F. Alvarez.

F. Merino.

Feretories for the bodies of St. Eugenius

Francisco Alvarez was goldsmith to Queen Isabel of the Peace, and a worthy contemporary of the d'Arphes and Becerrils. His best work was a Custodia, executed in 1568 for the corporation of Madrid, consisting of two stories, of the Corinthian and Composite orders, each supported on eight columns, and differing from others, inasmuch as it contained in its second story a second structure of similar design, within which was placed the viril of the Host, richly gilt and sparkling with diamonds. This Custodia was embellished, as usual, with bas-reliefs and statues of beautiful workmanship; it was reckoned the finest piece of Church-plate in the capital, where it was kept in the town-hall, and was carried forth once a-year in the procession of Corpus.

Francisco Merino flourished at Toledo, where he is supposed to have been the disciple of the elder Nicolas Vergara, the sculptor. His first important work in silver was the feretory, designed by Vergara, for the body of St. Eugenius, first Archbishop of Toledo, whose charmed carcase, after lying for many ages at the bottom of a French lake, found its way to St. Denys, and finally to Toledo, being sent by Catherine de Medicis as an appropriate present to Philip II. This silver coffer was six feet in length, and weighed 248 marks; it was richly adorned with scrolls, coats of arms, emblematic figures, and bas-reliefs, one of which represented the Saint's solemn entry into his metropolitan church," attended

66

by the King and Don Carlos, the grandees of "the realm, many prelates, clergy, and friars, and "such an array of guilds with their ensigns, so

66

66

many crosses and banners, so great a blaze of

light and expenditure of wax, that the like had "not been in the memory of man." In 1587, the

cadia,

corpse of the Toledan Virgin-martyr, Sta. Leo- and Sta. Leo cadia, which had been carried, several centuries before, to Flanders, by some devout Christian fugitive, being brought back from exile and presented by Philip II., to the Cathedral, was reverently committed to a similar shrine of silver, executed by Merino, from the designs of the younger Vergara. This feretory was smaller than that which held the Archbishop; it was little more than three and a half feet long, and weighed 217 marks; but it did not contain the whole saint, for the Cathedral already possessed one of her limbs, a jewel which of course had its separate casket. The Cathedral of Baeza is said Custodia of to have once possessed a Custodia wrought, by Merino, and he competed, in 1579, with Juan d'Arphe, for the honour of executing that of Seville, when, although unsuccessful, he was paid 1,000 reals for his design by the Chapter. He died, it is believed, in or soon after 1594.

2

By the labour and skill of artists like these, the treasuries of the Church were becoming each year more splendid. In the great Cathedrals, and in the temple of the Escorial, each newly

1 Villegas. Flos Sanctorum, p. 616.

D D

2 See p. 393.

Baeza,

Various cele

brated works

in silver and

gold,

acquired relique, the bone of a Saint, the body of an Innocent of Bethlehem, or a thorn from the Saviour's crown, was placed in a shrine of gold or silver, or gilt bronze, of exquisite design and workmanship, and often enriched with gems. at the Escorial, Amongst the more remarkable of these pieces of ecclesiastical luxury, were the tower of gold and jasper, which contained a muscle of St. Lawrence, bearing the marks of the gridiron and the fire, the first relique of the Escorial; the elegant temple in the same collection containing the "wise, mature, and grave head of St. Je"rome;" the silver statue and chair of St. Vincent Ferrer, and the little statue of St. Michael formed of diamonds, in the Cathedral of Valencia. At the festivals of Easter, Corpus, or the Immaculate Conception, these gorgeous and revered objects were exposed to view in the churches, on the altars, or in vast temporary monuments, amidst solemn music, clouds of rich incense, and the soft lustre of innumerable tapers or they were carried, wreathed in flowers and beneath embroidered canopies, through the holiday

and Valencia.

streets

3

"En las ventanas alfombras

En el suelo juncia y ramos

5

and throngs of joyous people, proud of these

1 Fr. F. de los Santos, Descripcion, fol. 33, 34.

2 Carleton's Memoirs, p. 241-2.

3 Ponz, tom. iv., p. 43.

4 Chap. iii., p. 109.

5 Romance of the Cid, beginning " A su palacio de Burgos."

Palladia of their cities, and exulting in their
gay religion full of
pomp and gold."

66

2

Solemnities in

the Cathedral

of Seville, on

the death of

Philip II.

The Church displayed its magnificence, and gave large employment to artists in the funeral rites performed in honour of Philip II. in the principal Cathedrals of the kingdom. The most splendid of these services was that which took place on the 25th of November, 1598, in the Cathedral of Seville. In the centre of the church, The Monubetween the high altar and the choir, rose a stately monument, 44 feet square and 41 feet in height, without counting the steps on which it stood, designed by Juan de Oviedo, knight of Montesa and master of works to the city. It was an edifice of three stories, each supported on eight columns, of, which the lower

ment,

decorations.

were Doric and those above Ionic and Corinthian;
betwixt the Doric columns were altars dedicated
to the favourite saints of Seville and Philip; and and its
betwixt the rest allegorical figures of Wisdom,
Prudence, Clemency, Truth, Justice, and other
virtues, discerned by the Chapter, but invisible
to the eye of history, in the character of the
departed prince. The cornices were also painted
with allegorical devices; the second story con-
tained the cenotaph, and had, at its four cor-
ners, four pyramids in memory of Philip's four

1 Paradise Lost, B. i., v. 372.

2 Espinosa de los Monteros, Historia de Sevilla, fol. 111-118, where a full account of the whole may be found, and all the fulsome Latin inscriptions.

Galleries.

Paintings.

Artists.

Queens; within the third story was a statue of St. Lawrence, and the whole was crowned with a dome supporting an obelisk, topped by a burning phoenix, and lost in the vast depth, which it nearly fathomed, of the vaults above.

From this soaring structure, branched off on either hand to the doors leading to the Lonja, and court of orange-trees, arched galleries decorated with paintings and many inscriptions in Latin verse, illustrating the glories of the past reign. Amongst these were duly celebrated the victory at Lepanto, and the Morisco war in Granada, wherein the infidels were very unjustly allegorized as deer fleeing before the Christian eagle of Austria; and one curious subject, affording great scope for the display of Andalusian assurance, is recorded, but unfortunately without any description