Senora
de las Angustias. Church of San
Pablo, Palencia. Early XV Century 24
Fig. 19. Window Reja. Archiepiscopal Palace,
Salamanca. XVI Century  20
Fig. 20. Window Reja. Casa de las Conchas,
Salamanca. 1514  20
Fig. 21. Lattice Reja, Puerta del Obispo Tenorio,
Cloisters of Toledo Cathedral. Circa
1400  22

LIST of ILLUSTRATIONS ix
PAGE
Fig. 22. Lattice Window Reja. House of Pedro
Davila, Avila. XVI Century  22
Fig. 23. Detail of Intersections. Lattice
Wi ndow Reja. House of Pedro Davila,
Avila. XVI Century  28
Fig. 24. Split Bar Reja. Patio of the Count of
Toledo's House, Toledo  30
Fig. 25. Split Bar Motif. Reja of the Royal
Chapel, Granada. 1518-23  24
Fig. 26. Typical Patterning into which
Bars were Opened  31
Fig. 27. Gotico-florido Reja. Casa de las
Conchas, Salamanca. 1514  26
Fig. 28. Gotico-florido Reja. Casa de las
Conchas, Salamanca. 1514  26
Fig. 29. Tomb Reja or Verja. Tomb of Bishop
Diego de Anaya, Old Cathedral of Sal
amanca. Circa 1450  28
Fig. 30. Reja, Capilla de Santa Ana. Burgos
Cathedral. 1488  28
Fig. 31. Cloister Reja. Cresting in color, Si-
guenza Cathedral. 1508  30
Fig. 32. Cloister Reja. Cresting in color, Si-
guenza Cathedral. 1508  30
Fig. 33. Rubbing of Under Plate of Tra
cery Band  32
Fig. 34. Rubbing of Upper Plate of Tra
cery Band  32

X list of illustrations PAGE
Fig. 35. The Two Plates Riveted Together.
Middle XV Century  32
Fig. 36. Rubbing of Under Plate of Tra
cery Band  34
Fig. 37. Rubbing of Upper Plate of Tra
cery Band  34
Fig. 38. The Two Plates Riveted Together.
Middle XV Century  34
Fig. 39. Foliated Band. Pierced and Beaten in
Repousse. Late XV Century  41
Fig. 40. Flamboyant Gothic Pulpit. Avila
Cathedral. Circa 1520  36
Fig. 41. Wrought Iron Hinges, Church of San
Millan, Segovia  36
Fig. 42. Crude Door Knocker. Probably
early XV Century  38
Fig. 43. Door Knocker. Showing early use of
crown motif. Later XIV Century . . 40
Fig. 44. Gothic-Renaissance Door Knocker.
Early XVI Century  42
Fig. 45. Gothic-Renaissance Door Knocker.
Early XVI Century  44
Fig. 46. Gothic-Renaissance Door Knocker.
About 1660  44
Fig. 47. Archaic Hammer of a XV Century
Door Knocker  48

list of illustrations xi
PAGE
Fig. 48. Archaic Hammer of a XV Century
Door Knocker  48
Fig. 49. Door Knocker with a Single Bosse.
Late XVI Century  46
Fig. so. Door Knocker with Double Bosse.
Late XVI Century  46
Fig. 51. Stirrup Knocker. XVII Century . . 48
Fig. 52. Pilgrim Shell Knocker. Early XVII
Century  48
Fig. 53. One of a Pair of Gothic Door
Knockers. XV Century  SO
Fig. 54. Door Knocker of Mudejar Design.
XVII Century  50
Fig. 55. Knocker. Gothic in spirit but prob
ably XVIII Century work  50
Fig. 56. Door Knocker with Incised Pat
terning. XV Century  52
Fig. 57. Ring Handle with Clinch. XVI
Century  52
Fig. 58. Ring Handle with Bosse. XVI Cen
tury  52
Fig. 59. Ring Knocker of Moorish Inspi
ration. XVI Century  52
Fig. 60. Ring Handle of Oriental Design.
Late XVI Century  54
Fig. 61. Door Knocker of Oriental Inspi
ration. About 1600  54

Xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE
Fig. 62. Door Knocker of Oriental Design.
Late XVI Century  54
Fig. 63. Door Knocker with Mudejar Tra
cery. Late XVI Century  56
Fig. 64. Door Handle with Mudejar Tra
cery. Late XVI Century  56
Fig. 65. Door Knocker with Gothic Back-
plate. XVII Century  53
Fig. 66. Gothic Knocker. Late XVI Century 55
Fig. 67. Rich Flamboyant Knocker. Middle
XVI Century  58
Fig. 68. Knocker of Aragonese Type. XVII
Century  60
Fig. 69. Knocker of Aragonese Type. XVII
Century  60
Fig. 70. Door Knocker. Tentative Renaissance
but made in the XVI I Century .... 60
Fig. 71. Door Knocker with Open Back-
plate. XVII Century  60
Fig. 72. Door Knocker of Early Renais
sance Design. About 1600 .... 60
Fig. 73. Chest Lock with Typical Fixing
Staples. Late XV Century  62
Fig. 74. Chest Lock with Canopy. Late XV
Century  62

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii
PAGE
Fig. 75. Chest Lock with False Fixing Sta
ple over Keyhole. Late XVI Cen
tury  58
Fig. 76. Lock and Hasp. Elaborate Mudejar
design. XVII Century  64
Fig. 77. Chest Hasp. Late XVI Century ... 66
Fig. 78. Chest Hasp. Typical of the XVII Cen
tury  66
Fig. 79. Chest Hasp. Typical of the XVII Cen
tury  66
Fig. 80. Lockplate and Hasp. Probably XVI I
Century  59
Fig. 81. Arcon, or Trunk with Iron Fit
tings  68
Fig. 82. Small Leather Strong Box .... 68
Fig. 83. Table Candelero Patterned after
the Roman. In the Museum of Vieh.
XI Century  63
Fig. 84. Table Candelero. Catalan. In the
Museum of Vieh. XV Century .... 63
Fig. 85. Ecclesiastical Candelabra. Cata
lan. In the Museum of Vieh. XIII
Century  64
Fig. 86. Ecclesiastical Candelabra. Cata
lan. In the Museum of Vieh. XV
Century  64

Xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE
Fig. 87. Ecclesiastical Candelabra. XVI
Century  68
Fig. 88. Brazier in Two Stories. XVII Cen
tury  68
Fig. 89. Brazier on Wheels. Catalan. XIV
Century  65
Fig. 90. Iron Fi re-Dog. Catalan. XV Cen
tury  66
Fig. 91. Guard and Fi re-Dogs. Museo del
Greco, Toledo  67
Fig. 92. Renaissance Band in Repousse.
Perforated. Early XVI Century ... 70
Fig. 93. Renaissance Band in Repousse.
XVI Century  70
Fig. 94. Renaissance Band in Repousse.
Middle XVI Century  70
Fig. 95. Renaissance Band in Repousse.
Late XVI Century  70
Fig. 96. Nave of Burgos Cathedral. Show
ing the importance of the reja in Span
ish churches  72
Fig. 97. Reja of the Capilla de Santa
Librada. Sigiienza Cathedral. Early
XVI Century  74
Fig. 98. Reja of the Puerta del Cardo. Leon
Cathedral. Late XV Century .... 76

LIST of illustrations xv
PAGE
Fig. 99. Reja of the Capilla de Santa Mag-
DALENA. Cloisters of Tarragona Cathe
dral. Early XVI Century  76
Fig. 100. Reja of the Coro. Toledo Cathedral.
1549  76
Fig. 101. Reja of the Capilla Mayor. Sevilla
Cathedral. 1518-33  78
Fig. 102. Panel of the Entombment. Reja
of the Capilla Mayor, Sevilla Cathe
dral  87
Fig. 103. Reja of the Coro. Sevilla Cathedral.
1519  80
Fig. 104. Reja in the Capilla Real. Granada.
1523  82
Fig. 105. Arms of Ferdinand and Isabella
AND THEIR GRANDSON CHARLES V.
Reja in the Capilla Real, Granada. 1523 84
Fig. 106. Reja of the Capilla de la Presen-
TACi6n. Burgos Cathedral. Middle
XVI Century  84
Fig. 107. Reja of the Capilla del Condes-
TABLE. Burgos Cathedral. 1523 . . 86
Fig. 108. ESCALERA DORADA OR GOLDEN STAIR
WAY. Burgos Cathedral. 1519 ... 88
Fig. 109. Reja of the Coro. Palencia Cathe
dral. Probably 1555  90
Fig. no. Reja of a Side Chapel. Cuenca
Cathedral. Middle XVI Century ... 92

xvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE
Fig. ill. Reja of a Side Chapel. Segovia Ca
thedral. Late XVI Century  92
Fig. 112. Reja of the Coro. Plasencia Cathe
dral, 1604  94
Fig. 113. Portion of a Reja Cresting.
Northern Spain. Early XVII Century. 96
Fig. 114. Gate Reja Leading to Stairway.
Salamanca University. Early XVI
Century  98
Fig. 115. Entrance Reja to Library. Sala
manca University. XVI Century ... 98
Fig. 116. Entrance Gates. XVII Century . . 103
Fig. 117. Typical Facade with Window Re
jas. House in Granada  100
Fig. 118. Window Reja, Faqade of the Uni
versity of Alcala  100
Fig. 119. Window Reja, Casa de Pilatos. Se
villa. Middle XVI Century  100
Fig. 120. Window with Reja Hood. Toledo.
XVI Century  102
Fig. 121. Window Reja. Facade of the Audien-
cia. Granada. XVII Century . . . 106
Fig. 122. Renaissance Pulpit. Avila Cathe
dral. Early XVI Century  104
Fig. 123. Renaissance Pulpit. Sevilla Cathe
dral. Early XVI Century  106

list of illustrations xviiPAGE
Fig. 124. Swinging Pulpit. Monastery of Las
Huelgas, Burgos. XVI Century . . . 106
Fig. 125. Moorish Keys. Sevilla Cathedral.
Probably XII Century  110
Fig. 126. Gothic Key, Aragonese. XIV Century ill
Fig. 127. Spanish Keys of the XVI, XVII,
and XVIII Centuries  108
Fig. 128. VARGUENO WITH DECORATIONS IN
IRON. XVI Century  108
Fig. 129. Flattened out Corner-brace of a
Vargueno  114
Fig. 130. Vargueno Lock. XVI Century ... 116
Fig. 131. Face of Vargueno showing Iron
Mountings. XVI Century  no
Fig. 132. Rubbing from a Vargueno Lock-
plate. XVI Century  114
Fig. 133. Rubbing from a Vargueno Lock-
plate. XVII Century  114
Fig. 134. Vargueno Lockplate with Hasp.
XVII Century  116
Fig. 135. Vargueno Lockplate with Hasp.
XVII Century  116
Fig. 136. A Pair of Renaissance Fixing-
Staples  117
Fig. 137. A Pair of Renaissance Door Knock
ers. XVII Century  116

XV111 list of illustrations PAGE
Fig. 138. Lockplate and Hasp. XVII Century 116
Fig. 139. Knocker Exhibiting Greek Re
vival. XVIII Century  118
Fig. 140. Door Knocker. Renaissance back-
plate. Hammer of Classic Inspiration. 118
Fig. 141. Door Handle and Escutcheon
PLATE. From a Palace in Palma,
Balearic Isles. XVII Century . 119
Fig. 142. Balcony Front. From a Palace in
Palma. XVIII Century . . 121
Fig. 143. Balcony with a Curved Front.
Palace in Palma. XVIII Century . . 121
Figs. 144 and 145. BALCONIES WITH SCROLL
Brackets. Salamanca. XVIII Cen
tury   120
Fig. 146. Balcony with Overhead Braces.
Santa Coloma de Queralt, Catalonia.
Dated 1760  .122
Fig. 147. Iron Stair-Balustrade. Patio of
the Palacio Oleza. Palma  122
Fig. 148. Armadura or Well Crane. Palma.
XVII Century  122
Fig. 149. Typical Iron Bracket  123
Fig. 150. Cruz de linde or Boundary Cross.
Catalan. XV Century  124
Fig. 151. Table with Wrought Iron Braces. 126

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xix
PAGE
Fig. 152. One of Four Iron Chairs of the
XVII Century  127
Fig. 153. Catalan Gridiron. XVII Century . 128
Fig. 154. Spanish Bit with Ornaments to
Ward off the Evil Eye. XVII
Century  126
Fig. 155. Spur of a Conquistador. XVI Cen
tury  126
Fig. 156. Stirrup of a Conquistador. XVI
Century  126
Fig. 157. Grille in Market, Granada. Late
XVIII Century  128
Fig. 158. Door Ironwork of the Casa Con-
sistorial. Barcelona. Late XIX
Century  128

INTRODUCTION
SPAIN is rich in decorative ironwork which, like
the architecture it embellishes, is comparatively
unknown. Of the two arts it is Spanish iron
work that owes least to foreign influence, for those who
practised it were, in contrast to the many foreign
architects employed, almost invariably native born.
Little is known of individual workers of the Gothic
age; from the Renaissance period, however, a few
names have come down to us but without those inti
mate details which make the craftsman a living and
present reality to the modern who admires his work.
To appreciate the productions of these unrecorded
artists one must know something of metalwork in
general as practised in the East, since to iron the
Spanish Moors imparted, along with their basic prin
ciples of design, their delicate methods of working gold
and silver; one must be familiar also with French iron
work during the Romanesque and early Gothic periods,
for that, too, influenced the Spanish smith; and lastly,
one must understand Renaissance architecture as
evolved in Italy because that style, when it came to
Spain, so stimulated the ironworker that he attained
an amazing grandeur and architectonic quality in his

xxn introduction
work that was never approached elsewhere. In Italy
itself, ironworking was not a popular craft; it was
rather on the precious metals that great artists like
Benvenuto Cellini expended their talent; but in Spain
the baser and less tractable metal appealed more to the
indomitable temper of the people, and artists of the
highest rank worked in it. These, apprehending that
its inherent quality, strength, was best expressed on a
grand scale, created those monumental works which
give Spain a unique position in the realm of artistic
ironwork. Outside of the country itself it is hardly possible to
study these achievements, since their size and weight
have made removal practically impossible; but there,
still standing in the very surroundings for which they
were designed, they make a journey to Spain well worth
while for the student.
Monumentality is but one of the distinguishing
features of Spanish ironwork; an equally interest
ing one is that exotic feeling which pervades all the
industrial arts, and even the architecture, of Spain.
The Moorish occupation of seven centuries is a circum
stance unparalleled in any other European country
and its influence on all Spanish art was lasting. This
Orientalism, sometimes preserved pure, sometimes
combined with European designs, is to be found
mostly in smaller objects, and may therefore be
studied in the various museums which have succeeded
in obtaining examples. Larger Mudejar productions,
such as the grand doors at Cordova, being as difficult
of transportation as the great church rejas, must

introduction XX111
remain unknown to many except through photographs
and description.
As is natural in a country where inspiration has so
frequently been drawn from foreign sources, there is a
certain lack of continuity in the development of the
various arts, not excluding ironwork. This, while
sometimes baffling, never fails to be interesting. For
tunately, foreign influence never undermined the
Spanish smith's reverence for sound constructive
methods; these prevailed to the end and lend a cer
tain sincerity to even the latest period when the frank
ness and naivete of early work had been lost.

celtiberian sword.
Found at Amarejo.
Hispanic Society of America.
No. 161.

SPANISH IRONWORK I
SPANISH IRONWORK PREVIOUS TO THE
GOTHIC PERIOD
early productions
SPAIN was the greatest metalliferous country of
antiquity, but history fails to tell us at what
period the use and manufacture of iron was first
known there. There is every evidence, as in other
European countries, of a native industry in copper and
silver, and of a knowledge of bronze, before iron was
discovered. In connection with it, one of the earliest
facts known is that the Greek colonists who settled
Marseilles in the sixth century B.C. operated iron mines
in Spain, from which they fashioned their war weapons.
After the Spanish people came under Roman rule they
used those types of Roman arms and utensils found in
every elementary book on archeology; there was,
however, one exception to the general rule of the con
queror imposing his tools on the conquered, and this
was the Celtiberian sword, which the invaders found so
superior to their own that it was adopted for the Roman
army after the Second Punic War. These swords were

2 PREVIOUS TO THE GOTHIC PERIOD
unusually wide and could cut on both edges; one
found at Amarejo may be seen in the Hispanic So
ciety's collection, No. 161. The Romans, when they
began to manufacture them, were not able to imitate
the excellent manner of their tempering, but later
acquired great skill in sword making, especially in Bil-
bilis (the modern Calatayud in the province of Aragon).
Of the earliest iron weapons and domestic utensils,
which latter were probably made of very crudely
smelted metal, hardly an example has survived.
From Visigothic days, the fifth to the eighth century,
we have even less data on the manufacture and use of
iron. It appears that these next conquerors modified
its use in armor considerably, doing away with the iron
breastplates and protective leg pieces of the Romans.
When, in the eighth century, the Moors took posses
sion, they imported their own special arms and weap
ons, copied for the most part from the Persians. As
for other objects than war implements, it is probable
that few were produced, for the Moors preferred the
more precious metals, bronze above all. Spanish
Christians, meanwhile, were using the same armor as
other European states, and were ordering it from those
northern provinces of the peninsula which the Moors
never succeeded in conquering. It frequently happens
that objects from this period are classified as French
from their likeness to work produced on the other side
of the Pyrenees.
It was in the progressive northern region of Cata
lonia that the best type of early forge for smelting iron
was evolved. This was the Catalan forge (Figure 1)

FIG. 2. SANTA CRUZ REJA.
Pamplona Cathedral. Early XIII Century.

PREVIOUS TO THE GOTHIC PERIOD 3
which may still be met with in remote parts of Europe.
From it was obtained the best malleable iron yet

, ..% « • • a

^cole "^" f '¦ T '

i- 6

)=l Te«fr

FIG. 1. EARLY CATALAN FORGE.
known, easily wrought, free from foreign matter and
bubbles, and in large enough quantities to be available
for the forging of truly artistic works. It is therefore to
the provinces north of the Ebro that we must look for
the earliest and best specimens of Spanish decorative
iron. Previous to the Catalan forge the only means of
smelting iron was the open hearth fire used as far back

4 PREVIOUS TO THE GOTHIC PERIOD
as early Egyptian days and still used in certain parts of
India by native smiths. This most primitive metallur
gical contrivance was a mere basin-shaped hollow in
the ground containing ignited charcoal and the sub
stances to be smelted; the fire was urged by a blast of
air blown in through one or more nozzles from a bel
lows at or near the top. The process gave but a small
amount of metal and consumed a large amount of
charcoal. What the Catalans devised was a rec
tangular hearth in a permanent building close to the
mine. The square pit was lined with brick or stone
of a kind not easily acted upon by heat, and was sup
plied with a tuyere or blast-pipe of copper penetrating
one of the pit walls near the top. This tuyere had a
considerable downward inclination so that the air met
the fuel some distance down. In iron-smelting, the
ore was laid in a heap upon an eighteen-inch layer of
charcoal and was gradually brought to the metallic
state by the reducing action of the carbon monoxide
formed at the mouth of the tuyere. The metal sank
through the ignited fuel and formed at the bottom of
the pit a spongy mass or bloom which was lifted over
the edge and carried to the nearby forge. A mere
hole in the roof of the building served as a chimney.
How imperfect this newer process was is proven by
the fact that thousands of tons of slag from the Cata
lan forge have since been profitably smelted. Yet it
was such an advance on what had preceded it that it
was installed all over Europe (perhaps in Germany and
Belgium. simultaneously with Catalonia) and remained
for centuries the best thing of its kind. By yielding

FIG. 3. REJA ARABE, CAPILLA DEL SAGRARIO.
Palencia Cathedral. XIII Century.

FIG. 4. WINDOW REJA.
Nuestra Sefiora Del Mercado, Le6n.
Late XIII Century.

PREVIOUS TO THE GOTHIC PERIOD 5
an excellent malleable iron it made possible the great
quantity of beautiful medieval ironwork.
Malleable iron may be described as that which is
capable of being welded; it becomes steel when hard
ened by tempering until it strikes sparks from flint.
Cast iron is that which can neither be hammered nor
welded. Malleable iron has at first a granulated tex
ture but becomes, through repeated heatings, hammer
ings, and rollings, quite tough and flexible, and its
granulated texture changes into a fibrous and inter
woven one. Besides being easily wrought when hot,
it may be hammered and bent when cold. Tempering
it in cold water renders it slightly harder, while ham
mering, drawing, and other such processes make it both
harder and more elastic. If reheated and allowed to
cool gradually, it becomes soft and weldable again (for
which reason much beautiful early iron was remade
into later, and perhaps inferior, forms). During heat
ing it passes through various grades of workability as
the temperature increases, first becoming red-hot, then
white-hot. It is in this latter condition that it may be
bent, stretched, or welded with greatest ease.
"The texture of iron, it is well known, becomes loos
ened by heat; and as it softens, bars will droop and
curl into scrolls under a relatively slight impulse, this
property rendering it so facile a metal in the hands of
the smith. When hot it can be welded, separate pieces
adhering firmly together if hammered or pressed; rich
and intricate effects were mainly produced in this man
ner. The welding point is the highest degree of heat
the iron will bear without burning and disintegrating,

6 PREVIOUS TO THE GOTHIC PERIOD
and its management requires skill and dexterity. The
distinction between the blacksmith's art and any other
is that whatever he intends to do he must do quickly.
He must strike while the iron is hot, for as the fierce
glow fades into dull red its plasticity is departing.
The quick and decisive treatment of iron while it is hot
and transiently in a plastic condition must be re
garded as the true art of the blacksmith, and of neces
sity leads to vigorous and masculine efforts. The tools
of the smithy proper consist merely of hammer and
anvil, forge and bellows, tongs and chisels. In the
work to be described, small objects, however com
plicated in design, were nearly always welded into a
single piece; while in grilles, the several pieces were
fixed by driving holes through the heated iron and
riveting them together, or more commonly by binding
the pieces round with hot wisps of iron called collars.
"In appreciating old work we must not forget that,
while the smith of to-day can buy his iron ready rolled
into a thousand different sections, he had then to first
beat out every section with his own hand. Hence old
ironwork possesses interest and attractions which few
modern examples can equal, for scarcely any old piece
fails to please. The explanation is simply that the
olden-time smith cut a piece from his shingled bar
which he judged by the eye would beat out into a rod
of the desired length or curl into a scroll of the desired
form. More or less sufficed for him, and by his method
of work he produced an irregularity and play in even the
most monotonous designs, which is artistically charming
to us, but which was possibly a source of reproach to

FIG. 7. DETACHED NAILHEADS OR BOSSES.
XVI Century.
Hispanic Society of America.
Average 4 in. sq. Nos. 40, 42, 43, 46, 6, 7.

PREVIOUS TO THE GOTHIC PERIOD 7
himself. The designs are so practical, yet so rude, that
they were probably produced by the smith who exe
cuted the work. Even if directed by a designer, the
smith's capacity must have been thoroughly gauged,
and the technical details left well within his powers.
It appears that, when no specially skilled smith was
available, only the simplest forms were used, the capac
ity of the workers controlling the demand." J.
Starkie Gardner.
For centuries the laborious task of fashioning the
desired object direct from the bloom fell to the smith
as described above; there were no mechanical aids to
lessen his work. Later the helve hammer was installed
weighing from twelve hundred to twenty-four hundred
pounds, and worked by a rough cog-wheel driven by
water power. This hammer beat and rebeat the bloom
into manageable units or ingots, which could be trans
ported and delivered to the smith, thus making it pos
sible for him to live at a distance from the mines.
Mechanical hammering dates from perhaps the four
teenth century; and until the seventeenth century, the
bars or ingots that it prepared for the smith were not
fit to be used for fine work until the bestowal of much
labor upon them.
About the lost art of treating iron so as to reduce
rusting to a minimum, there has been much specula
tion. It is generally believed that the result was ob
tained by oil dipping; that is, by heating the metal to
a brilliant cherry red and thus separating the mole
cules, and then immediately immersing it in linseed or
any fine, transparent oil, which entered the spongy

8 PREVIOUS TO THE GOTHIC PERIOD
mass to perhaps only an imperceptible depth, yet suffi
cient to ward off rust, and to create a superficial hard
ness which made such iron available for tools; further
more, it gave a surface which could be brought to a
fairly high polish. Certain it is that modern exposed
ironwork, unless protected by successive coats of paint
which rob it of all its inherent attractiveness of surface,
will deteriorate almost to powder in a century or even
less. ROMANESQUE REJAS
Decorative ironwork everywhere followed the various
styles of architecture; and as Spain (that is, northern
Spain where the smith was most important) had no
definite style of architecture until Romanesque was
introduced from France, the story of Spanish iron does
not really commence until Romanesque had firmly
taken root in the land. Previous to its appearance
the remnant of the Visigoths whom the Moors had
driven into the upper peninsular had been too hard
pressed, first with the mere struggle for existence and
later in the struggle to push back the invader, to give
heed to the arts; but with their first important vic
tories over the Moors, in the eleventh century, their
gratitude was expressed in church-building. As, at
this time, Spanish kings were accustomed to taking
French wives, who brought with them their own ret
inues of monks of the great building order of Cluny,
these erected the new Spanish churches in the French
Romanesque style.
Romanesque was not conspicuous, as its successor
Gothic became, for the use of ironwork; but, happen-

PREVIOUS TO THE GOTHIC PERIOD 9
ing to make its first appearance in those Spanish
provinces, the Pyrenean and Cantabrian, where iron
was more plentiful and wood more scarce than in
France, the Cluniac builders learned to use it quite
freely as an accessory in their Romanesque edifices.
One of the first demands they made on the Spanish
smith was for a reja,1 or screen, to protect the treasures
of the altar. Tracing the history of the screen we find
that metal ones of simple design were made by the
Romans. Several later examples have been found in
sixth and seventh century Christian basilicas; but those
necessitated to protect the more precious offerings and
reliquaries of medieval cathedrals are on a much larger
scale. Their motif is invariably the scroll derived from
the vine which had been so highly conventionalized in
Greek and Roman art. The ease with which a bar of
iron could be made to take the scroll form would, in
itself, explain why this preponderated as a decorative
motif in early smithing; the very anvil was made to
produce scrolls, for it was shaped to a peak or ridge
over which the red hot bar could be bent by blows.
When other methods than genuine smithing crept in —
that is, when the metal was worked cold by tools for
merly associated with other crafts — the scroll became
a much less frequent element. The St. Swithin grille
of Winchester Cathedral in England, one at Le Puy-
en-Velay in France and several in Spain show in what
widely separated localities this type was popular during
the Middle Ages. That the examples mentioned have
remained in situ during all these centuries is due not
1 Pronounced ray-hah.

10 PREVIOUS TO THE GOTHIC PERIOD
only to their size and durability but also to the fact
that they are serving their original purpose of protect
ing altars still open to the cult. One of the best known
of the type is in the cathedral cloister in Pamplona,
the capital of Navarre.
The little Santa Cruz chapel at Pamplona occupies
the southwest corner of the cloisters in such a way that
two of its sides are masonry and two are open to the
cloister. Both these latter are protected by the famous
grille, a portion of which is shown in Figure 2. In the
scrolls, some loosely wound and others wrapped into a
dense whorl, there is infinite variety; likewise in the
manner of strapping the scroll units back to back, some
being augmented by short strips before being tied in,
others connected by a loose filigree. In addition, occa
sional leaf forms and tendrils are seen which further
prevent the scroll from becoming monotonous and lend
a degree of interest which makes the Spanish example
superior to contemporaneous French or English ones.
A peculiarity which further distinguishes the Pamplona
work is that the scrolls do not terminate in perfect
rings, but stop abruptly, leaving the end of the whorl
without any decorative finish whatever. The lilia
ceous cresting of the Pamplona reja is of later date.
Whether its scroll pattern was borrowed from France
or England would be difficult to say. The Pamplona
grille, though not dated, is supposed to have been made
out of Moorish tent chains captured by the Navarrese
in 1212, and may therefor be ascribed to the early
thirteenth century; but the English example at Win
chester dates from 1093; so that Spain, while she may

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PREVIOUS TO THE GOTHIC PERIOD 11
not have imported the design, cannot claim to have
been the first to use it.
At Palencia, in the cathedral, there is the so-called
Reja Arabe de la Capilla del Sagrario (Figure 3). It
is a beautiful example, similar to the Pamplona, but
less naive. Its various scrolls are more like each other
in size and treatment, indicating a later date. The
frame to which these scrolls were originally riveted
having deteriorated, is now replaced by stout wood.
This same sort of Romanesque grille may be found in
Leon. Here, however, it is acting as a window screen
on the facade of Nuestra Senora del Mercado (Figure
4). This little example is only thirty inches wide and
four feet, six inches high. Vertically the design is di
vided into three panels, with the scrolls worked into
such a number of whorls that the pattern becomes
very dense, not unlike Venetian point lace. An inter
esting detail here is the little tendrils which spring
from between the scrolls. This grille may be placed,
judging from the symmetry of the pattern, at the end
of the thirteenth century. San Vicente in Avila, a
Romanesque church commenced in the twelfth cen
tury, also possesses a bit of this work and undoubtedly
many more once existed than are here mentioned, but
they have disintegrated or been broken up.
Of small iron objects belonging to this period not
many have survived, and these can be found only in
collections. The richest collection open to the public
is that of the Episcopal Museum of Vieh, a town in
northern Catalonia. Vieh Museum owes its existence
to a recent art-loving bishop who, noting with regret

12 PREVIOUS TO THE GOTHIC PERIOD
that all too many of Spain's treasures were being sold
to foreigners, scoured his province to save what he
could. His search resulted in the assembling, at Vieh,
of a remarkable display of Catalonian painting, sculp
ture, embroidery, and ironwork, a fair amount of the
last-named dating from the thirteenth century. A few
pieces are illustrated later in this book.
MOORISH INFLUENCE
While the forged ironwork already referred to was
being produced north of the Ebro, that produced in
Castile and Andalucla was affected by the presence of
Moorish artizans working in other metals. In fact, of
all foreign influences, the Arab taste played the most
important part. The Saracens, when they crossed
from Africa into Spain, brought with them no truly
structural architecture nor did they subsequently create
one. They were, and ever remained, supreme ornamen-
talists, and in this direction their ingenuity was un
bounded. Of their ornament may be said that which
is not true of their architecture — that it was struc
tural. It differed from the usual Asiatic conception in
that it was not made up of graceful natural forms but
of logically combined geometric patterns. That this
Moorish taste persisted even after the Reconquest is
due to the fact that the Spaniard, recognizing the
superior craftsmanship of the Moor, employed him side
by side with the Spanish artizans whenever Christian
buildings were to be erected. Each may have learned
from the other, though unquestionably it was the
Moor who had most to teach. By degrees Moorish

FIG. 10. COPPER-PLATED DOORS.
Puerta del Perdon, Mosque of Cordova. 1377.

FIG. 11.
DETAILS OF PANELING
AND KNOCKER.
Puerta del Perdon.

FIG. 12.
BRONZE-MOUNTED DOORS.
From Sevilla Cathedral, now in the
Museo Nacional, Madrid.
Late XIV Century.

PREVIOUS TO THE GOTHIC PERIOD 13
and Gothic art were blended into what is called Mude
jar, and as geometric forms were the basis of each, the
result was particularly harmonious. Neither in archi
tecture nor in ornament could Mudejar be called a new
style; it is simply a curiously happy application of
elements ordinarily incongruous to whatever style of
structure happened to be in progress.
It must not be inferred that Spain was the only
European country to receive Oriental influences in art.
Italy, France and England were also affected; but the
difference is that to them the new ideas came less
directly, their princes having definitely set about modi
fying the rude European civilization by cultivating the
Eastern refinement they had seen during the Crusades.
Saracenic art and architecture, answering this demand,
penetrated into Western Europe by following the trade
routes, principally that of Venice whence it passed
into other states. In Venice itself may be found the
earliest decorative ironwork in Italy — a few grilles
copying the pierced marble screens used so extensively
in Saracenic architecture. Spain, however, did not
have to get her Eastern art in this roundabout way.
The Saracen was there, on her soil, and as he was
a cunning craftsman, and as the Spaniard himself
had no liking for the humbler callings, the matter of
erecting and ornamenting buildings was left largely
in the hands of the Moors.
When, occasionally, the Arab used iron it was worked
as were the more precious metals, with file and saw,
vice and drill, instead of being subjected only to the
powerful blows of the smith's hammer; in other words,

14 PREVIOUS TO THE GOTHIC PERIOD
the Moor had no conception of pure smithing, for which
reason an early piece of Castilian or Andalucian iron
work would be easily distinguishable from a contem
poraneous piece wrought in Catalonia or Navarre.
Iron was never really popular, however, until its use
as a decorative architectural feature spread from Eng
land and France down into Spain, creating great de
mand even among the Moors for this hitherto neglected
metal. Spain, indeed, carried its use farther than did
the countries north of the Pyrenees. Door hardware,
with the exception of the strap hinge, developed to
a point undreamed of elsewhere; knockers, escutch
eons, bosses being infinitely more plentiful. Hardly a
window in the land but had an iron grille or reja, for
window screening, universal with the Moors, had been
copied from them by the Spaniards. When furniture
came into general use (early Spanish houses were as
devoid of chairs and tables as Moorish homes were)
iron was often used as a diagonal brace between vertical
supports, and even entire chairs, tables, etc., were made
of it. When in due time the balcony began to be an
architectural feature it was upheld by a row of inter
esting scroll brackets. In the churches, candelabra
became massive and imposing, railings or screens
(verjas) surrounded tombs, chapel rejas grew to be of
towering height, and even entire pulpits were beaten
out of iron. Much of this work is Mudejar.
ORNAMENTAL NAILHEADS
One of the most familiar Moorish inheritances, al
though a minor one, is the decorative nailhead, known

FIG. 13. IRON-PLATED DOORS.
Main Portal of Tarragona Cathedral. 1510.

PREVIOUS TO THE GOTHIC PERIOD IS
as a chalon. Introduced by the Moors, it persisted
down to Spain's last decorative moment, and instantly
marks any object bearing it as Spanish. The first
examples found are solid, slightly accentuated heads of
otherwise ordinary nails which are part of door con
struction. Two such nails from a door in the Alhambra
are shown in Figure S, and two others from a Spanish
building in Figure 6. In the making of rejas the head

FIG. S. IRON NAILS WITH
WROUGHT HEADS.
Moorish. XIV Century.
Hispanic Society of America.
Length 4 and 5 in. Nos. 13, 14.

FIG. 6. IRON NAILS WITH
WROUGHT HEADS.
Spanish. XVI Century.
Hispanic Society of America.
Length 5 and 7 in. Nos. 27, 28.

of a rivet was similarly treated. As the nail grew in size
and ornamentation, to hammer it into place became
difficult and the head was therefore made separately
(Figure 7) while the nail, often of great size, was driven
through afterwards. In many of the largest, however,

16 PREVIOUS TO THE GOTHIC PERIOD
the nail or stem remained an integral part of the
decorative head and was split and passed through a
hole bored in the door, and then spread on the inside.
Once the nailhead became a separate unit, there was
no limit to the freshness of fancy shown in its making;
sometimes it was convex, sometimes flat; slashed
towards the center and with scalloped edges; or the
center sunk into a hollow to receive the nail, while the
remaining portion was beaten out from the back into
a large bosse. These various results arrived at while
the metal was hot, further enrichment such as chasing
and piercing was added when it became cold. In short,
the nailhead or bosse soon outgrew its original utili
tarian function and became primarily ornamental. It
is seen employed singly over an entire door surface or
in groups of three, five or seven. Applied thus it made
a metal door decoration vastly different to the strap
hinges used elsewhere in Europe. It is sometimes
stated that the Visigoths of Toledo also used bosses
— an erroneous impression derived from the number
of late Mudejar palace entrances in that city recon
structed out of Visigothic stone fragments; the actual
wooden doors, however, are invariably remnants of
the Moorish or even of the Reconquest period, and
were made for Christian masters by Moorish work
men. Two late doors are illustrated (Figures 8 and 9),
one from Toledo and the other from Avila, which
give an excellent idea of the Spanish preference for
these bosses. It is to be regretted that many of
those on the Toledo example have recently been sold
separately to tourists.

FIG. 14. CLOISTER REJAS.
Barcelona Cathedral. Early XIV Century.

PREVIOUS TO THE GOTHIC PERIOD 17
MUDEJAR METAL DOORS
Returning to general Moorish ironwork, not enough
smaller objects remain to dwell upon; but certain
bronze and copper doors may be described here since
they served as prototypes for later iron-plated ones^
In the Mosque of Cordova, still in their original posi
tion, are the great copper-plated doors of the Puerta
del Perdon (Figures 10 and 11). They were made by
Moors, but after the Reconquest; and as the date
(1377), Gothic inscriptions, and saints all prove, were
ordered by Christians. The patterning here — typical
Saracenic geometric patterning — has been cut from
sheet metal and superimposed upon another sheet or
background, a form of decoration to be met later in
Gothic ironwork. The copper knockers, on the con
trary, are not of sheet metal, but of solid copper appar
ently worked in the mass as iron would have been. In
design these recall the Byzantine stone screens seen in
Venice and Ravenna; but the bronze paneling of the
doors is distinctly Saracenic. Figure 12 illustrates a
pair of bronze mounted wooden doors now in the
Museo-Nacional of Madrid. Here the decoration is
entirely Moorish, but the doors, as the Gothic lettering
shows, were destined for Christian use and long served
for the Sacristy of the High Altar of Sevilla Cathedral.
The all-over patterning is incised in the wood, the star
being the foundation of the scheme. Across the top,
bottom, and center of the doors broad metal bands are
riveted. These are worked into an interesting circular
pattern in low relief, and are held down by large and

18 PREVIOUS TO THE GOTHIC PERIOD
small ornamental nailheads arranged to accommodate
the design. The bronze knocker with a star-shaped
backplate and each point of the star finished off in a
knob, may have inspired the maker of Figure 59,
which is in iron. Bolts like that of the Madrid bronze
example are found on many later doors and grilles.
Of iron-covered doors, one of the earliest pieces,
standing, as the English architect George Street de
scribes it "in a monumental recess of completely
Moorish character," is in the cloister of Tarragona
Cathedral. It may be classed as thirteenth century
work and is of wood once completely covered by iron
plates which were stamped and gilded and fastened
down with copper nails. Later by nearly three cen
turies, but still designed in the Moorish taste, are the
colossal, iron-plated main doors of the famous west
facade of this same cathedral (Figure 13). These were
presented to the chapter in 1510 by Archbishop Gonzalo
de Heredia. Their enormous height is apparent on
comparing them with the children playing at their base.
These doors are of wood covered by many diapered iron
plates fastened down with copper nails, and with a cop
per rosette in the center of each plate. Hinges and
knockers are most elaborate in design. In the back
plates of the knockers and in the huge hinges at the
top a very decorative result is obtained by successive
thicknesses of pierced tracery, a Moorish idea already
illustrated in Figure 12. Indeed, the whole scheme
with its flat patterning broken up only by the shadow
of the knockers, is thoroughly Oriental. Of these last
adjuncts, the upper and more elaborate is obviously

FIG. IS. REJA OF A CLOISTER CHAPEL.
Barcelona Cathedral.

PREVIOUS TO THE GOTHIC PERIOD 19
too high for the human arm and was undoubtedly
applied merely as a matter of tradition. Other notable
doors are in the west portal of Santa Maria del Mar
at Barcelona and in the main portal of Huesca Cathe
dral. The former are covered with iron plates cut to
a pattern, and the latter with beaten iron which is
fastened down with nails whose heads appear to be
brass.

II
GOTHIC REJAS AND PULPITS
EARLY CHAPEL REJAS
IN the thirteenth century King Fernando III (El
Santo) introduced French Gothic by ordering the
magnificent cathedrals of Burgos, Toledo, and Leon
to be built. Catalonia, though remote from these cen
ters, was not slow to adopt the new style and developed
under native architects many features that differen
tiated it from the parent stock. Such, for instance,
were the wide naves and widely spaced piers of Gerona,
Manresa, and Barcelona cathedrals. Of these dis
tinctive edifices Barcelona is richest in ironwork and
this of a sufficiently original character to be considered
entirely as a Spanish product.
As the new style of architecture demanded a much
more plentiful use of iron accessories than Romanesque
had, great impetus was given to the smith's art. The
response was at first all in the field of genuine black-
smithing quite unaffected by Moorish methods which
did not appear north of the Ebro until later. By the
fourteenth century the smiths' guilds had grown very
important in Pamplona, Barcelona and other towns.
The most important Gothic product was, as in Roman
esque days, the reja, but it was of an entirely new
design in which scrolls played no part; for the rejeros
(reja-makers) decided that a number of spaced ver-

FIG. 16. REJA OF A CLOISTER CHAPEL.
Barcelona Cathedral.

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GOTHIC REJAS AND PULPITS 21
tical bars, strengthened top and bottom and at some
intermediate point by horizontals, would answer their
purpose better than the all-over scroll pattern. That
is, upright bars, by allowing no convenient horizontal
footholds, would afford more protection to the sacred
treasures in the chapel and at the same time render
them more visible to worshippers. The increased
openness of the new design is instantly apparent; like
wise its increased architectonic quality, for its assertive
verticality made it a most harmonious accessory to the
dominating lines of Gothic architecture. The bar type
therefor became the accepted convention in Spain, and
was developed to a point undreamed of in other coun
tries. The only thing of the kind in France is a simple
and not very high grille in the church of St. Sernin in
Toulouse; but this, according to Viollet-le-Duc, was
made at least fifty years later than the earliest Barce
lona example. Besides the greater loftiness of the
Barcelona work, there is a structural peculiarity im
portant to note as opposed to the French example in
Toulouse; namely, that in early Gothic Spain an over
whelming partiality was shown for the round instead
of the square bar; and that when the square bar was
later accepted, it was invariably placed on the diagonal
so that instead of one, two of its faces were visible.
Indeed, in even the earliest Spanish rejas, many fea
tures may be met that already indicate the admirable
originality and grandeur of those sixteenth century
examples which have made the Spanish rejero so re
nowned. Than the Barcelona cloisters, now a charming public

22 GOTHIC REJAS AND PULPITS
thoroughfare, no one spot in Spain offers a more favor
able opportunity for studying the round-bar reja. A
succession of twenty chapels borders three sides of the
enclosure, each chapel screened off by a reja. These
examples, though of varying heights, harmonize so
well with each other and with their surroundings, that
one might suspect their design of having been con
trolled by the architect of the cathedral. However,
at this period the blacksmith was so highly important
that it is safe to say that he needed no such control.
This ensemble of ironwork may be considered the
finest of its period in Europe.
The bar type naturally precluded ornamentation
from the body of the reja, and left it for the cresting,
the gates, and the lock. In certain of the Barcelona
group (Figure 14) the actual gate or entrance to the
chapel can hardly be detected; in others it is decidedly
accentuated by means of Gothic arches ornamented
by crocketed pinnacles. Where the entire door is
framed in Gothic forms, these are set well forward of
the bars, or else applied in such a way as not to inter
fere with the general structurability of the design
(Figures 15 and 16), a rule violated with less pleasing
results in later days. Horizontals are sparingly used,
and toward the top only, the lower ends of the bars
being embedded in the stone base and not further
braced by a cross member. On the horizontal bar at
each interval where the vertical round bar is threaded
through, may be seen a bulge; the early smith after
making the hole with his crude tools never felt it neces
sary to remove this evidence of the operation, or else

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23

had no tools adequate. It is just such interesting
touches that one misses in later and more sophisti
cated work. In even the severest Barcelona rejas
there is a decorative termination above, too rudiment
ary perhaps to be called a cresting since it consists of
nothing more than finishing every third or fourth rod
with a foliated picket. In others, however, the ter
mination is really imposing — a row of tall liliaceous
forms curled and twisted together. Beneath this may

FIG. 17. DETAIL OF REJA LOCK.
Cloister Chapel, Barcelona Cathedral.
be seen sometimes a broad ornamental band, some
times a row of cusped arches set forward of the gen
eral plane (Figure 16).
Pamplona, the capital of Navarre, has been men
tioned as another great ironworking center of Roman
esque and Gothic days. However, between its scroll-
shaped example of the thirteenth century and its

24

GOTHIC REJAS AND PULPITS

several bar type examples, there is a long interval, for
the last mentioned are later than the Barcelona work
just described. The capilla mayor (high altar) reja is
the best known of the Pamplona group. Its body is
composed of alternating plain and twisted square ver
ticals — an arrangement that remained popular in
Spain till the end of its ironwork life. The bars are
set close together and are devoid of all ornament, but,
as George Street says in his Gothic Architecture in
Spain, "What the lower part lacks in ornament the
cresting more than atones for; it is unusually rich,
consisting of interlacing ogee arches with crocketed

FIG. 18. REJA, CAPILLA DE NUESTRA SENORA DE LAS
ANGUSTIAS.
Church of San Pablo, Palencia. Early XV Century.

FIG. 25. SPLIT BAR MOTIF.
Reja of the Royal Chapel, Granada. 1518-23.

GOTHIC REJAS AND PULPITS 25
pinnacles between them, all very elaborately ham
mered up. The horizontal bars and rails are also
covered with traceries in relief and at regular inter
vals on these are small figures under canopies. The
whole stands upon a moulded and paneled base of
stone. The total height of this screen is not less than
thirty feet, of which the cresting is about a third."
This appearance of extensive figure work in iron mod
eled entirely out of the solid is interesting to note in
view of the fact that it was later developed to an
amazing point of skill.
In Palencia, another town which contributed much
to early ironwork, is the Gothic reja of the Capilla de
Nuestra Sefiora de las Angustias in the church of San
Pablo (Figure 18). Dating from the early fifteenth
century it is of simple design, with rather thin bars
set far apart, as in much early work. Over the whole
there is a tentative cresting composed of interlaced
twisted rods in the form of pointed arches. This reja
is so ingeniously wrought and of such an interesting
period that its present state of unrepair is particularly
lamentable. The little blazon and the amorini in the
center were added in Renaissance days.
WINDOW REJAS
Most ubiquitous, possibly of all iron architectural
accessories in Spain is the window reja. Brought over
by the Moors it is still much in evidence in old Moor
ish cities like Toledo, Granada, Sevilla, etc. The fol
lowing passage from the ordinances of Granada for the
year 1522 may serve to show how numerous were rejas

26 GOTHIC REJAS AND PULPITS
in that recently acquired Moorish city. "Whereas we
have witnessed and do witness daily numerous mis
haps to wayfarers alike on horseback and on foot
whether by day or by night because the highways,
narrow in themselves, are rendered yet more narrow
by projecting rejas, fixed in basements and lower
rooms of houses; and whereas in winter people seek
ing to escape the filth by keeping to the wall are
thwarted, or at night injured, it is ordered that no
rejas be set within three yards of the ground or else
that they be set within the wall." In the ancient
Castilian city of Toro, which was much earlier wrested
from the Moors, hardly a handful of people have lived
for centuries past and the city fathers have received
no complaints from injured pedestrians; therefore there
may still be seen a number of rejas sweeping the very
ground and projecting a considerable distance from
the facades.
Even where security would not have demanded a
grating, the window was barred apparently through
sheer love of the custom, though the Spaniard insists
that the iron takes up the sun's heat and thus keeps
it from entering the room. The original eastern screen
was of wood or reed in a sort of basket or lattice weave,
usually on the diagonal. At first there was some at
tempt to reproduce this in iron by means of strips
interlaced or else riveted together at every intersec
tion; but the smith soon abandoned this idea for the
greater architectural possibilities of the vertical bar.
One very close reproduction of a wooden lattice may
still be seen in Toledo on an ancient palace near the

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GOTHIC REJAS AND PULPITS 27
Alcdzar. It is eight feet high, projects about two feet,
and is divided into a number of panels, each treated
differently, but always with small interstices specially
intended to screen the inmates of the house from pub
lic gaze. Of the diagonal variety, two examples from
Salamanca are shown (Figures 19 and 20). These are
not particularly early, both being on noted Renaissance
edifices. Their construction is simplicity itself, all the
bars of one direction passing through their opposites.
In one case, the Archiepiscopal Palace, there is a com
bination of diagonals with vertical bars above; in the
other, the Casa de las Conchas, rosettes border the
entire edge of the reja. For windows as unpretentious
as these, the lattice grille is unquestionably of more
domestic aspect than unadorned vertical bars of
heavier section which, when not used on a monu
mental scale, savor too much of the prison. A glance
at Figure 19, where one type occurs above the other,
will justify the comparison. The cloisters of Toledo
Cathedral contain an earlier example of diagonal lattice
work made probably about 1400 (Figure 21). This
grille stands in the Puerta del Obispo Tenorio. Here
the diagonals of one direction are square in section
and those opposite are mere flat strips split to receive
them, as explained by Figure 23. It is remarkable
how much this simple scheme enhances the interest
of the work. On a shield above the Tenorio grille
is a charming bit of decorative iron relief apparently
of the same period. Not unlike the Toledo example
is a reja on the Pedro Davila house in Avila (Figure
22). This reja and the window motif it is attached

28 GOTHIC REJAS AND PULPITS
to are of the sixteenth century, much later than the
rest of the palace.
Far more important than the lattice window grating
is that made of typical Gothic bars conceived in the
same spirit as the monumental church reja. Such
window treatments frequently afford, along with the
bossed doors, about the only adornment to the severe
unpretentious facade of a Spanish palace. Their as
pect, owing to the ornamental bar used, differs con
siderably from that of the Barcelona rejas with their
plain round bars.

FIG. 23. DETAIL OF INTERSECTIONS. LATTICE
WINDOW REJA.
House of Pedro Davila, Avila. XVI Century.

FIG. 30. REJA, CAPILLA DE SANTA ANA.
Burgos Cathedral. 1488.

GOTHIC REJAS AND PULPITS 29
DEVELOPMENT OF THE VERTICAL BAR
Perhaps no single detail of Spanish ironwork under
went greater decorative expansion than the bar. As
first encountered in the Romanesque reja of Pamplona
(Figure 2) it is merely a flat vertical support for the
scroll units which form the real body of the composi
tion. Next, in the early Gothic examples from Barce
lona the bar itself is the unit from which the whole work
is built up. This bar is round, about one inch in
diameter, and from twelve to fifteen feet high. Though
severely plain, its making was a far more difficult task
than the making of any ornamental motif in iron save
the human figure. To work crude ingots into long
attenuated and absolutely straight bars, round or
square, was no mere apprentice's task; and indeed,
considering that the appliances at the smith's disposal
were very limited, the fashioning of such massive, well-
finished, unwieldy rods must have been as expensive
as it was difficult. A multiplicity of blows was neces
sary in the process, and the imprints of the smith's
big square-headed hammer are still discernible (Figure
17). (Such a surface is particularly eloquent in con
trast to that produced by modern over-perfected
methods, and which smiths work over by hand in a
vain attempt to catch some of the old charm.) When,
later, the rectangular bar prevailed, its making was
even more difficult for it added the new problem of
keeping true angles. In both cases the smith acquitted
himself well; then, having creditably mastered the
severely plain form, he sought for some ornamental

30

GOTHIC REJAS AND PULPITS

treatment that would enhance its interest without
diminishing its strength. For this purpose the square
vertical was better adapted than the round. It was
first subjected while hot to a uniform torsion which,
preserving the original arrises, resulted in a pleasing

FIG. 24. SPLIT BAR REJA.
Patio of the Count of Toledo's House, Toledo.
variation. Twisted throughout its entire length, it
generally alternated with plain bars as in several
Sigiienza examples (Figures 31 and 32); but just as
often, it was twisted for only a short distance and
then left untreated, which may also be seen at Sigii
enza. For further enrichment, but this not until Re
naissance days, the bar was sometimes incised with a

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31

simple leaf pattern before being twisted, as in the
Royal Chapel Reja of Granada (Figure 25); or its
sides were beaten into a concavity in order to leave
sharper arrises, as in the coro reja of Sevilla Cathedral
(Figure 106); or, as in Jhe same instance, a groove
was cut in each side or a bead beaten up along its full
length, all of which added great richness to the twist.
Meanwhile the smith had discovered another varia
tion that would lend patterning not merely to the bar
itself but to the body of the reja as well. This was to
split it at certain points and open it out into heart,
lozenge, or trefoil outlines which he brought together
again and welded back into a continuation of the

TOLEDO

GR.ANADA JE.VILLA

FIG. 26. TYPICAL PATTERNING INTO WHICH BARS
WERE OPENED.

32 GOTHIC REJAS AND PULPITS
original rectangular rod (Figure 26). This idea of split
ting the bars to create a band of patterning across the
whole composition was carried to its ultimate point
in the reja of the Royal Chapel at Granada (Figure
25). When nothing more could be devised to add
interest to the rectangular bar, attention returned to
the round, which was made into the Renaissance form
known as the spindle, of which a fine specimen is in
the Hispanic Society's collection, No. 165. For con
verting the spindle into a long, slender iron bar, Spain
alone deserves the credit, since the only part it played
in the Italian Renaissance was that of the stunted
stone baluster which succeeded the carved or perfo
rated parapet of Gothic balconies and staircases. The
Spanish rejero on deciding to make the spindle out of
iron used it timidly at first; but having soon sur
mounted the many difficulties it presented, as he had
surmounted every other difficulty in ironwork, he
began to turn out spindles by the thousands. The
amazing skill attained in this new form will be dis
cussed in the Renaissance chapter.
GOTICO-FLORIDO REJAS
The rejas to be taken up in the following pages
belong to the Gotico-florido period, a very distinct
and original phase in Spanish architecture. At a time
when other nations were turning their attention to
adopting the classic, Spain was accepting it but spar
ingly, and still clung to old Gothic traditions; thus in
ironwork of the late fifteenth century Renaissance
motifs were merely intermingled with earlier ones, but

FIG. 33. RUBBBING OF UNDER PLATE OF
TRACERY BAND.

FIG. 34. RUBBING OF UPPER PLATE OF
TRACERY BAND.

Hi ..MMJBBWBBWgBaB

FIG. 35. THE TWO PLATES RIVETED TOGETHER.
Middle XV Century.
Hispanic Society of America.
Length 16J4 in., width Syi in. No. 147.

GOTHIC REJAS AND PULPITS 33
this in a way both picturesque and constructive;
which cannot always be said of the stonework of the
period, for here structurability was frequently lost
sight of. Many Gotico-florido rejas, if judged away
from their surroundings, might be pronounced too
lavish; but in truth they are more reasonable than
the florid, unstructural, carved stone framing them.
Indeed, all through this transition in styles it is very
evident that the ironworkers had a better hold on
themselves than the architects, who, while being weaned
away by the approaching Renaissance, merely toyed
with the departing Gothic. The smith handled the
transition better and was more alive to its opportuni
ties. Whatever he caught from the approaching style,
no matter how fanciful, he treated in sincerest Gothic
manner and thus tied it in with the technique of the
older work. Perhaps the most interesting survival of
this period is that surrounding the Anaya tomb in
Salamanca (Figure 29). Similar unrestraint in stone
work would be weak; in iron it is a veritable tour de
force and would be valuable if for no other reason
than that it exhibits the unlimited possibilities of the
metal. Two of the most magnificent and best known Gotico-
florido window rejas are also in Salamanca on the Casa
de las Conchas, or House of the Shells, (Figures 27 and
28). The palace itself, however, is Renaissance and
dates from 1512, offering one of many instances where
the smith remained a Gothicist after the architect had
accepted "the Italian taste." The two Casa Conchas
designs are quite different from each other, for the old-

34 GOTHIC REJAS AND PULPITS
time rejero never bound himself to conformity. One
is rectangular, projects some fifteen inches from the
wall, and is divided into three panels on its face. The
twisted bar alternates with the plain, and all pass up
behind the floriated arches and the lettered band. The
castle of Castile is used to terminate the four main
verticals, while the shell, indicating that the owner had
made the holy pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela,
is used freely. Further indication of the owner's
piety is found in the use of the "Ave Maria" in quaintly
pierced iron letters, by way of an ornamental cross band.
The other " Shell House " reja is the more striking of the
two and is composed of three units, each a full semi
circle in plan, and separated by several vertical bars.
Both the tops and bottoms of these units are brought
to an apex. With the exception of the inscription, the
motifs of the ornament — turrets, shells and leaf tracery
— are the same in both examples. In the patio of
this same palace are other excellent grilles, but less
magnificent than those of the facade.
A much plainer window reja, but of a sort whose
popularity lasted even during the Renaissance, is
shown in Figure 24. This faces on the patio of the
Count of Toledo's home in Toledo, and is charmingly
framed by glazed Moorish tiles. With such setting
the ironwork needs but little ornamentation and this
is supplied by the splitting of every other bar into an
unusual sort of quatrefoil, and surmounting the whole
by a band of leaf tracery and an armorial crest. In
addition to being opened out into a pattern, the ver
ticals are split to receive the horizontals instead of

FIG. 36. RUBBING OF UNDER PLATE OF
TRACERY BAND.

FIG. 37. RUBBING OF UPPER PLATE OF
TRACERY BAND.

FIG. 38. THE TWO PLATES RIVETED TOGETHER.
Middle XV Century.
Hispanic Society of America.
Length 16>£ in., width 6 in. No. 149.

GOTHIC REJAS AND PULPITS 35
vice versa. The method of putting together can be
plainly seen in the illustration. The reja is built
directly into the masonry, in somewhat the same
manner as are basement grilles of to-day.
Among Gotico-florido tomb rejas or verjas are many
of unsurpassed merit, one of the best known being in
Salamanca's Romanesque or Old Cathedral (Figure 29),
where it protects the effigy of Bishop Diego de Anaya,
ambassador of Spain to the Council of Constance, who
died in 1437. The screen is composed of square ver
tical bars twisted below and set on the diagonal above.
At each corner are strongly accentuated posts whose
panels are filled with richly modeled and perforated
pointed foliage. Quite different in character are the
central piers of the long side, being built up of numer
ous little buttresses with crocketed tops. Contrary to
most screens of this period the verticals are much inter
cepted by horizontal bands of increasing richness above.
The central band is made up of Gothic letters, as in
the "Ave Maria" grille, spelling here the Archbishop's
name. To give further interest, a twisted vine with
innumerable tendrils — a very German motif — spreads
from bar to bar. The crowning frieze is by far the
richest thing of its day, a curious mingling of popular
Gothic motifs and embryonic classic forms most un-
classically wrought. In this cresting no trace of Ger
man or Flemish influence can be found; it is an entirely
Spanish interpretation of classic. Candelabra, griffins
and acanthus scroll make their appearance for the first
time in any material since the remote days of the
Roman occupation of Spain. Perhaps the smith

36 GOTHIC REJAS AND PULPITS
worked as closely as he knew how from his classic
models, whatever they may have been, but the result
is pure Gothic in feeling and execution. No more
exuberant mingling of pagan figures with Gothic
could be found in any land. It is a truly remarkable
bit of work viewed both from the historical and the
artistic standpoint. The grille dates from about 1450.
At the monastery of Miraflores, a few miles out of
Burgos, is the tomb of Don Juan II and his wife
Isabella of Portugal. Enclosing it is an excellent
Gothic low grille with split bars surmounted by a
beautiful cresting of meandering Gothic forms and
topped by diminutive crenellations, with colored
heraldic shields in the freize to add to its splendor.
Heraldic ornament, here mentioned for the first
time, was destined to become one of the principal
motifs in Renaissance ironwork. The Miraflores reja
was made about 1480. Following its inspiration,
a number of the tomb rails in Burgos cloisters
introduce the family blazon with much prominence.
Others executed about the same time may be seen at
Zamora. Of chapel rejas in the late Gothic style, the Santa
Ana, in Burgos Cathedral (Figure 30) is highly impor
tant. The chapel itself was built between 1477 and
1488 and holds the tomb of its founder. Bishop de
Acufia. As the architect was Simon of Cologne, one
finds quite natural the several traces of German design
in the reja. The lower part is a simple arrangement
of bars divided into two stages by a charming band of
flamboyant tracery; a similar band accentuated by the

FIG. 40. FLAMBOYANT GOTHIC PULPIT.
Avila Cathedral. Circa 1520.

FIG. 41. WROUGHT IRON HINGES.
Church of San Millan, Segovia.

GOTHIC REJAS AND PULPITS 37
projecting turrets of Castile crowns the bars and forms
a base for the cresting. Thus far the grille is Spanish,
but in the cresting the German tinge is apparent, par
ticularly in the attenuated pinnacles built up of three
separate rods. The intervening design is of beautiful
foliation arranged in an unusual way. In the center,
and quite Spanish again, is a superb blazon, the Acuna
arms with a rampant griffin at each side. This motif
is here much more emphasized than in the Miraflores
verja. Sigiienza Cathedral, a famous late Romanesque
monument, holds an imposing display of rejas, some
Gotico-florido and some Renaissance. The former are
in the cloisters which, built much later than the cathe
dral, are in the late Gothic style, but with a few beauti
ful doorways in Plateresque (Renaissance). The rejas
to the Plateresque portals exhibit less traces than the
stonework of the coming style, as may be observed in
Figures 31 and 32. Both rejas are made up of square
bars set on the angle, twisting towards the top and
opening out into various shapes, and in both examples
the horizontal member has ceased to be strictly utili
tarian, and has become an ornamented band. In each
case the ornament is typical Italian detail but worked
in a manner purely Gothic. Both crestings are also
Plateresque but of a fifteenth century Gothic feeling,
and are painted in colors. This is particularly effect
ive in Figure 31, where the heraldic device is worked
up in gold, red, and blue, while the supporting (and
now headless) figures are gold and blue.

38 GOTHIC REJAS AND PULPITS
THE APPLICATION OF PAINT AND GILT TO IRON
With the use of armorial bearings as a decorative
motif the painting and gilding of iron became natural
and legitimate. Color demarcation was, in fact, an
absolute necessity for the proper significance of the
feature in question and the iron designer was only too
happy to turn the necessity into a virtue. It is a proof
of his good taste that he limited polychrome treatment
to heraldry, instead of applying it to more extended
areas. The surface of wrought iron has, as a result of
much hammering, a peculiarly subtle interest; to cover
or conceal this with a coating even as thin as liquefied
oil paint would have robbed the material of its charm
and given it the aspect of modern ironwork (wherein
it is impossible, because of black paint, to discover
the original quality of the work). In olden times the
methods used for coloring iron were much the same
as to-day, but with a difference in the ingredients. It
was first necessary to apply a "fixing" coat to the
metal which would act as an adhesive for the oil paint.
For this purpose a much diluted glue was generally
used which, in addition to serving as a fixative, was
so transparent as not to effect the final coloring. That
there was no special art required to paint iron may be
assumed from the fact it was commonly executed by
the image painter, pintor de imagineria — the man em
ployed by the church for coloring retablos, images,
picture frames, and sacred furnishings in general.
What has been said about coloring is in a measure
true of gilding ironwork, namely: that no finish is com-

FIG. 42. CRUDE DOOR KNOCKER.
Probably early XVI Century.
Hispanic Society of America.
Height of backplate &yi in. No. 48.

GOTHIC REJAS AND PULPITS 39
parable to that left by the hammer of the smith.
Nevertheless the gold leaf, because of its method of
application, is more sympathetic than brushed-on
color. At the period when gilding certain portions,
even entire rejas, came into favor in Spain — that is,
at the height of the Renaissance — gold was stream
ing in from the recent conquests in America. Little
ingots were beaten into leaves of an almost infinitesimal
thinness, which were dipped in poppy oil and then
beaten to the iron. It will be seen that by this process
much of the original interest of the iron surface was
still discernible after the gilding. Another but less
frequent method of applying gold was to beat it to
a powder in a mortar and pestel, then mix it with
either poppy oil or glue and paint it on with a brush.
Chemically prepared gilt and bronze powders, such as
are generally used to-day, were unknown to the Spanish
worker; fortunately, too, for their use would have
passed out of the artist's hands and become, as now, a
mere journeyman-painter's task. Sevilla Cathedral
contains the finest examples of rejas completely gilded.
Good examples of painted motifs making rich spots
in a large composition may be encountered in scores
of churches, none, however, more magnificent than the
blazon of Charles V in the Royal Chapel reja of Gra
nada (Figure 108).
THE HORIZONTAL MEMBER
Difficulty of removal has made it almost impossible
for collectors to possess a large reja in toto, but numer
ous fragments such as bars, spindles, cross bands, and

40 GOTHIC REJAS AND PULPITS
even entire crestings have been secured; of these a
cresting and a number of bands or borders, in which
different kinds of execution may be studied, are owned
by the Hispanic Society. The ornamental horizontal
is, as previously stated, the evolution of the simple
structural flat member of early days. At first it was
threaded at regular intervals to receive the uprights;
when it became a modest ornamental feature, the
uprights passed behind it as in the Casa Conchas ex
amples; and finally, when it expanded into the broad
and marvelously rich piece of work seen in Renais
sance rejas, it altogether interrupted the verticals into
short lengths. This meant that the structural part
formerly played by each individual upright was now
confined to a certain few full-length pilasters and piers,
which were stoutly proportioned to meet the demands
made on them (Figure 25). Of the elaboration of the
band by means of lettering pierced a jour the Ave
Maria (Figure 27) furnishes an excellent example.
Leaf and geometric patterns pierced through a single
sheet of iron in early days and later through several
superimposed sheets, offered another means of securing
ornamental effect (Figures 33 to 38). The earliest
pieces in this style were cut with absolutely flat, un
treated edges, as in the lock plate on Figure 15; but
later when several layers of metal were used the pat
tern edge was sometimes carefully beveled. As Gothic
passed into Gotico-florido, these simple flat treatments
were felt to be inadequate for the richness and move
ment of the composition, and modeling in high relief was
practiced. It was obtained by repousse work — the

FIG. 43. DOOR KNOCKER.
Showing early use of crown motif. Late XIV Century.
Hispanic Society of America.
Height 10 in., width 4 in. No. 47.

GOTHIC REJAS AND PULPITS 41
beating out of the pattern by blows from the back —
and may be encountered either alone or, as in Figure
39, in combination with piercing. Among the various
bands illustrated, the flamboyant tracery pieces (Fig
ures 35 and 38) are particularly interesting to the
student since it has been possible to obtain rubbings
of their separate parts. Figure 33 is the foundation
plate of Figure 35, rubbed from the back, and it appears
much denser and less transparent than in the finished
work, after the very open upper plate (Figure 34) has
been applied to it. Both sheets are about one-sixteenth
of an inch thick, and are fitted together with such nicety
that it is almost impossible to determine, until after
close examination, whether the work is not done from
one thickness of metal cut in two planes. These same
observations apply to Figure 38 and its separate rub
bings where the pattern is even more intricate and
refined. As a stiffener for the band and a better means for
applying it to the reja, a strip of iron usually runs
along both top and bottom, back and front, and is
riveted to the pattern. Such strips generally take the
form of a moulding, the execution of which is strangely

FIG. 39. FOLIATED BAND.
Pierced and Beaten in Repousse^ Late XV Century.
Hispanic Society of America.
Length 2 ft. 2 in., width 6 in. No. 1S3.

42 GOTHIC REJAS AND PULPITS
crude even where the band is most refined. This
disparity is to be explained by the fact that it was a
much more difficult task to beat out a good architec
tural moulding of even the simplest section than to
execute piercing or repousse work. Bands similar to
those described, but smaller, were made in great quan
tity for chests; and being easily portable are eagerly
sought by collectors. GOTHIC PULPITS
Besides the reja another peculiarly Spanish produc
tion was the iron pulpit, often designed in conjunction
with it. This, like the Gothic reja, is not as frequent
as in the succeeding period, but a few examples of
fine design and workmanship may be found at Avila
and Burgos, among other places. Pulpits are generally
in pairs, one at each side of the Capilla Mayor, and are
used for the reading of the gospel and epistle respec
tively. A single one, a drawing of which may be found
in Street's Gothic Architecture on Spain, stands in the
small church of San Gil at Burgos. There is very little
about this work that has to do with real smithery, the
faces of its hexagonal form being divided into vertical
panels of delicate Gothic patterning which are pro
duced by superimposed pierced plates riveted to a
wooden frame. The pulpit is supported on a standard
rather pauvre and ungraceful, and is attached besides
to one of the nave piers. It dates from the end of the
fifteenth century.
The Avila example (Figure 40) is far more beautiful
and interesting both as a piece of architectural design

FIG. 44. GOTHIC-RENAISSANCE DOOR KNOCKER.
Early XVI Century.
Hispanic Society of America.
Height 11 in., width 4J< in. No. 49.

GOTHIC REJAS AND PULPITS 43
and as ironwork. It is flamboyant Gothic, although
erected at the same time as its Renaissance companion
and probably by the same master — supposed to be
the rejero Juan Frances who executed the rejas for the
capilla mayor and for the coro of the cathedral. Both
pulpits are of gilded iron, hexagonal in plan, ten feet
in height, and the body of each bears the arms of the
cathedral, namely, the Agnus Dei, the lion, and the
castle, all surmounted by a crown. Here the similarity
ends, for the body of the pulpit in question is in pure
flamboyant Gothic of strongly Flemish flavor. The
accessories, however — the standard, brackets, stair
case, and rail — are Renaissance; yet the ensemble,
due to a most intelligent observance of scale, is per
fectly congruous. The sides of the pulpit, including
that which opens as a gate, are divided into upper
and lower halves by an ornamental band, and these
are divided vertically by a delicate crocketed pinnacle.
The tracery is about the same in all the twenty-four
panels, except for those little discrepancies which make
up the charm of Gothic ironwork. One marvels at the
author who dared to pick out such a specially difficult
phase of geometric tracery requiring, as it did, the
greatest nicety of calculation and execution. The
delicate modeling of this tracery into planes is ob
tained by the familiar method of riveting together
successive sheets cut to form the pattern. It is not
an attempt to copy a carved wooden pulpit in iron,
for everywhere the rivet heads have been accentuated
rather than concealed; by following their outline the
size of each sheet of metal is clearly determined.

44 GOTHIC REJAS AND PULPITS
These rivets go through to the oak frame on which the
work is built up. 1520 is generally accepted as the
date of this production.
Far later than this, but likewise embodying both
Gotico-florido and Renaissance forms-, is the iron pul
pit from the church of San Salvador in Cortejana in
the province of Estremadura. In this case there is
no wooded framework, the whole being built up of
solid bar iron richly wrought in florid forms. It is of
German aspect, but was wrought long after Spain's
intercourse with the Low Countries had ceased — as
late, in fact, as the seventeenth century. Other ex
amples, good, but not strikingly fine, may be seen at
either side of the capilla mayor in Murcia Cathedral.
Many more pulpits than are here mentioned were un
doubtedly made but were done away with, or in some
cases replaced by Renaissance, when the old Gothic
position and arrangement of the coro was changed.
This change, which will be described later, came in
Renaissance times, and probably caused the discard
ing of much fine Gothic work. '

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FIG. 45. GOTHIC-RENAISSANCE DOOR KNOCKER.
Early XVI Century.
Hispanic Society of America.
Height 10J< in., width 4 in. No. 50.
gen

FIG. 46. GOTHIC-RENAISSANCE DOOR KNOCKER.
About 1600.
Hispanic Society of America.
Height 121A in.,- width 4X in. No. 51.

Ill
GOTHIC HARDWARE AND DOMESTIC
UTENSILS KNOCKERS
AS Gothic architecture matured in France and
Western Europe in general, it demanded a
richly carved and paneled wooden door which
left no space for the spreading iron hinges so popular
in the beginning of the style; but in Spanish Gothic
this typical carved door never succeeded in supplant
ing the flat Moorish one sheathed in metal or studded
with nailheads. Even in Toledo Cathedral, where
certain Gothic structural features (the vaulting of the
ambulatory, for instance) are carried further than in
any French prototype, the massive main doors and
several interior ones are Moorish in type.
The Moorish door is built up of an elaborate inter
secting wooden frame which remains visible on the
inside as a series of varying coffers, and is covered on
the exterior with stout vertical boarding. Contrary
to the carved Gothic door, which was so given over
to a display of the wood-carver's skill that it left no
room for metal decoration, this one presented its en
tire exterior for iron embellishment; in other words,
there was a distinct difference between door hardware
in Spain and in France or England; and this even
from Romanesque and early Gothic times when the

46 GOTHIC HARDWARE AND UTENSILS
hinge was developed north of the Pyrenees to its
uttermost decorative possibility, but in Spain was
rarely featured. When, occasionally, an ornamental
strap hinge was made, it closely resembled French
prototypes as on the door of San Millan at Segovia
(Figure 41). Generally it was kept within strictly
utilitarian bounds and was fastened on the interior
of the door. Exterior hinges and carved panels being
conspicuously few, it is rather to the nailhead or
bosse, the knocker, and the backplate, that one must
look for the decorative finish of the flat Spanish door.
Next to the nailhead, whose making has already
been described, the most characteristic bit of Spanish
door hardware is the knocker (called llamador by the
Spaniards and aldabon by the Moors). The first
knockers were very simple, consisting of a flat back-
plate to which was riveted either a ring or a vertical
hammer, the latter often dropping against a large
plain nailhead. The backplate grew in time to be
very elaborate, but at first it was unornamented and
crude in outline. Even the crudest, however, con
tained the germ of an idea peculiarly Spanish and
which was later very highly developed — the hood
over the vertical knocker (Figure 42). It was with
the solid hammer of the first knockers that the smith
was most concerned. For this he went to nature
for his inspiration and fashioned archaic men, birds,
lizards, etc., extremely quaint, but devoid of the ar-
chitecturalizing that later appeared in even the small
est accessories. From these beginnings down to the
end the development of the knocker may be studied

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GOTHIC HARDWARE AND UTENSILS 47
in the Hispanic Society's collection, from which most
of the following illustrations of door hardware are
taken. Almost primitive in appearance are Figures 42 and
43, produced north of the Ebro. These are early
Gothic in period but Romanesque in spirit, although
their dirth of ornamentation makes it difficult to
place them with any degree of certainty. They may
even have been made as late as the beginning of the
fifteenth century in some remote district of Catalonia,
Navarre, or Aragon, which had never been penetrated
by either pure Gothic or Saracenic. It is their frankly
crude workmanship rather than any merit of design
that makes them interesting. Over the backplate in
Figure 42, as already mentioned, may be seen the
crude hood or canopy which will be recognized later
in the rich crowns, semi-circular in form, which re
mained a feature of Spanish knockers even through
Renaissance days. In Figure 43 it is the ornament
at the top of the backplate which, when much re
fined, became the typical adornment of the crown
motif just described. The lack of stability and finish
at the sides of this backplate seems to have disturbed
the smith, for we find him in Figure 44 adding at
tenuated buttresses invisibly riveted from the back;
and in Figure 45 still further architecturalizing his
work by cabled edging surmounted by diminutive
pinnacles. Buttresses were treated in many ways
and in addition to cabling were sometimes splayed and
chamfered. In Figures 44 and 45 both backplates are
cut from metal one-sixteenth of an inch thick and

48 GOTHIC HARDWARE AND UTENSILS

pierced in the manner which had now become popular
and which in this instance is of Renaissance outline
at the top. The lizard adorning the hammer (Figure
44) was widely used in France as well as Spain during
this period; the extent to which it was refined may
be seen in Figure 46 and Figure 70. The same
features were generally followed: — outstretched wings
beautifully etched and engraved, arched neck of
scales, and ringed tail; but in Figure 46 the work is

FIG. 47. ARCHAIC HAMMER
OF A XV CENTURY
DOOR KNOCKER.
Hispanic Society of America.
Height 12 in. No. 54.

FIG. 48. ARCHAIC HAMMER
OF A XV CENTURY
DOOR KNOCKER.
Hispanic Society of America.
Height 7 in. No. S3.

GOTHIC HARDWARE AND UTENSILS 49
so mathematically precise and so accurately cut that
much of the charm of the earlier examples is lost.
Probably contemporaneous with Figures 42 and 43
are Figures 47 and 48, also curiously archaic, but
likewise not as old as would appear at first glance,
and with the metal hammered into a much greater
density than in previous examples. Both may be fif
teenth century work. The immemorial boina or Basque
cap of the man places one of these pieces at least as
coming from the northern provinces; an impression
further borne out by the purplish tinge of the iron,
Biscayan ore being remarkable for its rich purple
color. Probably neither of these figures was ever
furnished with a backplate, a nailhead placed under
the hammer sufficing for the necessary resonance.
Of the two, the tailless dog, whose feet rest on a little
cushion after the conventional manner of the dog
on Gothic tombs, is less primitive looking. Another
early fifteenth century piece is No. 52 in the Hispanic
collection, a curious little dragon with a shield on his
back. The heavy bar which forms the frame of this
knocker and to which the beast is fastened, is hinged
onto two projecting stanchions. This is a fine bit
of smithing with good back riveting.
Bosses, singly or in pairs with one placed above the
other, were found to serve very well as supports for
the knocker (Figure 49), thus doing away with the
backplate; but the bosse, although a Moorish feat
ure, was often treated in a way which might be classed
as Gothic. In Figure 50 it is beaten out into natural
istic leaf forms, and in Figure 52 the two separate
units are made of rosettes, each concentric layer cut

50 GOTHIC HARDWARE AND UTENSILS
to a different pattern so as to give a flower-like effect
— a motif often found in later Renaissance objects.
This knocker introduces the pilgrims' shell, a favorite
motif in Castile. Going back to Figures 50 and 51,
we find the hammer bent from a rectangular bar and
suggesting the patterns into which reja verticals were
often opened out for decorative effect.
Figure 53, one of a massive pair, is a splendid ex
ample of Gothic smithing. The hammer is of the
popular flattened ring type found all over Spain, and
its ends, instead of being welded together, may be
seen terminating separately where they pass through

FIG. SS. KNOCKER.
Gothic in spirit but probably XVIII Century work.
Hispanic Society of America.
Height 18 in. No. 117.

FIG. 53. ONE OF A PAIR OF GOTHIC DOOR
KNOCKERS.
XV Century. Hispanic Society of America.
Total height 13 in. Nos. 71 and 73.
FIG. 54. DOOR KNOCKER OF MUDEJAR DESIGN.
XVII Century. Hispanic Society of America.
Total Height 13 in. No. 86.

GOTHIC HARDWARE AND UTENSILS 51
the beast's head. The contour of the ring is pleasingly
irregular and the modeling, owing to the inconspic-
uousness of the punch marks, is felt all over the
surface. The horned head, especially around the
open mouth, is beautifully wrought and shows no
sign of supplementary tooling. Such a piece might
well have been a warning to later smiths who so or
namented their surface as to conceal its forging. An
other good piece of smithing, but one which may not
be over a hundred and fifty years old, is Figure 55.
While entirely forged, it assembles many of the mo
tifs used by those who worked the metal while cold
— the chief reason for suspecting it to be more modern
than its forging appears. Whatever its date, it is
interesting as exhibiting the limit to which smithery
on a small scale could be carried.
Old hardware is often difficult to place as to period
owing to its original door having rotted away and the
piece under consideration having been applied to the
newer door. Then, too, artistic movements even as
great and widespread as the Renaissance traveled slowly
in Spain. Important towns like Avila and Segovia, for
instance, never really shook off medievalism, and their
artisans went on producing Gothic long after others
were working in the " Italian taste." For this reason
it is necessary to have a knowledge of local art and
history to determine the age of an object and whether
its style is indigenous or transplanted. This is very
apparent in examining the iron in the Vieh Museum;
for it contains pieces collected in outlying Pyrenean
towns and authentically placed in the seventeenth

52 GOTHIC HARDWARE AND UTENSILS
century but which look as primitive as fourteenth
century pieces produced in Barcelona.
THE EASTERN INFLUENCE IN KNOCKERS
Door ironwork passed in time from the simple
smithing process into a combination of smithing with
Eastern methods of enrichment applied when the
metal was cold. As such treatment affected surface
rather than form, the flat backplate was naturally
the first part to undergo change. This was accom
plished by notching and lobing it around the margin
and piercing its center with Oriental and Gothic
tracery or incising it with patterning. Figure 56 is
one of the earliest departures; but here the forged
bird is incised as well, its feathers being indicated by
etching. In this same class is Number 56 in the His
panic Society's collection, with a notched backplate
and a curious S-shaped forged hammer in the form of
a two-headed dragon whose scales have been elaborately
chiseled. In contrast to the above knockers, which in spite
of Moorish treatment follow Gothic forms, are those
of truly Oriental form with backplate invariably
circular or star-shaped; these usually had a ring for
a hammer and a separate bolt for a striker. The
ring was also combined with an extremely small
backplate — little more, in fact, than an anchorage
for it (Figures 57 and 58). The circular backplate was
pierced with Eastern patterns and its edge notched
and serrated or perhaps finished with a cabled bor
der. Of this class are Figures 59, 60, 61 and 62. Their

FIG. 56. DOOR KNOCKER WITH INCISED
PATTERNING.
Hispanic Society of America.
Height 13^ in. No. 55.

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rings do not depend solely on the smith's hammer
for interest, but are treated with untiring patience
by being pounced, lined and patterned. Even more
Eastern as a conception is the star-shaped plate seen
in Figure 63. This, as well as Figure 64, is a good
Mudejar example with Moorish and Gothic details
successfully harmonized. In both the filagree of the
backplate is interesting, for it shows how the scale of
Gothic ornamentation can be reduced to a delicacy
which is purely Oriental in appearance. It is not
unlikely that these two pieces were made by Moorish

FIG. 65. DOOR KNOCKER WITH GOTHIC BACKPLATE.
XVII Century.
Hispanic Society of America.
Height 9% in. No. 110.

54 GOTHIC HARDWARE AND UTENSILS
artizans working long after Christian rule had been
established. Gothic considerably architecturalized is seen in
Figure 65, which immediately precedes the flamboyant
seen in Figures 66 and 67. In this Gotico-florido
period when stone itself, in spite of its limitations,
was as intricately cut as if it were soft wood, it is not
surprising to find the ironworker likewise overstep
ping the limits of his stubborn material, and reaching
a laciness hardly surpassed by gold and silver workers.
The basis of his knocker design was the rich flamboy
ant stonework of the day, and the figure used as a
striker was not forged, but chiseled out of the solid
iron. Backplates too were extremely rich, often
chiseled and beveled as well as pierced, as if labor
counted for nothing; and in proportion as excessive
labor was expended on an object the theory of good
structure was neglected. The lacelike openness of
the backplate in Figure 67 represents a prodigious
amount of patient cutting in each of the two pierced
sheets, and these are so ingeniously riveted together
as to appear like one thickness of metal beveled.
While in a general way this piece resembles a typical
French flamboyant knocker, it has a Spanish appear
ance because of the Eastern patterning incised up the
sides of the buttresses and on the neck of the winged
beast; the tracery crowning each panel is likewise
very Spanish, as seen in the semicircular crown motif
already mentioned. How much further this ornate-
ness might have been carried if Renaissance had not
made its appearance is problematical.

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Indicating the flamboyant artizan's attempt to
grasp the Renaissance are Figures 68 and 69 which,
for the sake of sequence, may be termed transitional.
In both cases the backplate has lost its Gothic but
tresses and pinnacles and instead is enclosed in a severe
moulded frame — a Renaissance idea. As might be
expected, the mitering is inaccurate; the predeces
sors of this struggling Renaissance craftsman would
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FIG. 66. GOTHIC KNOCKER.
Late XVI Century.
Hispanic Society of America.
Height of backplate f>yi in. No. 106.

56 GOTHIC HARDWARE AND UTENSILS
abandoned for a simple leaf pattern neither Gothic
nor Renaissance; the two forged hammers are like
wise much simplified. This particular ornamentation
is very Aragonese in character, and it is probable that
these two pieces were made in that province long after
the Gothic had passed away elsewhere. In this same
class, but exhibiting slightly more of Renaissance
understanding, are Figures 70, 71, and 72; the last
with the round-headed classic arch crudely cut through
the backplate. LOCKS AND HASPS
Spanish locks, while artistic, never received the
same amount of attention from the ironworker as did
knockers, except in the case of those made for the
vargueno, a characteristic piece of Spanish furniture
which will be mentioned later. Lock-making for
doors never became the fine art it was in France, where
the French smith, assimilating the methods and skill
of the locksmith, armorer, and jeweler, produced
locks so exquisitely wrought that they have since found
a place in all considerable collections of art works.
There are nevertheless some excellent Spanish locks
in the Hispanic collection; but the majority, as indi
cated by their hinged hasps, were originally affixed
to trunks and chests. In the illustrations of Ro
manesque and early Gothic rejas can be seen the simple
locks of those periods; the device being the slide bolt
with attached hasp which, when released, served as
a handle as well. Such a lock, or rather bolt, was
necessarily large and crude, for anything of small

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scale and greater nicety would have failed to adjust
itself to the structural discrepancies in these big,
heavy gates; but even Renaissance rejeros appreci
ated its suitability for the reja and continued using it,
considerably enriched, throughout the sixteenth century
(Figure 103).
Common to all Europe was the lock which, dis
pensing with the bolt, consisted of hasp, lockplate and
box, the whole being fastened in position by means
of fixing staples. Of these last, an early specimen,
rather crude, holds the knocker of Figure 45 in place.
The fixing staple having proven itself to be the strong
est means of fastening down the lockplate, it was used
in varying form throughout all periods and became
in the Spanish Renaissance a work of art in itself that
sometimes overshadowed the rest of the lock. Typ
ical Gothic ones are seen in the fifteenth century lock
in Figure 73. This is of crude flamboyant work
manship and the traceried band was once gilded.
It and Figure 74 are typical of the period — square
or oblong panels of tracery treated architecturally,
a decorated hasp often in the form of an archaic fig
ure, and some moveable feature to conceal the key
hole; this last, as seen in Figure 74, sometimes took
the form of a Biblical personage under a canopy. A
rather amusing innovation in this piece is the four
corner heads used instead of staples to hold the lock
fast. A rich late Gothic lock and hasp, and one with a
more distinctively Spanish treatment than the two
last mentioned, is Figure 76. Pieces almost identical

58

GOTHIC HARDWARE AND UTENSILS

to it existed in the splendid collection of the Duque de
Segovia, which was recently sold outside of Spain.
Figure 76 consists of an ornamental backplate with
a very much raised lockbox, the former held down
at the corners by four beautifully worked rosettes,

FIG. 75. CHEST LOCK WITH FALSE FIXING STAPLES
OVER KEYHOLE.
Late XVI Century.
Hispanic Society of America.
Backplate 6 in. square. No. 108.
between which the plate is perforated with fish tracery
forming a border around the lockbox; in addition to
this treatment, the edges are scalloped and the re
maining surface engraved in the Moorish fashion.
The hasp (which is out of position in the illustration)

FIG. 67. RICH FLAMBOYANT KNOCKER.
Middle XVI Century.
Hispanic Society of America.
Height 10 in., width 6 in. No. 111.

GOTHIC HARDWARE AND UTENSILS 59
is treated with as much attention as the backplate.
Its lower part, raised to fit over the lockbox, is per
forated and engraved, and on it lies a little lizard
like beast with curled tongue and tail. At the top
this hasp widens out to fourteen inches and is much
engraved with the vine pattern, strongly suggesting
the form and patterning of German work; this por-

FIG. 80. LOCKPLATE AND HASP.
Probably XVII Century.
Hispanic Society of America.
Length 14 in. No. 115.
tion is skillfully welded to the bar at the top. - There
is no indication of how this huge hasp was fastened
or hinged to its object; — probably by staples which
passed over the end of the bar, but are now missing.
Hasps as well as fixing staples received great

60 GOTHIC HARDWARE AND UTENSILS
attention from the locksmith. As the nature of the
hasp did not allow much latitude of form, the long
narrow strip used at the beginning endured throughout
all periods, but the manner of decorating it changed
with each epoch. Owing to its being attached sepa
rately from the lock, and being, besides, the more
fragile member, the hasp is frequently missing in old
locks. Figures 76 to 79 are good examples of late
Gothic running into Renaissance.
CHEST AND BOX FITTINGS
Throughout the ages caskets and chests have al
ways received great attention from the artizan. As
iron came into its own in the Middle Ages, we find
chests and strong boxes in that metal produced in all
the countries of Europe; but far more numerous,
because less ponderous, were wooden boxes with iron
trimmings. Such objects answered the manifold uses
of the yet unborn wardrobe or chest of drawers. The
humblest as well as the noblest dwellings were sup
plied with them, so that the chest-maker, especially
in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, was one of
the busiest artizans in any land. The large sized
chest, called in Spain an arcdn, served also as a seat
and, when covered with a straw mattress, as a bed;
and was so solidly constructed and reinforced with iron
strips as to be practically indestructible. Of early
Spanish chests one of the best known is that said to
have belonged to the Cid and now in Burgos Cathe
dral, with many iron rings indicating that it was a
baggage chest to be fastened to the back of a sumpter

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GOTHIC HARDWARE AND UTENSILS 61
mule. Spanish chests of a small, portable size were
frequently covered with hide or parchment which
was painted red; or sometimes the covering was left
its natural color and the iron straps painted vermil
lion. Later, in addition to these necessary iron straps
and clamps, were added iron rosettes, plaques, nu
merous hinges and double locks, all beautifully wrought.
The smallest chests, for guarding jewels, missals, and
other little objects, were called arquetas and were
sometimes made entirely of iron as elaborately chis
eled as was the small ivory box of the Moors. In
the fifteenth century the jewel box was provided with
little drawers and was thence known as a huche.
One type of small casket is that which figured in
the inventory of Margaret of Spain in 1524 as "bien
ouvre a jour" in the "maniere d'Espagne." It con
sisted of a somewhat flat rectangular box with slightly
ridged lid and was covered with parallel rows of re
peating tracery patterns worked out of two thick
nesses of pierced plate and half round wire. Such
boxes were usually raised on rudely finished buttresses
and furnished with peculiar and characteristic lock-
plates. The locks were often of the greatest richness
and intricately wrought, sometimes requiring several
keys to open them. Chests of late Gothic days were
finished entirely in the richest flamboyant ironwork,
never perhaps with quite the refinement and knowl
edge of architectural forms as seen in France, but
often displaying more originality.
A splendid chest in repousse is in the Madrid Mu
seum. It is Byzantine in character though whether

62 GOTHIC HARDWARE AND UTENSILS
it is as early as this would imply is difficult to say.
It may have been made in Gothic days under the in
spiration of some richly carved Moorish ivory box.
Both the sides and the gabled lid are divided into small
panels of uniform size, which are filled with charming
little figures of ladies, knights afoot and mounted,
dragons, etc. Figure 81 is ¦ a velvet-covered trunk
with rich iron fittings in the Hispanic collection.
Figure 82 is a small beautifully tooled leather box
with iron fittings.
CANDELABRAS, BRAZIERS, AND OTHER SMALL
OBJECTS
Another medieval object interesting to the student
of ironwork is the candelero of which several Catalan
examples are illustrated. These modest utensils, be
speaking the relative luxury of wax candles instead
of olive oil for lighting interiors, were used from the
beginning of the eleventh century in churches and
homes north of the Ebro. The Museum of Vieh has
a large and diversified collection in which the devel
opment of the candelabra may be traced. The old
est form is based on the Roman oil lamp and has a
basin or drip plate at the bottom. Later the central
stem or pricket was augmented by branches holding
sockets for smaller candles, and the whole was mounted
on three spreading feet, as in the eleventh century
example (Figure 83). In the later (Figure 84), the
base has become a square pan, with central and corner
prickets. These two are small, about fourteen and
seventeen inches high, and were used on the table;

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but Figures 85 and 86 are five and six feet high, and
were used in churches. The making of candeleros
was such a thriving business that very many artizans
were engaged in it and thus, though the type of the
object changed but little throughout the Gothic pe
riod, the manner of adorning it was full of variety and
fancy. In the more mountainous regions the smith

FIG. 83.
TABLE CANDELERO PAT
TERNED AFTER THE
ROMAN.
In the museum at Vieh.
XI Century. Height 14 in.

FIG. 84.
TABLE CANDELERO.
Catalan. In the Museum at Vieh.
XV Century. Height 17 in.

slashed and hammered his central pricket out into the
lily form already seen in the crestings of the Barce
lona rejas; down in the towns, where there is more
suspicion of French or Flemish influence, the crown
form of Figure 86 was most in vogue. This shape,
very large and without any central standard, was
also made to hang from the ceiling by massive chains,

64 GOTHIC HARDWARE AND UTENSILS

and is the prototype of many modern pendant chan
deliers in brass and bronze. Among smaller pieces
in the Vieh Museum, known as candeleros de mesa, a
number bear traces of having been gilded; this was

FIG. 85.
ECCLESIASTICAL CAN
DELABRA.
Catalan. In the Museum at Vieh.
XIII Century.
Height S ft. 6 in.

FIG. 86.
ECCLESIASTICAL CAN
DELABRA.
Catalan. In the Museum at Vieh.
XV Century.
Height S ft.

done not only to produce a rich effect but also to make
rusting impossible. In Aragon, as late as the seven
teenth century, the tall form of Figure 87 was still
plentifully produced, but with the difference that the
central stem was generally twisted — a peculiarity
seldom met with outside this province. Hacheros,

FIG. 76. LOCK AND HASP.
Elaborate Mudejar design. XVII Century.
Hispanic Society of America.
Extreme width of hasp 14 in. No. 114.

GOTHIC HARDWARE AND UTENSILS 65
or torch holders, were similar to candeleros, but with
out feet. Attached permanently to the wall was
another type of torch holder — the stiff forearm with
clenched fist grasping a socket.
Of as widespread use as the candlestick from which
the interior was lighted was the bra\ero by which it
was heated — or rather, by which the icy, vault-like
atmosphere of stone dwellings was slightly mitigated.
For the Spanish brazier the classic tripod form was
not favored; instead, a circular or polygonal table
like standard with an opening in the top to receive

FIG. 89. BRAZIER ON WHEELS.
Catalan. XIV Century.
the dish of charcoal was used. The more prosperous
Spanish families had a two-storied affair accomodat
ing a chafing dish below for foot-warming and an up
per one for the hands. This type was usually of
generous circumference, so that it was possible for
several people to draw up a chair to it as at table.
Not always was the entire frame of iron; more often
it was of wood, rimmed or entirely covered with sheet
metal fastened down with decorative nails. Figure
88 in the Hispanic Society's collection is an excellent

66 GOTHIC HARDWARE AND UTENSILS
example of the all-iron stand, and dates from the
early seventeenth century; its additional iron sup
ports of the foot-rest, between the four legs, leave
no doubt as to whether this lower feature was util
ized. Far more numerous were the low brazeros with
one dish set in a small stand of solid wood or a skele
ton stand of iron. These were either left on the floor

FIG. 90. IRON FIRE-DOG.
Catalan. XV Century.
or lifted on the table, and still form the only heating
apparatus in rural Spain.
A style of Spanish brazier but little seen to-day
is the rectangular receptacle mounted on wheels and
pulled about, from which the altar boys filled their
incense holders. It was used mostly in the chilly

FIG. 77. CHEST HASP
Late XVI Century. Hispanic Society of America.
Length 16 in. No. 129.
FIG. 78. CHEST HASP.
Typical of the XVII Century. Hispanic Society of America.
Length 12 in. No. 127.
FIG. 79. CHEST HASP.
Typical of the XVII Century. Hispanic Society of America.
Length 18 in. No. 119.

GOTHIC HARDWARE AND UTENSILS 67
vestry-rooms of churches. Figure 89 is an example
of one of these Catalan grates or cribs of the four
teenth century belonging to Barcelona Cathedral.
Owing to the general absence of chimneys in Span
ish houses, Gothic hearth .accessories, demanded so

FIG. 91. GUARD AND FIRE-DOGS.
Museo del Greco, Toledo.
plentifully from French and English smiths, were
practically unknown except in Catalonia. Even there
the chimney was rare, while in the rest of Spain very
few palaces were furnished with it until the eighteenth
century. In the Louvre is a Spanish fire screen, purely
Flemish in character in its five pierced Gothic panels,
but with a Mudejar cresting and Castilian turrets at

68 GOTHIC HARDWARE AND UTENSILS
the base, Figure 91 shows a beautiful Renaissance
chimney-piece from the house of the painter El Greco
in Toledo. The broad iron guard of no particular
epoch is nevertheless interesting with its tall twisted
end supports, opening out to hold ladles or other
kitchen utensils, for to this day the Spanish meal is
prepared at the one and only fireplace in the house.

FIG. 81. ARCON, OR TRUNK WITH IRON FITTINGS
Hispanic Society of America.
Length 4 ft. 2 in., height 2 ft.

FIG. 82. SMALL LEATHER STRONG BOX.
Hispanic Society of America.
Length 17 in., height 11^ in.

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RENAISSANCE
REJA
SPINDLES AND COLONNETTES
THAT the term Plateresque was chosen to
designate early Spanish Renaissance archi
tecture because it was ornamented in the
minute manner of the silversmith's (or platero's)
art, would in itself indicate that metalwork was both
popular and respected at the time. The influence of
fifteenth century Italian art penetrated into Spain
about 1500, the first Plateresque buildings being the
hospitals in Toledo and in Santiago which Enrique
de Egas of Flanders built. As Gothic was in a thriv
ing state when rich ecclesiastics began importing the
Renaissance, it did not immediately succumb to the
new style. Gothic buildings continued to be erected,
and those in Renaissance still borrowed many Gothic
features; the result was one of charm and novelty.
This is especially true in the decorative accessories
where some very effective hybrid forms may be en
countered. That it was the superficial side of the
Italian Renaissance that appealed most to the Span
iards was natural for they had had long association
with Moorish art, which, as has been explained, was
ornamental rather than structural. Wherever Span
ish Renaissance is encountered it is invariably sump-

70 DEVELOPMENT OF RENAISSANCE REJA
tuous, for Spain in this century enjoyed an unprece
dented expansion of wealth, power, and territory;
and as the activity of the smith generally reflected the
condition of his country, Spanish ironwork became a
thing of unsurpassed grandeur. It remained largely
Gotico-florido during the beginning of the Renais
sance or Plateresque period; but when, after a time,
the new style dominated with its rich architectural
treatments and its unhesitating use of the human
figure (previously rare in iron), the smith became a
magician. What he now produced was, to quote the
great English authority, J. Starkie Gardner, "of so
grand and impressive a character as to confound all
our previous conceptions of the capabilities of the
material. The limits that its stubborn nature and
the technical difficulties of the craft seem to im
pose are disregarded and, in contemplating the co
lossal rejas in the great Spanish cathedrals, it is
hard to realize that effects in iron must be got
swiftly by the hammer and punch while the iron is
hot, or tediously by the file, chisel, and drill while it is
cold." The adoption of the Renaissance spindle as the
upright member has already been mentioned under
the heading "Development of the Vertical Bar."
This spindle was not the result of a gradual evolution
of form, but suddenly appears as a perfected unit in
the reja, the only difference between the earliest and
latest examples being in the amount of ornament
lavished on them. "The happy idea of the replace
ment of plain or twisted rectangular bars by spindled

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FIG. 92. RENAISSANCE BAND IN REPOUSSE.
Perforated. Early XVI Century. Hispanic Society of America.
Width 5 in. No. 157.

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FIG. 93. RENAISSANCE BAND IN REPOUSSE.
XVI Century. Hispanic Society of America.
Width 6 in. No. 148.

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FIG. 94. RENAISSANCE BAND IN REPOUSSE.
Middle XVI Century. Hispanic Society of America.
Width 6 in. No. 146.

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FIG. 95. RENAISSANCE BAND IN REPOUSSE.
Late XVI Century. Hispanic Society of America.
Width 7 in. No. 144.

DEVELOPMENT OF RENAISSANCE REJA 71
balusters, which led to such important departures,
must evidently have been an individual idea, due,
no doubt, to one of the great masters who changed
their style with the times, like Friar Frances of Sala
manca." (J. Starkie Gardner.) The spindle, no
matter what its dimensions, was always forged from
the solid; the longest ones weighed from two hundred
and fifty to three hundred pounds. It was made,
presumably, by beating out a bar of the required
length, and then in order to obtain the proper section,
certain portions were diminished in diameter by ex
cessive beating and the greater diameter was secured
by the welding of additional metal, a feat which can
be accomplished in iron only. Besides the great
muscular effort of welding together so many pieces,
the spindle required infinite skill and patience to
avoid a ragged unsightly joining. The spindle was
further worked with careful regard to perfect sym
metry, until it became in the latest days almost as
mechanically perfect as the turned baluster. A
graceful outline alone did not long content the rejero,
for he soon set to work to devise some sort of sur
face decoration for his new form, and decided to en
velop the bulging portion with leaf forms chiseled
while cold. This treatment was at first crude, as in
the separate spindles, Nos. 165, 166, 167, and 168 in
the Hispanic collection, but later it acquired all the
graceful modeling of sheet repousse work and marked
the decorative climax of the spindle. Afterwards
when all restraint was lost and the foliated enrich
ments almost covered the entire length and were

72 DEVELOPMENT OF RENAISSANCE REJA
heavily gilded besides, the usual weakening effect of
over-ornamentation is perceptible, as in the door
reja of the library of Salamanca University (Figure
115). Another innovation in vertical members of rejas
was the pilaster or column. It will be remembered
that in the Gothic Barcelona grilles no one upright
received any special accentuation, not even the end
bars; for the featuring of certain motifs and members
is a purely Renaissance idea. We see it first prac
ticed in the attenuated pilasters of the Siguenza ex
ample (Figure 97), which are used to frame the gates
within the reja and are carried on clear to the top.
Like all early pilasters they are solid, and in this case
about three inches square, and their four sides chiseled
with Renaissance ornament. From this modest be
ginning the pilaster grew into the massive proportions
of the square column seen in the detail from Granada
(Figure 25). The massiveness here was, however,
merely simulated, for the square column was in reality
a stout oaken core, sheathed in iron plates; but its
proportions served nevertheless to give great archi
tectural emphasis to the whole. Columns, large or
small, were generally of the Corinthian order since its
attenuation and ornamentation were best adapted to
iron. In no sense was it a mere copy of stone Corin
thian, but was interpreted in the spirit of metal, from
which it drew a sympathetic response which the iron
workers of the eighteenth century classic revival in
England and France failed utterly to obtain. On
the larger iron-cased Spanish column all the popular

FIG. 96. NAVE OF BURGOS CATHEDRAL.
Showing the importance of the reja in Spanish churches.

DEVELOPMENT OF RENAISSANCE REJA 73
forms of Renaissance decoration may be found em
bossed. The work was extremely delicate in detail
and shows that, if the artizan were not actually a
silversmith, he was at least far more conversant with
orfevrerie than with the vanishing methods of iron
smithing. This fact is again apparent in the intro
duction of many finely modeled medallion portraits
in repousse (frieze of Toledo coro reja, Figure 100);
even large compositions were executed by the same
process as may be seen in Figure 102.
OTHER RENAISSANCE FEATURES
Along with the foregoing, the extensive use of her
aldry, of broad ornamented friezes, and of the human
figure complete the most salient additions in Renais
sance ironwork. Armorial bearings were mentioned
in connection with the Gotico-florido period. Renais
sance rejeros developed them into a more highly im
portant motif. While the grille still remained of
medium height, that is under twenty-five feet, the
blazon of its donor occupied the center of the crest
ing; but later when the whole composition grew more
lofty, it was dropped down into the body of the grille.
Coats of arms were colored and gilded (see page 38),
a treatment carried to a point of great magnificence
in the detail of the reja in the Royal Chapel at Gra
nada (Figure 105).
The introduction of an ornamental horizontal
member to break up the severe verticality of the
early Gothic reja has already been discussed. In
Renaissance days not merely one, but two or three of

74 DEVELOPMENT OF RENAISSANCE REJA
these made their appearance in the same composition
and assumed the importance of a frieze, thus respond
ing to the increased height and importance of the
verticals (Figure 101). In Gothic days bands had
generally been of open work; those now under con
sideration were more often solid and beaten in re
pousse. Figures 92 to 95 are examples taken from
small rejas. The ornamented band was not confined
to the reja but was used in diminutive scale and
beautifully worked on chests and caskets.
The human figure is seen everywhere in Renais
sance ironwork, a profusion which may be explained
as a reaction against the ban put upon its use in art
by the Moors. George Street, in the description al
ready cited of the Pamplona Gothic grille, marvels
at the facility with which the figures "are all elabo
rately hammered up out of the solid." But these
were of minute size — about the same as seen on
Gothic knockers — and were so rarely attempted in
that period that they may well have astonished Street
who, being interested only in Gothic, did not examine
the really startling productions of later days when
human figures "are not merely introduced singly or
in pairs, but in multitudes; and the master ironworkers
have not hesitated to attempt even the portrayal of
scenes and historical events. The character and exe
cution of this figure work make it impossible to be
lieve that those who produced it were only smiths,
and we find, in fact, that the masters who signed their
names to such magnificent productions are spoken of
by contemporaries as sculptors and architects and were

FIG. 97. REJA OF THE CAPILLA DE SANTA LIBRADA.
Siguenza Cathedral. Early XVI Century.

DEVELOPMENT OF RENAISSANCE REJA 75
in two or three instances in holy orders. They were
indeed artists of the highest rank."
This extraordinary figure work, however, was not
always forged from the solid; for aside from the ques
tion of labor, its weight alone when posed in a crest
ing would have made it impracticable. It was there
fore beaten out of two thin sheets of iron, one the front
and one the back, and these riveted together to form
the round, as may be detected in the amorini of the
Casa Pilatos reja (Figure 119). This particular kind
of repousse work required great skill to maintain
uniform thickness in the modeled sheet of metal —
a process known as "moving the metal along" by
blows in such a way that the greatest projection re
quired by the patterning should be of the same thick
ness as its lowest point of relief. This special knack
is practically lost to-day.
Italy, home of the Renaissance, produced but little
ironwork in that great period, and nothing like the
same understanding of architecturalizing it was ever
grasped by her artizans. Because a few smaller ob
jects, notably the Strozzi lanterns in Florence, show a
glimpse of it, and because in this last are to be seen
"cornices, columns and capitals in iron," Vasari wrote
enthusiastically that its artificer "was without an
equal in the past and probably not to be excelled in
the future." Had this appreciative biographer lived
in Spain where the works which excelled the Strozzi
lanterns were so numerous, he would have left us
volumes concerning the Spanish rejeros. As it is,
however, their names are mostly unknown. From the

76 DEVELOPMENT OF RENAISSANCE REJA
"Diccionario de los Artifices Sevillanos" by Gestoso
y Perez, we learn the names of a very few. Scanning
these, one finds the rejeros were often silversmiths,
armorers and architects as well. Even without much
data on the subject, a critic could not but feel that
they were artists of broad training, for in every
important work we find, as in the best work of any
medium, constructiveness paramount and ornamen
tation subservient. It is recorded that several of
these Renaissance rejas were felt to be so important
that the builder was chosen by competition as in
architectural works; and that elaborate drawings and
even complete models in wood had to be prepared.
Our knowledge of these conditions, scant though it
is, enables us to understand the excellences in their
designing. It has been mentioned that the Renaissance was
brought into Spain at a moment of great national
expansion. Granada had fallen and all Spain was
Christian. New churches were built and in these,
and also in the old thirteenth century Gothic crea
tions of Fernando el Santo, the noble families of the
land vied with each other in dedicating and furnishing
special sepulchral chapels which, containing magnifi
cent tombs and costly offerings, necessitated the erec
tion of adequate rejas. Throughout the sixteenth
century there was no busier artizan in all Spain than
the rejero. Besides religious zeal, another stimulus
was given him by the important decision of the Span
ish clergy to make a change in the interior arrange
ment of their churches, this change being the removal

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DEVELOPMENT OF RENAISSANCE REJA 77
of the priests' choir (coro) from the east end down
into the nave of the cathedral, where it faced the high
altar (altar mayor or capilla mayor). This was an
endeavor to get back to the arrangement of the early
Christian basilica as can be still seen in San Clemente
in Rome. The change, inaugurated in Spain in the
early sixteenth century, placed the coro where it
blocked up the nave in a way that must have dis
tressed the architect, but which gave a great oppor
tunity to the rejero; for the coro reja, now opposite
to that of the altar mayor, was made to correspond
to it in height and grandeur. Those of the side chapels
were but little less imposing, and in the case of certain
noted families like the Constable of Castile's, their
chapel reja even surpasses that of the high altar.
Figure 96, merely a corner glimpse of the vast Cathe
dral of Burgos, shows how reja followed reja in the
great Spanish churches.
In reja-making, as in architecture, the transition
from Gothic to Plateresque was gradual; but the
architect soon outstripped the ironworker, and build
ings of purest Renaissance were being erected while
the ironworker was still experimenting with tentative
Renaissance ornament. There was, however, this
difference; that the architect received his forms fully
developed from Italy, whereas the rejero, having no
Italian prototype in iron to study, needed time to
work out his problems. Whatever he grasped of the
new art was first expressed in the ornament rather
than the form of the reja; so that along with twisted
Gothic bars and the simplest horizontal members, we

78 DEVELOPMENT OF RENAISSANCE REJA
find classic details such as amorini, palmettes, wreaths,
festoons, shells, and egg-and-dart mouldings, all crudely
worked at first.
One of the first difficulties that confront artizans
in the working out of any new style is the lack
of appropriate tools. As an art develops through
experience so does the fashioning of adequate tools.
The new details practiced in the Renaissance —
amorini, arabesques, and floral forms — were vastly
different from the geometric perforations of the Gothic,
and intricate though these last were, the tools required
for them would not suffice for the new forms. The
ironworker, with such tools as he had at the beginning
of the Renaissance period, roughed out the patterns
while the iron was still hot, and afterward, when the
metal was cold, went over it with finer tools to pick
out the detail. But these first attempts were crude,
and examples are often found in the transitional period
where wonderful facility is exhibited in the execution
of some rich flamboyant ornamentation, while simpler
Renaissance forms in the same grille and undoubtedly
by the same man are worked with childish awkward
ness, due as much to lack of proper tools as to lack
of experience. As these were perfected the execution
lost somewhat in charm until to-day, with manifold
and over-perfected implements, a cold precision is the
inevitable result. To demonstrate the truth of this
the modern plasterer's equipment was recently taken
away from a group of workmen and the Elizabethan
kit handed them instead. With this they were asked
to do their best. The finished work, offered by

FIG. 101. REJA OF THE CAPILLA MAYOR.
Sevilla Cathedral. 1518-33.

DEVELOPMENT OF RENAISSANCE REJA 79
them with many an apology, savored of much of the
charm of early English plastering and was thoroughly
satisfactory. The same experiment might be profi
tably tried on the modern ironworker.

V
RENAISSANCE CHURCH REJAS
TO follow chronologically the evolution or even
the erecting of important Renaissance rejas
would be impossible, not only because cathe
dral records are hard to get at but because the evo
lution was not logical. In certain great centers of
progress it went ahead rapidly; in remoter spots
where, nevertheless, chapels and rejas were built with
equal devotion, the new style came late and only
partially. It will suffice to mention a certain number
of the larger cities where reja-making was carried on
most vigorously and to give a few examples from
each. SIGUENZA, LEON, TARRAGONA
In Sigiienza Cathedral, one of the most magnificent
late Romanesque structures in Spain, there is much
early Renaissance ironwork; this because the bishop
holding the see in the early sixteenth century added a
late Gothic cloister and, in the body of the cathedral
itself, some fine Renaissance chapels. Two of the
cloister rejas have already been mentioned as illus
trating Gotico-florido (Figures 31 and 32). That of
the chapel of Santa Librada in the transept of the
cathedral may be quoted as a very early Renaissance
example (Figure 97). Surrounded as it is by Plat-

FIG. 103. REJA OF THE CORO.
Sevilla Cathedral. 1519.

RENAISSANCE CHURCH REJAS 81
eresque stonework, it bears out the remark previously
made that the architect was more advanced in the
new forms than the ironworker. In the stonework
both ornamentation and structural details such as
the arch, impost, and spandrel, are fully developed;
while in the reja the form is still medieval, and,
viewed from a distance in the dim interior where
its new surface decoration is not discernible, it gives
every indication of belonging to the earlier period;
but near at hand, the little square columns flanking
the gate (which in this instance are solid) are seen to
be covered with Renaissance arabesques, and to have
an appropriate base although not developed suffi
ciently to have a cap. In the cresting are found,
rather bluntly worked out, dolphins and candelabras,
so much in vogue later during the High Renaissance;
while more Italian details may be seen in the horizontal
bands, still flat and unmoulded. Aside from the
foregoing superficial Italian treatment, the structural
elements are the same as in work done a hundred years
before. Within this chapel the much venerated Santa
Librada lies in a marble tomb erected in 1530 by
Bishop Fadrique de Portugal; this tomb is railed off
by a beautiful low iron screen, about eight feet high,
which has all the early Renaissance character of the
larger work just described, and was probably made
by the same unknown rejero.
In Leon Cathedral, at the Puerta del Cardo (Fig
ure 98) is another reja with Gothic and Renaissance
details interspersed, but framed this time in very late
Gothic stonework. In the bases of the four shortened

82 RENAISSANCE CHURCH REJAS
spindles one sees Renaissance pedestals filled with
pure flamboyant tracery. The spindles of this reja
have not yet acquired a capital, but instead are
crowned by a curious little scroll indicative of later-
day caps and volutes. In the cloister chapel of Santa
Magdalena at Tarragona (Figure 99), is a simple reja
whose featured lockplate and rather naive cresting
attract attention as indicating touches of the new
style. TOLEDO
In Toledo, which held one of the three grand Gothic
cathedrals of Spain and whose bishop was primate
of the whole kingdom, the adornment of the church
was naturally lavish and unceasing, and records of it
are comparatively copious. Among the side chapels
and subsidiary buildings with notable rejas may be
mentioned the vestry with one at the entrance made in
1494 by "El Maestro Juan Frances, maestro mayor
de las armas de hierro en Espana;" and the Capilla
Mozarabe in the southwest tower with another by
the same armorer (maestro de armas); the sagrario
with chapel rejas by Bartolome Rodiguez, Luis de
Penafiel, and Francisco de Silva; the Capilla de los
Reyes Nuevos, with a screen by Domingo de Cespe-
des who also made the one for the baptistry and for
the Capilla de Reyes Viejos in 1529. Another of his
works, that for the coro, is illustrated in Figure 100.
This rejero, called " El Maestre Domingo," was born
near Toledo but there is no record of where he re
ceived his training; his ironwork, however, shows him

FIG. 104. REJA IN THE CAPILLA REAL.
Granada. 1523.

RENAISSANCE CHURCH REJAS 83
to have imbibed Renaissance ideas and to have been
conversant with the allied arts of architecture and
sculpture. One of his assistants is known to have
been Francisco Bravo.
In the Cespedes reja illustrated, which is twenty-
five feet high, his only deviation from strictly Renais
sance precepts is the placing of the colonnette directly
in the middle, thus creating an even number of bays.
Otherwise the composition is built up on purely or
thodox principles; — base or pedestal, columns, en
tablature, and cresting. The spindle baluster only is
used, though the same Domingo had made Gothic
twisted bars for several of the side chapels. The
spindles are very lofty and are uninterrupted by any
horizontal motif until they reach the frieze below the
cresting. A combination of short spindles and me
dallion portraits hammered in repousse make up the
unusually interesting frieze; while the cresting, which
is composed of candelabra, grotesques, heraldic orna
ment, and foliation, shows an exquisite feeling for
Renaissance. Perhaps the greatest achievement in
the reja might be considered the seven large colon-
nettes, for they are worked from the solid with a deli
cacy that one would hardly believe possible in iron.
This whole reja was silvered and gilded and must
have been most sumptuous and costly; but when
Napoleon's plundering troops were reported approach
ing the city, the silver was hidden under a coat of
black paint which has never been removed. Coro
and altar mayor were both given out to competition
in 1540 by the Cathedral Chapter. Alonzo de Covar-

84 RENAISSANCE CHURCH REJAS
rubias, one of the greatest Renaissance architects,
acted as adviser to the chapter and chose Domingo's
design for the coro and Francisco de Villalpando's
for the altar. Both works were finished in 1549, their
making having kept a tribe of smiths busy for seven
years. It is on record that Domingo made a complete
model in wood before starting his work.
The other successful competitor, Villalpando (maker
of the bronze doors of the Puerta de los Leones), cre
ated for the capilla mayor a reja as magnificent as
Domingo's but inferior in design and somewhat too
exuberant in spirit for such monumentality. How
ever, despite the incongruity and confusion of the
detail, much of it is very beautifully wrought. The
whole is crowned by a colossal crucifix once silvered
and gilded. This same artist made the two beautiful
Renaissance pulpits in bronze at either side of the
capilla mayor, and also the charming little railing
enclosing the celebrated "Virgen de la Blanca" within
the coro. That he was well versed in the Italian art
and language is proved by his having translated into
Spanish Serlio's great work on architecture.
SEVILLA
Sevilla Cathedral, the largest Gothic church in
Christendom and one of the richest, contains, natu
rally, an abundance of fine rejeria. The church was
built throughout the fifteenth century and its rejas,
added after the structure was completed, are therefore
Renaissance. There is even one, that of the Capilla
Real, finished as late as 1773. Of the numerous

FIG. 105. ARMS OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA
AND THEIR GRANDSON CHARLES V.
Reja in the Capilla Real, Granada. 1523.

FIG. 106. REJA OF THE CAPILLA DE LA
PRESENTACION.
Burgos Cathedral. Middle XVI Century.

RENAISSANCE CHURCH REJAS 85
examples enclosing side chapels those to the Capillas
de la Gamba and de la AntigUa are very beautiful,
with armorial bearings and figure work representing
the events after which the chapels are named. Even
finer are those of the Conception and the Anuncia-
cion. The vestry reja was made by Fernando Prieto
in 1510; and that of the library of the cathedral in
1527 by Pedro de Andino, father of the celebrated
Cristobal. Around the tomb of Cardinal Cervantes
is a magnificent verja made in 1537 by Antonio de
Palencia and Juan Delgado.
The high altar, or capilla mayor, unlike those in
most Spanish churches, is very open in appearance
because of having rejas instead of masonry on three
of its four sides. These side screens, while of great
richness, are treated subordinately to that at the
front and are the work of Sancho Munez, a master
rejero of Cuenca who started them in 1518. Their
average height is nearly thirty-five feet, the lower half
treated with twisted bars and the upper with a series
of ornamental bands. They are gilded to accord with
the capilla mayor and coro. Munez was helped by
Bartolome of Jaen (of whom more will be heard later),
Juan de Yepes, and Diego de Idrobo. As this is about
the time that Friar Francisco de Salamanca was start
ing the main reja of the same chapel, these various
rejeros, to judge from the harmony between the front
and sides, must have collaborated wisely.
The two mightiest Plateresque achievements in
Sevilla Cathedral are the rejas to the coro and capilla
mayor; the latter (Figure 101) was made by the

86 RENAISSANCE CHURCH REJAS
celebrated friar Francisco de Salamanca between 1518
and 1533. The composition is divided horizontally
by elaborate openwork friezes into two stages and
cresting; and vertically by well emphasized colon-
nettes into five bays, the central being widest to ac
commodate the grand double gates. A feeling of
increased height is given to the reja by carrying the
colonnettes through with varying form from base to
cresting. The friar's uprights are all spindles and at
each side five of these are almost invisibly hinged into
a gate that gives access to the splendid iron pulpits.
Both the friezes are remarkable achievements, the
upper one especially with its fine medallions and
arabesques; but the surpassing portion is the cresting
which abounds with angelic figures within scrolls and
separated from each other by tall candelabras in line
with the colonnettes below. The center of the frieze
is occupied by a magnificent embossed panel of the
Entombment; the solidity of this motif contrasts
very effectively with the openness of the rest of the
work (Figure 102).
This Dominican monk-rejero was one of the greatest
of Spain's numerous iron artists. He was at first a
Carthusian, an inmate of the monastery of Miraflores
near Burgos which contains fine late Gothic speci
mens of his work; later he went to the Chartreuse of
Paular near Segovia where he made another splendid
reja. Cean Bermudez says, among interesting details
concerning him, "That his many virtues were praised
by the canons of Sevilla; that he willingly accepted
from time to time wheat instead of ducats; and that

FIG. 107. REJA OF THE CAPILLA DEL CONDESTABLE.
Burgos Cathedral. 1523.

RENAISSANCE CHURCH REJAS

87

his industry was amazing, for with all his reja-making
he found time to repair the great clock of the Giralda
and devise an ingenious alarm for arousing the cathe
dral bell ringers." He was still working in Sevilla as
late as 1547, having meanwhile been employed in
Guadalupe and in the cathedral and university of his

FIG. 102. PANEL OF THE ENTOMBMENT, REJA OF THE
CAPILLA MAYOR.
Sevilla Cathedral.
native city, Salamanca. The Sevilla pulpits to be
described later are also by his hand.
Sancho or Pancho Munez of Cuenca, who made the
side rejas of the capilla mayor, also made that of the
coro in 1519 (Figure 103), which one could hardly say

88 RENAISSANCE CHURCH REJAS
is less grand than the friar's work facing it. Sancho's,
although he never overcame his predilection for the
twisted bar beloved of Gothicists, must be classed as
Plateresque. That he designed it in sympathy with
the friar is evident from the general harmony of their
productions. The actual proportions vary in ac
cordance with the tradition that the high altar should
have the grander reja; but the feeling of both shows
a studied agreement. The twisted bars composing
the body of the coro screen are surmounted by a tier
of short Renaissance spindles; and, instead of being
uniformly twisted, alternately spiral toward each other.
Their expanse is marked off into five bays by six-inch-
square pilasters — the usual wooden-core sheathed in
richly embossed iron. The beautiful little Corinthian
capitals crowning them are most intricately worked
out, not along the lines of stone Corinthian but into
a truly wrought-iron interpretation; and the deli
cately twisted volutes are forged from tongue-shaped
pieces as if rolling themselves unaided like the sheet
of parchment which tradition tells us inspired the
form. Horizontal courses and cornices are beaten
out of sheet metal and make, along with the pilasters,
a lavish display of the embosser's skill. They are
fashioned from metal one-sixteenth of an inch thick,
kept rigid by interior transverse tie-pieces. The gilt
inscription above the spindles is effectively back
grounded by vermillion. The frieze is three feet high,
composed of Renaissance scrolls and wreaths; and
above this again is the most resplendent portion of
all — a cresting representing the tree of Jesse. Each

FIG. 108. ESCALERA DORADA OR GOLDEN
STAIRWAY.
Burgos Cathedral. 1519.

RENAISSANCE CHURCH REJAS 89
of the personages composing it is framed in a circle of
foliation and is a masterpiece of figure-work in iron.
A facetious innovation in the cresting, and one serving
a practical purpose as well, is the little bell frame at
either end. These are charming in design and exe
cution and have the value of solidity as end motifs to
such an imaginative cresting. One of the quaint de
tails recorded of Sancho Munez's sojourn in Sevilla
is that he "lived in the house of Canon Martin Na
varro to whom the Cathedral Chapter regularly paid
his board." GRANADA
In the Capilla Real, or Royal Chapel, which com
municates with Granada Cathedral, is to be found
one of the most sumptuous rejas in all Spain (Figure
104). That there is so little ironwork of artistic
value in the cathedral itself is due to the late date of
its erection. It was started in 1523 (after the comple
tion of the Capilla Real) and though consecrated in
1561 was still incomplete at that date. By this time
Spain was growing poor and rejas were becoming less
important; but fortunately for Granada the Royal
Chapel, designed by Enrique de Egas in 1506 for Charles
V, was completed in time to give Maestre Bartolome
of Jaen opportunity to build the reja separating the
royal monuments of Ferdinand and Isabella from the
rest of the chapel. Appreciating his opportunity
Maestre Bartolome designed a grille of such stupen
dous proportions that nothing comparable to it was
ever attempted elsewhere. Two solid unpierced friezes

90 RENAISSANCE CHURCH REJAS
divide the composition horizontally into three dimin
ishing stages of thirteen, seven, and five feet respec
tively. In the first of these the tall twisted bars
break into quatrefoils and masques (Figure 25), in
the next into leaf work and cherubims, and in the
third to leaf work alone. Vertically the screen is
divided into five parts by massive square columns
beautifully embossed and further adorned in the
upper stages by statuettes and canopies. The em
bossed plates, hardly over one-sixteenth of an inch
thick, are applied and riveted to an oak core. But
the greatest achievement is, as usual, the cresting,
here made up of ten biblical scenes containing thirty
figures more than half life size. It is a story in iron
told as freely as the frescoist would have proceeded on
a given wall space. A conventional arrangement of
lofty candelabras connected by rich arabesques finishes
off the cresting and the whole is topped by a gigantic
crucifix with the Virgin on one side and St. John on
the other. The arms of Ferdinand and Isabella and
of their grandson Charles V, forming the painted and
gilded panel above the gates (Figure 105), may be
considered the bravura piece of heraldic ironwork in
Spain. This rejero has already been mentioned as having
been employed at Sevilla; it is known also that he
worked at Jaen which was probably his native place.
It is recorded that he had to petition Charles V for
sixteen hundred ducats due him which the Granada
Chapter had refused to pay. The royal reja was sup
posed to have been finished in 1523 but no details

FIG. 109. REJA OF THE CORO.
Palencia Cathedral.
Probably 1555.

RENAISSANCE CHURCH REJAS 91
can be found as to the length of time spent on it.
It is one of the few signed works in iron, its frieze just
below the blazon containing in raised letters the
words: "Maestre Bartolome me fee."
MAEST REBA
RTOLO MEM
EFEC
In the same chapel, but by unknown authors, are
other good rejas. Immediately to the right of the
royal reja is one with good Plateresque detail but
obviously not by Maestre Bartolome. Here too the
blazon is treated in color and, like its more important
neighbor, has this feature contained in the body of
the work and not, as was the general custom in Renais
sance days, in the cresting. BURGOS
Burgos Cathedral, another of the famous Gothic
trio built by Fernando el Santo in the thirteenth cen
tury, presents in the screening of its fifteen chapels
an impressive array of rejeria. These cover the field
from early Gothic to waning Renaissance, that of the
coro (Figure 96) being as late as 1602. Figure 106
shows the screen of the Capilla de la Presentation, built
probably by Cristobal de Andino after 1520. It is
a very typical side-chapel reja built to conform to
a rather high and narrow arch. The cresting, with a
cardinal's blazon supported by huge scrolls as a nu-

92 RENAISSANCE CHURCH REJAS
cleus of the design, has some nice leaf and repousse
work. In the candelabra-like motifs crowning the
colonnettes the design and character of the work is
somewhat indicative of the decline which set in shortly
after this date.
Behind the presbytery of this cathedral opens the
large Capilla del Condestable commenced in the
richest Plateresque style for the Constable Don Pedro
de Velasco. The splendid reja (Figure 107) at its
entrance was built by the same Cristobal de Andino,
architect, sculptor, rejero, and silversmith, whose father
has been mentioned as one of the ironworkers in Se
villa Cathedral. Even without accurate data as to
Andino's attainments, one glance at it would prove
its maker to have been an .architect. As in most of
the later examples, there is a strong domination of
the horizontal members; — a preference for classic
principles as opposed to Gothic. To give the compo
sition increased architectural feeling Andino has in
troduced an innovation in the form of two richly
wrought columns standing forward of the general
plane and making a total depth of fifteen inches
framing the postern gate; while further depth and
substantiality are imparted by breaking the cornice
over the columns and resting the floriated candela
bras of the second stage on this projection. To crown
the entire composition the very symbol of architec
ture, the pediment, has been chosen, and supporting
it are two kneeling figures whose sophisticated naivete
might well be the envy of modern artists. The author
of this work happens to be one of the several rejeros

FIG. 110. REJA OF A SIDE CHAPEL.
Cuenca Cathedral.
Middle XVI Century.

FIG. 111. REJA OF A SIDE CHAPEL.
Segovia Cathedral.
Late XVI Century.

RENAISSANCE CHURCH REJAS 93
about whom some personal data have been preserved.
His work commanded a great praise during his life
time, for a contemporary wrote of it: "All who wish
their work to breathe the spirit of authority and to
pass without rebuke should follow, like Cristobal
Andino, ancient precept, in that his works have greater
beauty and elegance than any I have seen before. If
this, you think, be not the case, look at that reja he
is making for my lord the Constable, which reja is
well known to be superior to all others in the king
dom." This work is signed under the pediment, "Ab
Andino." Other works by the talented Cristobal de
Andino are in the capilla mayor and the Capilla de
San Pedro in Palencia Cathedral; also a peculiar and
extremely architecturalized one in Medina de Rio-
seco, a small town between Palencia and Valladolid.
In 1540 he had the disappointment of competing
unsuccessfully for the screens and pulpits of Toledo
Cathedral. Burgos Cathedral contains, besides its many notable
rejas, another marvel of the ironworker's art in the
shape of its famous "Escalera Dorada" — a double
flight of fifty-nine steps in marble and stone, with a
marvelous wrought iron balustrade richly gilded
(Figure 108). The church, being built on sloping
ground, has entrances at various levels, the northwest
portal being some twenty-five feet above the nave
floor; this difference necessitated a staircase to con
duct to the north transept. The problem was solved
by building the Escalera Dorada, designed by Diego
de Siloe in 1519 and thought to have been executed

94 RENAISSANCE CHURCH REJAS
by Crist6bal de Andino. The elaborate balustrade
wrought in iron and heavily gilded varies in design
as it ascends from landing to landing. The lowest
stage consists of rich balusters or spindles between
which are cupid heads and a dolphin arabesque, while
at the landing between the two stages are the arms of
Bishop Fonseca, donor of the staircase; the next flight
has square posts with portrait medallions and ara
besques between. The landing at the top projects,
not unlike a rostrum, and is supported on a huge
corbel; its rail is divided into ten panels, the two
central ones contain portraits of saints enwreathed
and the remaining are richly decorated with amorini,
wreaths, and scrolls. Certainly nothing more ambi
tious of its kind was ever undertaken and one regrets
that the staircase has fallen into disuse due to the
violent draughts which compelled the closing of the
north portal to which it conducts.
PALENCIA
South of Burgos lies Palencia whose cathedral was
also enriched by the works of Andino. Earlier than
his contributions, however, are the many Gothic and
Gotico-florido rejas in the side chapels. These show a
strong Flemish influence — a florid use of sheet iron
foliations cut and riveted to their stems rather than
beaten out as in the Spanish manner. This influence
can be traced to the fact that Palencia's bishop, Fon
seca, having been appointed special ambassador to
the Low Countries by Ferdinand and Isabella, came
back laden down with Flemish tapestries and pictures,

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RENAISSANCE CHURCH REJAS 95
and followed by a whole train of Flemish artizans.
This northern influence had passed away at the period
now under consideration, and the works of Andino
in the capilla mayor, and of Gaspar Rodriguez in the
coro, are purest Spanish Renaissance. Andino's is
simpler in composition than his Burgos work and
consists of two tiers of foliated spindles separated by
repousse bands of ornament in the Italian style, while
the towering cresting is composed of candelabra, scroll
ing, and the blazon so popular with Renaissance re
jeros. It is on record that he made this reja in 1520
and was paid fifteen hundred ducats for it by Dean
Don Gonzalo Zapata whose arms are in the cresting.
The same records speak of a screen made in 1530 for
which he received four hundred and thirty ducats,
but of just which there is no indication; a certain re
semblance between the rejas of the Capilla de San
Pedro and of the capilla mayor suggests that both are
by the same author. Superior to the reja of the ca
pilla mayor is that of the coro (Figure 109) by Gaspar
Rodriguez but long ascribed to Villalpando. Much
confusion exists as to the date of this piece of work,
1522, 1555, and 1561 being variously given. The
first mentioned may be read twice on the marble base
of the reja in an inscription referring to Adrian VI
who was in Spain in 1522; but anyone who has studied
reja-making would be inclined to reject 1522, as the
design gives every indication of having been produced
in the High Renaissance. It is pure in quality, free
and knowing in composition, and decidedly later
than the reja of the capilla mayor at Toledo finished

96 RENAISSANCE CHURCH REJAS
about 1548 by Villalpando. A new feature to be ob
served here is the admirable way in which the screen
is tied in architecturally with its surroundings by
means of a marble parapet, a treatment which goes
far towards making the ironwork an integral part of
the edifice. A condition imposed on both of these
Palencian rejeros was that the arms of the prelate
who donated them should be incorporated as a dec
orative motif; this, along with the figures of the four
evangelists with their emblems, makes for great rich
ness. The crowning figures are of solid bronze and
the entire reja is gilt and painted. Both the capilla
mayor and the coro were given out to competition,
Andino, Villalpando, and Lopez de Urisarri having
competed unsuccessfully against Gaspar Rodriguez.
Another rejero employed in the same cathedral was
Juan Relojero who in 1512 made the screen for the
Capilla de Nuestra Sefiora de Blanca, donated by the
Canon Bartolome de Palencia, who paid for it with
twenty-five thousand maravedis and a quantity of
grain. LESS KNOWN EXAMPLES
Among the remoter towns which were important
centers of ironwork in the fifteenth and sixteenth cen
turies are Cuenca, Segovia, Avila, Guadalupe, Oviedo,
Osma, Tortosa, Plasencia, and numerous others long
since fallen into decay, but whose churches contain
a bewildering array of rejeria; among towns which
have not fallen into decay, but are making rapid strides
at modernizing themselves, Zaragoza, Valencia, Mal-

RENAISSANCE CHURCH REJAS 97
aga, and Cadiz also possess fine examples. Figure
110 illustrates one of the side chapel screens from
Cuenca, a town already mentioned as the native
place of the great rejero Sancho Munez, who in 1519
made the coro reja in Sevilla Cathedral. Another
Munez production in Cuenca is the beautiful "Jesse
Screen" back of the high altar and so-named from the
arch-shaped cresting which contains the tree of Jesse
including some very delicately worked figures. The
similarity of workmanship between this and Figure
110 would suggest that the same rejero was respon
sible for both. Andrew Prentice, the first English
architect who went into Spain to make a study of
Spanish Renaissance, has left several beautiful draw
ings of these side chapel rejas and also one of the
huge screen of the capilla mayor. This last is forty-
five feet high and was made in 1517 by Hernando
de Arenas. From its comparatively early date and
the history of the town it is not surprising to find it
reminiscent of Gothic. The body is entirely composed
of twisted bars unfeatured except by the four thin
pilasters. In these and in the horizontal bands Renais
sance asserts itself most emphatically; also the crest
ing, some twelve feet' high in itself, is rich in foliation
of the new style, but, like Gothic work, has no par
ticular centralized feature. A later reja, in the Ca
pilla de los Caballeros of the same church, is by the
same man and has the date 1526 over the entrance
gates. In the nine years that passed between its
making and the completion of the capilla mayor, Are
nas had learned much about the Renaissance, for

98 RENAISSANCE CHURCH REJAS
the Caballeros composition breaks away from Gothic
regularity and is interrupted and accentuated in
interesting Renaissance fashion.
Segovia was another town celebrated not only for
rejas but for all sorts of smaller objects in iron, and
curious balconies may still be seen in the Calle Car
men. Many local productions figured in the famous
collection (now dispersed) of the Duque de Segovia.
The late Gothic Cathedral has, as might be expected, a
number of good screens. The one illustrated (Figure
111) is that of a small reja in the Capilla de Nuestra
Sefiora de la Piedad. While dating from the latter
half of the sixteenth century it is still in the best taste
and the griffins in the cresting are particularly fine;
the scrolls in the lower paneling of the gates, how
ever, are slightly indicative of the coming decline in
rejeria. At Osma there are the rejas to the capilla mayor
and coro made in 1505 by the famous rejero Juan
Frances, as recorded in the inscription: "This work
was done by the maestro, one Juan Frances, chief
maestro of Toledo." A second reads: "This work
was ordered to be made by the most magnificent Don
Alonzo de Fonseca in the year 1505." These, like
much of the work of this rejero in Toledo, are mixed
Gothic and Renaissance in style. The same master
made the reja in the capilla mayor of the church of
San Justo at Alcala de Henares.
The admirer of Spanish rejeria is saved the sadden
ing spectacle of its decline. By the time Baroque had
succeeded Renaissance, Spain was (fortunately for

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RENAISSANCE CHURCH REJAS 99
its reputation in ironwork) too poor to add much
embellishment to her cathedrals. Whatever new
building was ordered was calculated to make a great
display for a limited expenditure, as if thus to hide
approaching poverty. With such an object in view,
the refinement and dignity of iron naturally made no
appeal; so the rejero went his way unaffected by the
new extravagances of style and made those latest
rejas which, while lacking the spontaneity and rich
fancy of earlier productions, are in no sense devoid
of artistic merit, and suggest a revival of Grecian forms
rather than Baroque. In domestic and civil edifices,
where metal accessories on a small scale could be
employed, Baroque secured a foothold, and it is here,
in the form of balustrades, balconies, and smaller
accessories, that one must look for examples of this
period. The last church reja illustrated (Figure 112) is from
Plasencia and was made in 1604. It is distinctly
precise, unemotional, yet extremely dignified; and
while there is nothing decadent in it, still there is
much that forecasts a decline. This criticism is jus
tified by the lack of variety in its motifs and, even
more noticeably, by the abundance of severe archi
tectural mouldings which are merely uninspired copies
from stonework, and may be regarded as a link be
tween the fine forged work of earlier days and mod
ern cast ironwork. In other words, this formal and
impressive reja lacks that indefinable something
called "touch." It is the work of Juan Bautista Celma,
the son, probably, of the Celma who made a beautiful

100 RENAISSANCE CHURCH REJAS
late screen in the Cathedral del Pilar in Zaragoza in
1579. Figure 113 is a reja cresting from northern Spain
in the possession of the Hispanic Society. It is not
as late as the work just mentioned, and consists of a
central heraldic motif supported by scrolls and can
delabra. Its workmanship is of good quality and
makes it worth close examination by those interested
in sixteenth century methods.
It has often been remarked that the productions of
the smith are a gauge of the prosperity of his country.
This is undeniably the case with the almost super
human feats of smithery just described. All were
produced during Spain's greatest period of grandeur
— after the conquest of the Moor and the discovery
of the New World. There was no difficulty in iron
work that the smith did not try to overcome; in fact,
he courted difficulties and appears to have actually
reveled in his work. By the end of the first half of
the sixteenth century about every problem that could
ever present itself had been solved; from then on,
increasingly rich and imposing effects were obtained
(but not always in the same straightforward way)
until the erection of sumptuous rejas ceased in the
early seventeenth century. That the great develop
ment of Spanish rejeria was due to any interest and
encouragement on the part of contemporaneous mon
archs — Charles V and Philip II — is far from likely;
for these, in the case of armor, ordered all their superb
and costly suits from abroad instead of employing
Spanish armorers. Not a single specimen in the

FIG. 119. WINDOW REJA, CASA DE PILATOS.
Sevilla. Middle XVI Century.

RENAISSANCE CHURCH REJAS 101
Royal Armeria of Madrid from this period is of Span
ish make. It is, therefor, reasonable to suppose
that not to royal patronage, but to the irrepressible
exuberance of the people themselves, are due the
prodigies of smithing herein described.

VI
SMALLER RENAISSANCE PRODUCTIONS
GATES
OF smaller rejas a number for gates and win
dows are illustrated which have many of
the characteristics of the more monumental
church works. Figure 114 is an early example of
truly utilitarian aspect and has a simple moulded top
with Renaissance scroll above. This gate is in the
University of Salamanca at the foot of the famous
carved staircase leading from the patio to the library.
At the entrance to the latter is another reja (Figure
115) which is the very antithesis of simplicity. It
consists merely of a dozen spindles and very rich
frieze which swings out with the gates; but its few
spindles are wrapped in gilt foliation and the embossed
and pierced frieze is most elaborate; in fact, hardly
an inch of the whole work but is ornamented, yet it
is all so delicately executed and so subservient to the
ensemble that its richness is not displeasing. In
the Hospital of Santa Cruz, at Toledo, is a fine pair of
early sixteenth century exterior gates which stand
intact and sturdy after their four centuries of exposure.
These gates are of spindles and are crowned by a
Renaissance feature of amorini supporting the arms of
Cardinal Mendoza. The figures are beaten in two
halves from sheet metal and then riveted together.

FIG. 120. WINDOW WITH REJA HOOD.
Toledo. XVI Century.

SMALLER RENAISSANCE PRODUOU0MS 103
Figure 116 is a pair of gates in the Hispanic collection
dating from the end of the same century. Whereas
in earlier work the spindle extended the full height,
here and in other late examples the lower portion of

&T">

FIG. 116. ENTRANCE GATES.
XVII Century.
Hispanic Society of America.
No. 170.
the composition is taken up by a panel filled with
scrolling. The Segovia Cathedral reja (Figure 111)
exemplifies this same deviation.
WINDOW REJAS
In Renaissance days, notwithstanding the increased
law and order that prevailed in the land, the window

104 SMALLER RENAISSANCE PRODUCTIONS
reja hardly waned in popularity. Figure 117, a house
in Granada, gives an idea of its lavish use. Among
the finest examples of the period are those on the
University of Alcala de Henares, a town not far east
of Madrid (Figure 118). The rejero is unknown;
but one writer has suggested Juan Frances who made
a reja for the University Chapel and also the fine low
railing around the tomb of Cardinal Cisneros in the
Colegiate Church of the same city. The University
window motif including the reja as shown in the illus
tration was a very popular one with Spanish archi
tects throughout the sixteenth century. Seen in the
strong sunlight, the iron grille with its accompanying
shadow against the yellowish stone adds a note of
great decorativeness to the facade of the building.
Figure 119 is one of the best known window rejas in
all Spain and quite deservedly so. It faces on an
interior court of the so-called Casa de Pilatos in Se
villa where it stands out so prominently even in
this land of rejas that it must be the work of one of
the master rejeros employed in the cathedral of the
same city. The records of artizans engaged on ec
clesiastical and municipal edifices are scanty enough
in Spain, but still more scanty are records pertaining
to those who were employed on casas particulares.
The Pilatos grille carries no trace of preceding styles
and was probably executed about 1535. In the two
tiers of spindles forming the body of the reja it is the
restraint that impresses one as much as the ornament.
What little exists is worked with an exquisite nicety,
the acanthus motif on the spindles being so delicate

FIG. 122. RENAISSANCE PULPIT.
Avila Cathedral. Early XVI Century.

SMALLER RENAISSANCE PRODUCTIONS 105
that it does not in the least interrupt their graceful
outline. The two intermediary bands are decaying
owing to the fact that until recently this portion of
the house had been long abandoned; but it is to be
hoped that they may be saved by the general restora
tion now in progress. The cresting is an example of
the Spanish rejeros' great ability at repousse. It
consists, as in other pieces described, of separate
sheets for front and back, beaten to forms, and then
riveted together. In portions where the metal has
fallen away, one may obtain a good idea of how this
work was done.
On the house of the Count of Toledo in Toledo is
a more common type of sixteenth century window
reja, surrounded in this case by fragments of Moorish
work (Figure 120). The whole treatment is much
less architectural than in the Sevilla example, for,
with the exception of the spindles, the rest of the
detail is obtained by working in the flat. The bands
are formed of sheet iron ornamented with applied
flattened rosettes, while the scroll motif at the top,
so dear to window rejeros, is beaten from flat iron
strips. The gourd-shaped motifs on the corner are
also typical, consisting of a cusped acanthus leaf cut
from sheet iron and into which little lilies on long
stems are poked. The Mudejar hood above this
reja is supported on good iron brackets and, besides
protecting, it adds much to the importance of the
feature below. Window rejas, like all other iron
accessories, were much affected by the prevailing
styles of architecture. Under the severe hand of the

106 SMALLER RENAISSANCE PRODUCTIONS
architect Herrera, whose restrained art was in violent
contrast to early Renaissance freedom, the reja was
brought down to a point of extreme plainness. By
the tendency to work in flat expanses of metal and to
duplicate stone mouldings, it lost the charm of iron-

FIG. 121. WINDOW REJA.
Facade of the Audiencia.
Granada. XVII Century.
work. Figure 121 is a late reja from the facade of
the Audiencia in Granada, finished in 1587 in the
style of Herrera. PULPITS
Wrought iron pulpits, several of which were men
tioned in the Gothic period, became a favorite sub
ject for the Renaissance ironworker, and played as

SMALLER RENAISSANCE PRODUCTIONS 107
great a part in the development of Spanish Renais
sance as beautifully carved marble pulpits did in the
Italian. The towns of Avila, Sevilla, Toledo, Burgos,
Tortosa, Santiago contain the best known examples,
usually in pairs. In mentioning the flamboyant
pulpit of the capilla mayor in Avila Cathedral (Fig
ure 40), its Renaissance companion was referred to
(Frontispiece and Figure 122). This is hexagonal in
plan and reached by a staircase which winds about the
pier (for both pulpits set some distance forward of the
reja). Not a detail of it but is of purest Renaissance.
As sculpture it is equal to the celebrated pulpit by
Benedetto de Majano, in Santa Croce, in Florence,
but instead of being worked as a positive (from the
face) as the marble was, the metal one had to be
worked as a negative (hammered from the back), re
quiring greater skill on the part of the artizan. Un
like much of the repousse already discussed, these
panels are beaten from comparatively small sheets
and riveted to the wooden frame upon which the
whole is built. No attempt is made to conceal the
joining of the sheets; on the contrary the rivet heads
are accentuated into little features. The standard
and the beautifully wrought supporting brackets are
beaten in solid iron; an idea of the richness of the
brackets and the underside of the pulpit can be best
obtained by consulting the drawing used as a fron
tispiece. The stair, including the rail and stringer,
was made considerably later by an inferior workman,
and is somewhat out of scale with the body of the
pulpit. If only Spain, when following Italy's art and

108 SMALLER RENAISSANCE PRODUCTIONS
architecture, had followed the excellent Italian cus
tom of recording the creators of each fine production,
it would be an added delight to those who now find
the Spanish work so interesting. Little or nothing is
known of the Avila rejero in question. Juan Frances
is hazarded by some writers as the author of these
pulpits as well as the capilla mayor reja. Whoever
wrought them was a thorough artist, for portraits,
figures, and ornament in every form were all handled
with equal facility.
Of entirely different character, because much less
sophisticated, are the two iron pulpits of the capilla
mayor of Sevilla Cathedral. Figure 123 shows one,
while its companion may be seen by referring to Fig
ure 101, which illustration further shows how the two
pulpits are actually part of the reja composition. By
thus combining them, the skilful Friar Francisco de
Salamanca offered the best solution for reaching the
pulpit without disturbing its graceful chalice-like
outline by the angularity of a visible staircase. Here
the staircase is partly concealed behind the reja, and
the priest, after ascending, passes through by means
of the imperceptibly hinged five bars mentioned in the
description of the capilla mayor reja. The Sevilla
pulpits, while as beautiful as the Avila example, are
less architectonic in design and exhibit more of a
sculpturesque quality; the subjects of the panels are
all drawn from biblical history. Particularly fine is
the portion directly under the pulpit, and also the
cylindrical standard covered with beautiful filigree
ornamented. The Sevilla pulpits, like the rejas, are

FIG. 127. SPANISH KEYS OF THE XVI, XVII,
AND XVIII CENTURIES.
Hispanic Society of America.
Nos. 17, 18, 22, 23, and 24.

FIG. 128. VARGUENO WITH DECORATIONS IN IRON.
XVI Century.
Hispanic Society of America.

SMALLER RENAISSANCE PRODUCTIONS 109
heavily gilt and present an imposing appearance in
the sombre cathedral. In the same class as to design
are the fine ones by Villalpando made for Toledo in
1548; but these are worked in bronze, as indeed are
many parts of the capilla mayor reja by the same
artist. Swinging pulpits are also found in Spain and one
is illustrated from the monastery of Las Huelgas in
Burgos (Figure 124). Though slightly out of the
perpendicular, it is still in use. It is octagonal in form,
with each face divided into four panels of equal size
containing saints in relief. Practically no additional
detail adorns it. The execution is good, but it is the
novelty of not being supported on a pedestal or stand
ard, but swung from the wall on an iron bracket, that
chiefly commands attention. To give access to the
pulpit it was swung back to the wall and reached by
a little portable staircase.
IRONWORK FOR DOORS AND CHESTS
It was not habitual in Spain, as in France, for the
ironworker to lavish unlimited time and consummate
skill on locks and keys. These objects therefor are
not remarkable, though some are sufficiently rich.
Among the best keys are the early ones made by the
Moors; for with them the key was a great symbol to
be placed as the emblem of vigilance or ownership
on their gates and towers. Two of the most famous
Moorish keys are those in Sevilla Cathedral (Figure
125) the larger being silver and the smaller iron. This
latter measures six inches and the wards form an in-

110 SMALLER RENAISSANCE PRODUCTIONS
scription in Arabic cufic characters of which several
different translations have been made, among them
the following: "To God belongs all empire and power."
These keys are supposed to be the ones delivered by
the Moors to King Fernando el Santo when he con-

FIG. 125. MOORISH KEYS.
Sevilla Cathedral. Probably XI I Century.
quered the city. This ceremony of giving up the keys
of some long guarded and defended place probably
occured in Spain more frequently than in any other
country; hence in Spanish paintings, in stone and iron
reliefs, and in carved wood, it was a favorite theme.
Another interesting iron key with wards composed of
lettering is in the possession of the Hispanic Society

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SMALLER RENAISSANCE PRODUCTIONS 111
(Figure 126). This time the characters are Gothic
and the inscription Spanish. The key is supposed to
date from the fourteenth century and was- found in
Caspe in the province of Aragon.
In Renaissance days it was not the bit, but the

FIG. 126. GOTHIC KEY.
Aragonese. XIV Century.
Hispanic Society of America.
Length 8# in. No. 41.
bow of the key on which most care was expended,
since this latter lent itself better to the curving and
intertwined motifs of the period. Spanish Renais
sance keys were better than the Italian but far in
ferior to the French, which were marvels of art. The
most ornate Spanish examples were those given to the

112 SMALLER RENAISSANCE PRODUCTIONS
king's favorite ministers and admitting them to the
royal apartments. "Under Charles II all the gentle
men of the king's household carried at all times gilt
master-keys to every room of every royal palace,
with absurdly large, oblong bow handles projecting
from the right hand pocket and secured by colored
ribbons. The valets carried the same key but it was
not guilt. If a key was lost, the loser had to warn
the chamberlain, who immediately caused every lock
to be changed at a cost often exceeding 10,000 crowns
which had to be defrayed by the loser. Dummy
keys were given as badges to officials who had no
occasion to use them, and to some noblemen not of
the household as a mark of distinction. They are
known to collectors as chamberlain's keys. There is
a fine series of them in the British Museum, but they
possess no artistic merit." (J. Starkie Gardner). j
Figure 127 shows several keys in the Hispanic
Society's collection, not ceremonial, but for every
day use. The one in the center of the page is closely
patterned after the Dauphin keys of France, while
the bows of the remainder (expecting No. 17) are
cut in the flimsy Italian manner; that is, instead of
the ornament being cut from the solid, it is made in
small detached pieces which are inserted in the ring
and held in place by means of solder and pins. It
seems strange that the Spanish ironworker, who
evinced supreme ability in meeting the many problems
of the monumental reja, should have slighted a simple
little commonplace like the key. In default of any
illuminating records preserved from the period, the

SMALLER RENAISSANCE PRODUCTIONS 113
explanation is offered that it was the ambition of the
most expert men to secure employment on rejas, which
left the comparatively insignificant key to apprentices.
Locks, however, received considerably more atten
tion and some distinctive ones were developed, es
pecially on the Renaissance rejas and also on that
peculiarly Spanish piece of furniture called the var
gueno. The reja lockbox, or lock proper, was usu
ally not so ornamented as its hasp and bolt, which,
besides being decorated in divers ways, was monu
mental in size, with a hasp often as long as two feet
and operating a formidable looking bar. Excellent
examples of this type may be seen on the reja of the
coro in Sevilla Cathedral and on that of the Royal
Chapel at Granada.
In order to understand the importance of the var
gueno lock (mentioned as especially worthy of atten
tion) it requires some slight description of this national
piece of furniture. It has been explained how in the
Gothic periods the Spaniards had developed the chest
into a distinctive article which they called the var
gueno. The earliest Moorish examples found are
richly inlaid with ivory, pearl, and various colored
woods in the Eastern manner, leaving room for com
paratively little decorative iron; but the same ar
ticle, as developed and enlarged by the Spaniards,
has a wooden exterior (generally walnut) of the sim
plest nature and depending solely on applied iron for
its decorative effect. This piece of furniture was so
plentifully and so well made in the little town of
Vargas near Toledo that it received the name of var-

114 SMALLER RENAISSANCE PRODUCTIONS
gueno. There is no doubt that its making must
have given employment to many Moorish artizans
.still in Spain who carried out their own schemes of
decoration, which accounts for the continued Oriental
character of much of the applied metal work.
In shape the vargueno was an oblong box whose

<ScaJe ot Inches

FIG. 129. FLATTENED OUT CORNER-BRACE OF A
VARGUENO.

front let down on hinges, disclosing the drawers in
side. It was mounted generally on a stand from
which two massive supports pulled out to hold the
front when let down, thus forming a sort of secretary
(Figure 128). It became one of the most popular and
distinctive bits of Spanish furniture, and was the rax-

SMALLER RENAISSANCE PRODUCTIONS 115
son d'etre of various beautiful locks, lozenge shaped
plaques, and interesting angle braces; which last,
considering the excellent dovetailing of the wood
work at the ends would almost seem superfluous
and were retained doubtless merely as an additional
point of richness, especially in late Renaissance ex
amples. Figure 129 is a drawing, developed in plan,
a corner piece cut from a single sheet, along with its
accompanying hook and eye. This latter feature
and also the little push buttons at the sides of the
front are designed to relieve the strain on the central
hasp. But of all metal trimmings on the vargueno
it was the lock and its hasp that received the most
attention. Many were worked up to an extraordinary
degree unlike any similar objects made in Europe.
Figure 130 is a simple lock, twelve inches high, typical
of the late sixteenth century; its fixing staples, in
pairs and very much featured, are, along with the
two flanking colonnettes of the hasp, the chief objects
in relief. The colonnettes are furnished with a staple
on the back so that a turn of the key throws a bolt
through both. The filagree of the plate is backed
with velours to obtain additional richness, and the
iron is gilded to further accentuate the patterning.
Other details on the face of varguenos were the two
ornamental placques with pulls fastened to them and
used when letting down the front (Figure 131). To
obtain symmetry certain plaques were added that
have no other purpose whatever; these generally
used a bosse or a pilgrim's shell as a central motif.
All practical features were firmly held to the wooden

116 SMALLER RENAISSANCE PRODUCTIONS
box by at least one huge nail driven through and turned
over on the inside, and very little effort was made to
conceal this crude method of fastening. The lock
box was always mortised in the wood, the plate flush
on the outside and nothing visible on the inside but

FIG. 130. VARGUENO LOCK.
XVI Century.
Hispanic Society of America.
Height 12 in.
the rivet heads. Three little iron shell heads on the
outside generally indicated the location of the two
hinges of the movable front. The sides of the var
gueno were plainer than the front, the handles, often
of beautiful design, being the only note aside from
small corner bracings. Figures 132 to 135 are de-

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FIG. 137. A PAIR OF RENAISSANCE DOOR KNOCKERS.
XVII Century. Hispanic Society of America.
Height 6 in. Nos. 131 and 133.
FIG. 138. LOCKPLATE AND HASP.
XVII Century. Hispanic Society of America.
Plate Syi in. high. No. 126.

SMALLER RENAISSANCE PRODUCTIONS 117
tached vargueno locks in the Hispanic Society's col
lection, two still retaining their long, slender hasps.
Of these examples Figure 132, a rubbing of a design
derived, apparently, from the escutcheon of the owner,
is a very superior piece of work; Figures 134 and 135
are typical Renaissance, yet the latter shows little
study of conventional patterning, the design appearing
as if it had been eaten out hap-hazard by an acid.

FIG. 136. A PAIR OF RENAISSANCE FIXING-STAPLES.
Hispanic Society of America.
Height 4 in. No. 13S.
Figure 136 is a pair of fixing staples showing how the
form developed from the Gothic buttress.
Knockers became less of a feature in Spain in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but never fell
into such disuse as in other countries of Europe; in
fact, the knocker is to this day a very much used
piece of door hardware. As it became more utili
tarian it was reduced in size but maintained its good
workmanship. Figure 137 illustrates this type, the
knocker in the shape of a little Renaissance baluster
which is held forward from the door by a series of

118 SMALLER RENAISSANCE PRODUCTIONS
concentric rosette patterns interesting in relief. Fig
ures 139 and 140 are very rare examples in that they
exhibit the effect of the antique revival in Spain.
This movement, generally ascribed to the excavations
made at Pompeii, had a striking and lasting effect on
European art. France, always most sensitive to art
movements, welcomed it after her Louis XV extrava-

FIG. 139. KNOCKER EXHIBITING GREEK REVIVAL.
XVIII Century.
Hispanic Society of America.
Height 7 in. No. 130.
gances and from there it passed with but little change
into the neighboring countries. In the two knockers
illustrating this phase in Spain, only the actual ham
mers show the feeling for the antique, the Greek
acroteria being the principal motif for each. In other

FIG. 140. DOOR KNOCKER.
Renaissance backplate, hammer of Classic Inspiration.
Hispanic Society of America.
Height 13 in. No. 124.

SMALLER RENAISSANCE PRODUCTIONS 119
portions of the hammer is seen a combination of Gre
cian and Spanish forms engraved into patterning,
but the object, in spite of the change in ornamentation,
retains its old form. In Figure 140 the backplate is
purely Spanish with the supporting lions of Leon as
its central motif and may be much earlier than the
hammer, which dates from the middle of the eight
eenth century. Of the same century are the door
escutcheon and door pull from a palace in Palma de

Scale of

FIG. 141. DOOR HANDLE AND ESCUTCHEON PLATE
FROM A PALACE IN PALMA.
Balearic Isles. XVII Century.
Mallorca (Figure 141). These, in spite of the fact
that Baroque obtained in the Balearic Islands, are
very Spanish in character, cut from flat plates and
with no surface finish whatever.

VII
THE LAST OF SPANISH IRONWORK
THE iron balcony, descendant of the purely
defensive stone balcony, came into universal
use in Spain in the late seventeenth century.
It never, however, attained the excellence of the
French examples of the same period designed by
Lepautre and Marot, for by this time things had
ceased to be done in Spain on a lavish scale. There
are numerous isolated examples of the French style,
but the smith instead of appreciating its elegance and
comparative restraint, exaggerated its worst features.
Occasionally, however, superior pieces are found and
while largely French in character there is sufficient
deviation in them to indicate that their maker was
not executing his work in a merely perfunctory man
ner. Figures 142 and 143 are wrought iron balconies
from Palma de Mallorca. (This handsome little is
land capital contains a surprising amount of interest
ing Renaissance architecture and is worth a visit for
much more than its ironwork, in which particular
field it was celebrated from earliest times, the Morey
family of the fourteenth and fifteenth century having
executed a quantity of fine early Gothic work.) In
the majority of early Spanish balconies the spindle
form was preferred (Figures 144 and 145); and the
result, while severe in comparison with the rich Ba-

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THE LAST OF SPANISH IRONWORK 121
roque forms in French balconies, was never poor;
perhaps because the spindles, always beaten out by
hand, had as a consequent, variety which considerably
enlivened them. Moreover, balconies were invari
ably upheld by long graceful scrolls, survivors of
genuine forging, which were rarely if ever beaten
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FIG. 142. BALCONY FRONT FROM A
PALACE IN PALMA.
XVIII Century.

FIG. 143. BALCONY WITH A CURVED
FRONT.
Palace in Palma. XVIII Century.
from the square as in other countries, but were round
and spindled at the middle. A succession of these
scroll-supported balconies makes the facade of even
the plainest house attractive. Sometimes a single
balcony extends clear across the house, as later in
France; this is the case on the Hospital Real, erected

122 THE LAST OF SPANISH IRONWORK
about 1500, in Santiago, where the corbels are not
of iron but of carved stone. In the little town of
Santa Coloma de Queralt, in northern Catalonia, is
another long balcony with not only iron supports but
also interesting overhead braces embellished with
dragon heads (Figure 146). It is dated 1760 and is a

FIG. 146. BALCONY WITH OVERHEAD BRACES.
Santa Coloma de Queralt, Catalonia. Dated 1760.
remarkably good piece of work for this late period. In
the Casa Consistorial of Palma, built a century earlier,
may be seen a long balcony where the railing is merely
a spindle silhouette cut from sheet metal. This
motif is rarely seen on the mainland, but in Palma it
is used freely both for balconies and stair-rails (Figure

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THE LAST OF SPANISH IRONWORK 123
147). The decorative value of this simple and inex
pensive motif is surprising.
In this same illustration may be noticed an iron
well-pulley (armadura) numbers of which may still
be seen in the patios of the land. Figure 148 is also
from Palma. While most of the armaduras date from

FIG. 149. TYPICAL IRON BRACKET.
Hispanic Society of America.
Height 3 ft. 4 in. No. 175.
the beginning of the Renaissance, a few fine Gothic
ones may be found through Catalonia in ancient
palaces and castles. In quite the other side of the
peninsula, Plasencia, is a curious standard in the
Archbishop's garden. The well-curb here is T-shaped,
made up of three sarcophogus-like troughs, and over

124 THE LAST OF SPANISH IRONWORK
each extends a dragon arm with pulley radiating from
the tall iron standard; the whole structure is prob
ably seventeenth century. Another unusual one, part
Gothic and part Renaissance, is in the palace of the
Count of Grajal, near Leon.
A large number of miscellaneous objects in iron

FIG. 150. CRUZ DE LINDE OR BOUNDARY CROSS.
Catalan. XV Century.
may be encountered by the traveler in Spain, from
small decorative cooking utensils, such as the gridiron
(Figure 153) to large iron frames on palaces and public
buildings, in which their bells were hung. A particu
larly well-known bell apparatus is the ornate four
teenth-century one on the northeast tower of Barcelona
Cathedral. Such superstructures form picturesque
silhouettes against the sky as may be observed on
hundreds of small churches throughout the land and

THE LAST OF SPANISH IRONWORK 125
even in Southern France. Fantastic iron weather
vanes and finials are also seen; monumental among
the former (but in bronze) is the figure on the former
Moorish prayer tower, now the belfry of Sevilla Cathe
dral, representing Faith holding the banner of Con
stantine; it was cast in 1568 by Bartolome' Morel.
This is the famous "Giraldillo" which gives the tower
its name, and which moves quite readily with the
wind in spite of the fact that it is thirteen feet high
and weighs one and one-quarter tons. Iron crosses
are frequently found, both on and in churches; those
on the wayside, often in the nature of a boundary
mark, are more rare (Figure 150).
In the making of Spanish tables, chairs and benches
(which were not plentiful until French fashions were
imported with the Bourbons), iron was often a struc
tural adjunct, such as diagonal bracing and connecting
pieces, corner angles, and nailheads. Not that the
Spanish cabinet-maker was not thoroughly conscien
tious in his work, for Spanish furniture is as solidly
constructed as any other of the period; but he was so
imbued with the importance of iron that without its
introduction he could not see his work satisfactorily
finished. Figure 151 shows a common Spanish method
of bracing a table with iron. In the case of benches
the iron brace was in the form of a long hook which,
when released from its eye, permitted the legs of the
bench to fold, thereby increasing its portability. The
bench is a really important article in Spanish interiors,
and often exhibits, besides the brace, delicate little
plaques of ornamental iron let into the back. Some-

126 THE LAST OF SPANISH IRONWORK
times it is covered with leather fastened down with
ornamental nailheads, these in the form of shells,
stars, crosses and rosettes.
Furniture entirely of iron exists, although such
pieces, with the exception of iron beds, were unusual.
In the well known collection of Senor Santiago Rusinol
at Sitjes, Catalonia, there is a rare and curious iron
desk with leather fittings. Figure 152 shows a seven
teenth-century iron chair, one of a set of twelve, four

FIG. 151. TABLE WITH WROUGHT IRON BRACES.
Hispanic Society of America.
of which are in the possession of the Hispanic Society.
The entire chair is practically a wooden conception
carried out in iron. It is well hammered up but
presents nothing new in design excepting the back,
which is conceived in the spirit of ironwork and makes
a graceful contrast to the heavier structural mem
bers. Another iron chair, but designed in the spirit
of the material, is the well known example among the
Spanish pieces in the South Kensington Museum made
entirely of pierced and inlaid (damascened) iron. It
is a late but splendid specimen of the art, dating from

FIG. 154. SPANISH BIT WITH ORNAMENTS TO
WARD OFF THE EVIL EYE.
XVII Century. Hispanic Society of America. No. 132.
FIG. 155. SPUR OF A CONQUISTADOR.
XVI Century. Hispanic Society of America.
Dia. of wheel Syi in. No. 139.
FIG. 156. STIRRUP OF A CONQUISTADOR.
XVI Century. Hispanic Society of America.
Total length 18 in. No. 140.

THE LAST OF SPANISH IRONWORK 127
the seventeenth or early eighteenth century. The
art of damascening — incising the metal in a pattern
into which is pressed gold or silver thread — was
introduced into Spain by the Moors with whom the
practice, presumably originating in Damascus, was
very ancient. As early as the twelfth and thirteenth

FIG. 152. ONE OF FOUR IRON CHAIRS OF THE XVII
CENTURY.
Hispanic Society of America.
Nos. 171, 172, 173 and 174.
centuries Moorish towns, — Almeria, Murcia, Sevilla,
Granada, — were celebrated for it, and to this day
the art is practiced in Spain. An Arab traveler, Al
Makari, wrote of Murcia "the objects made there of
iron, consisting of knives and scissors inlaid in gold,

128 THE LAST OF SPANISH IRONWORK
and other utensils fit either for the outfit of a bride
or a soldier are in such large quantities that the
mere thought of them confuses the imagination."
Perhaps the best known modern work in damas
cening is the monument to Gen. Prim in Madrid.
Other comparatively recent examples are the extra-

FIG. 153. CATALAN GRIDIRON.
XVII Century.
ordinary inlays in the royal palaces of Aranjuez and
El Escorial.
The last phase of Spanish architecture, and a lam
entable one, is the Churrigueresco of the late seven
teenth century, named after the architect Churriguera
who indulged in a delirium of ornament to conceal

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THE LAST OF SPANISH IRONWORK 129
the faultiness of his structures. These grandiose
productions were the Spanish interpretation of the
French Baroque, and the iron accessories used were
close but inferior to their French prototypes, as may
be seen in the balconies of the fantastic facade of the
palace of the Marques de Dos Aguas in Valencia.
The few rejas now erected took on an entirely new
character; instead of spindles and embossed bands as
motifs, they were adorned with cartouches, medallions,
and a quantity of capricious scrolling. This was the
period that gave to France and England those eight
eenth century gateways which stand as monuments
to the virility of late ironworkers; but in Spain, owing
to the concentration of domestic life within the patio,
and also to the lack of villa life, there never was the
demand for exterior gates. In Sevilla and certain
other Andalusian towns, however, the arrangement of
the houses necessitated iron gates, called canceles, to
the patio. As the street doors are thrown open day
and evening, the passerby catches many a glimpse of
these Baroque gates and the attractive patio beyond.
An isolated display of late exterior ironwork may be
seen at La Granja, the royal park created in imitation
of Versailles by Spain's first Bourbon king, Philip V.
These accessories, like the gardens they adorn, are
in no sense a Spanish expression. It was probably all
designed and executed by French artists, and exhibits
Baroque in more pleasing aspect than is found else
where in Spain, except, as already stated, in Palma
de Mallorca. Figure 157 shows a typical bit of
late eighteenth-century Spanish ironwork in Granada.

130 THE LAST OF SPANISH IRONWORK
There is nothing particularly Spanish about it; it
could have been produced in any other European
country at the time.
Until very recent years modern Spanish ironwork
gave no signs of improvement. All that was bad in
the ornamentation of the French Napoleon III style
was copied by Spanish artizans of the late nineteenth
century. Figure 158, part of the iron fittings on the
modern doors of the restored facade of the Casa Con-
sistorial at Barcelona, shows the hard spiky forms so
characteristic of this period; but the same city has
since produced some excellent works, an encouraging
sign that in Catalonia at least there may be some
return to those splendid traditions which gave six
teenth-century Spanish ironwork a high place among
the fine arts.

INDEX

Acufia, Bishop de, 36
Aldabon, 46
Alcala, de Henares, 104
A! Makari, 127
Almeria, 127
Alhambra, 15
Amarejo, 2
Andalucia, 12, 129
Andino, Pedro de, 85
Andino, Cristobal de, 85, 91, 94,
96
Anaya grille, Salamanca, 33, 35
Andirons, 67
Antique revival, 99, 118
Aragonese, 56, 64
Aranjuez, 128
Arc6n, 60
Arenas, Hernando de, 97
Arquetas, 61
Armor, 100
Armorial bearings, 37, 39, 73
Armadura, 123
Avila, 27, 51, 96, 107
B
Backplate, 46, 49, 52, 54
Baggage chests, 60
Balcony, 99, 120
Balustrade, 99
Barcelona, 20, 52
 Cathedral, 20, 21, 72, 124

Barcelona, CasaConsistorial, 130
 Santa Maria del Mar, 19
Baroque, 98, 129
Bartolome, Maestre, 85, 89
Basilicas, Christian, 9, 97
Basque, 49
Bell frames, 124
Bermudez, Cean, 86
Blast furnace, 2, 4
Blazon, 37, 39, 90, 91
Bloom, 4
Boina, 49
Bosse, 16, 46, 49
Box fittings, 60
Bravo, Francisco, 83
Braziers, 62
Burgos, 20
 Cathedral, 20, 36, 91
 . Las Huelgas, 109
 , Miraflores, 36, 86
Byzantine, 17

Cadiz, 97
Candelabra, 35, 62, 91
Candelero, 62
Candlestick, 62
Capilla del Condestable, Burgos,
77,92
 del Sagrario, Palencia, 11
 de la Antigua, Sevilla, 85
 de la Anunciaci6n, Sevilla,
85

131

132

INDEX

Capilla de la Concepci6n, Se
villa, 85
 de la Gamba, Sevilla, 85
 de la Presentaci6n, Burgos,
91
 de los Caballeros, Cuenca,
97
 de los Reyes Nuevos, To
ledo, 82
 de los Reyes Viejos, To
ledo, 82
 de N. S. de Blanca, Palen
cia, 96
 de N. S. de la Piedad, Se
govia, 97
— de N. S. de las Angustias,
Palencia, 25
 de San Pedro, Palencia, 93,
95
 de Santa Ana, Burgos, 36
 de Santa Cruz, Pamplona,
10
 de Santa Librada, Sigiienza,
80
 de Santa Magdalena, Tar
ragona, 82
 Mozarabe, Toledo, 82
 Mayor, AlcalS,, 98
 Mayor, Cuenca, 97
 Mayor, Osma, 96
 Mayor, Palencia, 93
 Mayor, Pamplona, 24
 Mayor, Sevilla, 85
 Mayor, Toledo, 73, 83
 Real, Granada, 32, 72, 89
 Real, Sevilla, 84
Cantabrian Provinces, 9
Canceles, 129
Caskets, 60
Cast iron, 5
Castile, 12
Catalonia, 2, 14, 67, 130
Catalan forge, 2, 4

Celtiberian sword, 1
Cespedes, Domingo de, 82
Celma, Juan Bautista, 99
Chairs in iron, 126
Charles II, 112
Charles V, 89, 90, 100
Chat6n, 15
Chest fittings, 60, 113
Churriguera, 128
Churrigueresco, 128
Cluniacs, 8, 9
Colonnettes, 69
Coloring of iron, 38
Cdrdova, Mosque of, 17
Coro, its development, 76
 , Palencia Cathedral, 95
 , Plasencia Cathedral, 99
 , Sevilla Cathedral, 85, 87
 , Toledo Cathedral, 83
Covarrubias, Alonzo de, 83
Cresting, 40, 86, 90
Crusades, 13
Cruz de linde, 125
Cutlery, 127
Cuenca, 85, 96 D
Damascening, 126
Damascus, 127
Delgado, Juan, 85
Diagonal lattice, 27
Door ironwork, 14, 45, 52
Doors plated with iron, 18, 45
Domestic utensils, 2, 62
Dos Aguas, Marques de, 129

Eastern influence, 52
Ebro, 3, 12, 47
Egas, Enrique de, 69, 89
Embossed work, 90
Escalera Dorada, 93

INDEX

133

Escorial, 128
Escutcheon plate, 14
Estremadura, 44

Ferdinand, 89, 90, 94
Fernando el Santo, 20, 76, 91,
110
Fire dogs, 67
 guards, 67
 screens, 67, 68
Fixing staples, 57, 115
Flamboyant, 36, 41, 54
Flemish influence, 43, 63, 94
Florence, 75, 107
Fonseca, Alonzo de, 94, 98
Font cranes, 123
Frances, Juan, 43, 71, 82, 98, 108
Francisco de Salamanca, 85, 86,
108
French Gothic, 45
 hinges, 46
 balconies, 121
 keys, 111, 112
 locks, 56, 109
Furnace, open hearth, 3
 Catalan forge, 2, 4

Gardner, J. Starkie, 7, 70, 71,
112
Gates, 102
German influence, 35, 36, 37, 59
Gerona Cathedral, 20
Gestoso y Perez, 76
Gilding of iron, 38
Giralda tower, 87, 125
Gotico-florido ironwork, 32, 40,
54,94
Gothic style, 20
Granada, 25, 32, 76, 104, 127
 Audiencia, 106

Granada Cathedral, 89
 , Capilla Real, 32, 72, 77, 89
Granja, La, 129
Gridiron, 128
Grilles, 9
 English, 9
 French, 9, 11
 Roman, 9
 Oriental, 12
Greek revival, 99, 118
Grajal, Count of, 124
Guadalupe, 87, 96
H
Hachero, 64
Handrail of iron, 122
Hasps, 56, 59
Helve hammer, 7
Heraldry, 37, 39, 77, 90
Hinges, 45
Hood of knocker, 46
Horizontal member, 39, 74
Hospital de Santa Cruz, Toledo,
69, 102
 Real, Santiago, 69, 121
Huche, 61
Huesca, 19
Human figure in iron, 29, 70, 74
89
Herrera, 106 I
Idrobo, Diego de, 85
Interlaced grilles, 27
Isabella, 89, 90, 94
Italian influence, 69, 75, 77

Jaen, 90

K

Keys, 109
 chamberlain, 112

134

INDEX

Keys, French, 111, 112
 Gothic, 111
 Italian, 111, 112
 master, 112
 Moorish, 109
 Renaissance, 111
 Spanish, ill
Knockers, 14, 15, 117

Le6n, 11, 124
Le6n Cathedral, 20, 81
 , N. S. del Mercado, 11
Lepoutre, 120
Le Puy-en-Velay, 9
Llamador, 46
Locks, 56, 109
 French, 56, 109
 Gothic, 56
 Renaissance, 116
 Spanish, 56

Moorish ironwork, 18
Mudejar style, 13, 53
 doors, 17
Mufiez Sancho, 85, 97
Murcia, 127 N
Nailhead, 14, 46
Nails, 15
Napoleon, 83
 111,130
Navarre, 10, 14 O
Oil immersion, 7
Open hearth, 3
Orfevrerie, 73
Oriental influence, 12, 13, 52
Osma, 96, 98
Oviedo, 96

M
Madrid, 17
 , Museo, Nacional, 17, 61
 , Armeria, 101
 , statue of General Prim, 128
Malaga, 96
Malleable iron, 3, 5
Manresa Cathedral, 20
Margaret of Spain, 61
Marot, 120
Marseille, 1
Medina de Rioseco, 93
Mendoza, Cardinal, 102
Miraflores, Convent of, 36, 86
Morel, Bartolome, 125
Morey family, 120
Moors, 2, 8
Moorish doors, 45
 influence, 12, 52
Moorish bronze work, 17

Painting of iron, 38
Palencia, Antonio de, 85
 11,94
 Cathedral, 11, 93
 , San Pablo, 25
Palma de Mallorca, 119, 120, 129
 de Mallorca, Casa Consis-
torial, 122
Paular, Chartreuse of, 86
Pamplona, 10, 20, 24
 Cathedral, 24
Pedro Da Vila's house, 27
Penafiel, Louis de, 82
Philip V, 129
Pilasters, 72
Pilgrim shell, 50, 115
Plasencia, 123
 Cathedral, 96, 99
Plateresque style, 69, 77
Pierced lettering, 34, 35

INDEX

135

Pompeii, 118
Prehistoric ironwork, 1
Prentice, Andrew, 97
Prieto, Fernando, 85
Pulpits, Gothic, 42
 Avila Cathedral, 42
 Burgos, San Gil, 42
 Cortejana, San Salvador, 44
 Murcia Cathedral, 44
 Renaissance, 84, 106
 Avila Cathedral, 107
 Burgos, Monastery of Las
Huelgas, 109
 Sevilla Cathedral, 87, 108
 Toledo Cathedral, 108
Pyrenean Provinces, 9, 51
R
Reja, 9
Rejero, 20
Relojero, Juan, 96
Renaissance style, 51, 69, 78
 church rejas, 80
Repousse, 40, 107
Rodriguez, Bartolom6, 82
 Gaspar, 95, 96
Romanesque style, 8
 rejas, 8
Romans, 1, 9, 62
Rusifiol Santiago, 126
Rust, prevention of, 7

Salamanca, 27
 , Catedral Vieja, 35
 , Casa de las Conchas, 27, 33
 , Archiepiscopal Palace, 27
 University, 72, 102
Santa Colma de Queralt, 122
 Croce, Florence, 197
 Maria del Mar, Barcelona,
19

San Pablo, Palencia, 25
 Clemente, Rome, 77
 Millan, Segovia, 46
 Vincente, Avila, 11
Santiago de Compostella, 34, 121
Saracenic influence, 11, 13
Segovia, 51, 96, 97
 Cathedral, 103
 , Duque de, collection, 58, 97
Sevilla, 25, 87, 127
 Cathedral, 39, 84, 108
 , Casa de Pilatos, 75, 104
 , Giralda tower, 87, 125
Sheathed doors, 18, 45
Sheathed columns, 72, 88, 90
Siloe, Diego de, 93
Silva, Francisco de, 82
Siguenza, 30, 80
 Cathedral, 37, 72
Smelting, 2
Smiths
 Andino, Cristobal de, 85,
91,94
 Andino, Pedro de, 85
 Arenas, Hernando de, 97
 Bartolome, Maestre, 85, 89
 Bravo, Francisco, 83
 Celma, Juan Bautista, 99
 C6spedes, Domingo, 82
 Delgado, Juan, 85
— Frances, Juan, 42, 82, 98
 Francisco de Salamanca, 85,
108
 Idrobo, Diego de, 85
- — Morey, Juan, 120
 Morey, Pedro, 120
 Mufiez Sancho, 85
 Palencia, Antonio de, 85
 Penafiel, Louis de, 82
 Prieto, Fernando, 85
 Rodriguez, Bartolomg, 82
 Rodriguez, Gaspar, 95, 96
 Silva, Francisco de, 82

136

INDEX

 Villalpando, Francesco de,
82
 Urisarri, Lopez de, 96
 Yepes, Juan de, 85
 Relojero, Juan, 96
South Kensington Museum, 126
Spindles, 32, 69, 70
Split bar, 31
Simon of Cologne, 36
St. Sernin, Toulouse, 21
St. Swithin grille, Winchester, 9
Steel, 5
Street, George, 18, 24, 74
Strozzi Palace, Florence, 75
Superimposing of plates, 40, 41
Swords, 1

Table braces, 125
Tarragona Cathedral, 18, 82
Threaded work, 22, 40
Toledo, 25, 27, 82
 Cathedral, 20, 27, 45
 Count of, 34, 105
 Hospital de Santa Cruz, 69,
102
Tomb rails, 35, 36
Tools, 78
Tortosa, 96
Toro, 26
Torch holders, 64
Toulouse, 21
Tuyere, 4

U
Urisarri, Lopez de, 96
V
Valencia, 96
Varga, 113
Vargueno, 113
Vasari, 75
Venice, 17
Venetian grilles, 17
Vergas, 14, 35
Vertical bars, 21, 29
Vieh, 11
 Museum, 11, 51, 62, 64
Villalpando, Francesco de, 87
Viollet-Ie-Duc, 21
Visigoths, 2, 8, 16
W
Weather vanes, 125
Welding, 5, 71
Well cranes, 123
Window rejas, 25, 103

Yepes, Juan de, 85
Z
Zamora, 36
Zaragoza, 96, 100
Zapata, Don Gonzalo, 95

CATALOGUE OF IRONWORK IN THE
COLLECTION OF THE HISPANIC SOCIETY
OF AMERICA
Number
1- 2 Decorative nails or bosses, Moorish half-orange
type.
3- 9 Decorative door bosses with separate nails, XV
and XVI Century.
10- Moorish bosse with fixed nail.
11- Spanish bosse with separate nail.
12- Moorish bosse with fixed nail.
13- 14 Moorish nails from a door in the Alhambra,
Granada.
15- 18 Typical keys of the XVII Century.
19- 20 Ornamental door bosses, XVI Century.
21- 25 Keys, XVI and XVII Century.
26- 34 Various types of nails from the XV to the XVII
Century.
35- 40 Spanish door bosses of Moorish design.
41- Aragonese key, XIV Century.
42- 46 Elaborate door bosses, Moorish or half-orange
type.
47- Door knocker, earliest appearance of flat crown
design, about 1400.
48- Door knocker, first appearance of half-crown
motif.

138 CATALOGUE OF THE COLLECTION
49- 50 Door knockers, half crown motif, XVI Century.
51- Door knocker, flat crown design, XVII Century.
52- Door knocker, entirely forged, XV Century.
53- 54 Detached hammers of knockers, XVI Century.
55- Door knocker with incised patterning, XV Cen
tury.
56- Door knocker with incised patterning, XVI Cen
tury.
57^- 58 Bosses used as backplates for knockers, Moorish
design, XV Century.
59- 60 Bosses, Moorish patterning.
61- 64 Door ring handles with clinch, XV and XVI Cen
tury.
65- Hammer of Knocker.
66- Ring handle with bosse and clinch, XVI Cen
tury.
67- Detached hammer of knocker, probably XV Cen
tury.
68- Door ring handle, Moorish in character, XV Cen
tury.
69- Door knocker, Moorish design, XV Century.
70- Gothic door knocker, split bar type, XVI Cen
tury.
71- 73 Pair of door knockers, Gothic in spirit, XV Cen
tury.
72- Door ring handle, Mudejar (Gothic-Moorish),
XVI Century.
74- Gothic door knocker, stirrup pattern, XV Cen
tury.
75- Door knocker with pilgrim shell, XVII Century.
76- Pair of striker heads, XVII Century.

CATALOGUE OF THE COLLECTION 139
77- Door ring handle, Moorish in character, XV Cen
tury.
78- Bosse backplate of a knocker, XVI I Century.
79- Door ring knocker, Mudejar, XV Century.
80- 81 Pair of ring knockers, Gothic, XV Century.
82- Door ring knocker, Moorish in character, XV
Century.
83- Door ring handle, Mudejar, XVI Century.
84- Pilgrim shell knocker, XVI Century.
85- Door ring knocker, Mudejar, XV Century.
86- Door knocker, Mudejar, XVII Century.
87- Door knocker, stirrup pattern, Mudejar, XVII
Century.
88- Detached hammer of a knocker, XVI Century.
89- Door ring handle, Moorish in character, XVI
Century.
90- Detached hammer of a knocker, XVII Century.
91- Door ring knocker, Moorish in character, XVI
Century.
92- Detached hammer of a knocker, XVI Century.
93- Door ring knocker, XVII Century.
94- Detached hammer of a door knocker, XVII
Century.
95- Door ring handle, example of rich Mudejar, XVI
Century.
96- Door knocker, star pattern in rich Mudejar,
XVI Century.
97 Door ring knocker, Moorish in character, XVI
Century.
98- Detached striker of a knocker.

140 CATALOGUE OF THE COLLECTION
99- Door ring knocker, Moorish in character, XVII
Century.
100- Door knocker, backplate, and fixing staples,
XVII Century.
101- Door knocker, XVII Century.
102- Door knocker and handle, XVII Century.
103- Door knocker, stirrup pattern, Mudejar, XVII
Century.
104- Door knocker with Moorish bosse, XVI Cen
tury.
105- Late Gothic plaque worked in repousse.
106- Door knocker, Gothic in spirit, XVI Century.
107- Gothic lockplate.
108- Lock and hasp with false fixing staple over key
hole. XVI Century.
109- Lock and hasp with false fixing staple over key
hole, XVI Century.
110- Door knocker, late Gothic in style, XVII Cen
tury.
Ill- Door knocker, French flamboyant in char
acter, late XVI Century.
112- Gothic lock with curious hasp, XV Century.
113- Chest lock, XVI Century.
114- Lock-box and hasp in rich Mudejar style,
probably XVII Century.
115- Lockplate and hasp, Renaissance, XVII Cen
tury.
116- Small detached hammer of a door knocker.
117- Door knocker, Gothic in spirit but probably
XVIII Century.
118- Lock with slide-plate, Gothic, XV Century.

CATALOGUE OF THE COLLECTION 141
119- Lockplate and hasp, XVI Century.
120- Detached hammer of a door knocker.
121- Chest lock and hasp, Renaissance, XVI Cen
tury.
122- Door knocker, Renaissance, early XVII Cen
tury.
123- Door knocker, Aragonese in type, XVII Cen
tury.
124- Knocker, backplate Renaissance, hammer Greek
revival, XVIII Century.
125- Door knocker, Aragonese in type, XVII Cen
tury.
126- Lock and hasp, Renaissance, XVII Century.
127- Chest lock and hasp, XVII Century.
128- Door knocker, XVII Century.
129- Vargueno lockplate and hasp, Renaissance, XVI
Century.
130- Door knocker, Greek revival, XVIII Century.
131-133 Pair of door knockers, Renaissance, XVII Cen
tury.
132- Spanish bit with ornaments for warding off the
evil eye. XVII Century.
134- Vargueno lockplate and hasp, Renaissance,
XVII Century.
135- Pair of Renaissance fixing staples, XVI Cen
tury.
136- Detached hammer of a knocker, XVIII Cen
tury.
137- Vargueno lockplate and hasp, Renaissance, XV 1 1
Century.
138- Door knocker, Renaissance, XVII Century.

142 CATALOGUE OF THE COLLECTION
139- Spur of a Conquistador, XVI Century.
140- Stirrup of a Conquistador, XVI Century.
141- Pocket-knife.
142- Door knocker, Renaissance, XVII Century.
143- Heraldic cartouche, beaten in repousse and
colored. XVII Century.
144- Repousse band from a reja, Renaissance, XVI
Century.
145- Pierced band from a reja, Gothic, XV Century.
146- Repousse band from a reja, Renaissance, XVI
Century.
147- Tracery band built up of two plates, Gothic,
XV Century.
148- Repousse band from a reja, Renaissance, XVI
Century.
149- Tracery band built up of two plates, Gothic,
XV Century.
ISO- Pierced band from a reja, Renaissance, XVI
Century.
151- Repousse band from a reja, Renaissance, XVI
Century.
152- Repousse band from, a reja, Renaissance, XVI
Century.
153- Pierced band from a reja, Gothic, XV Century.
154- Pair of foliated sprigs, Renaissance, XVII Cen
tury.
155- Pierced band from a reja, Renaissance, XVI
Century.
156- Repousse band with delicate figures, Renais
sance, XVI Century.

CATALOGUE OF THE COLLECTION 143
157- Repousse band from a reja, Renaissance, early
XVI Century.
158- Repousse band, dolphin pattern, Renaissance,
XVI Century.
159- Pierced band from a reja, Gothic, XV Century.
160- Crude border in three pieces.
161- Celtiberian sword, found at Amarejo.
162-163 Pair of ecclesiastical candelabras, XVI Century.
164- Two storied brazier, XVII Century.
165-168 Four spindles and their pedestals, from a reja,
XVI Century.
169- Incomplete cresting of a reja, from northern
Spain, XVII Century.
170- Pair of gates, XVII Century.
171-174 Set of four iron chairs of the XVII Century.
175-176 Pair of brackets, XVII Century.
177- Iron strong box.
178-179 Pair of crowning pinnacles, XV Century.
180- Portion of a Gothic arch, XV Century.

3 9002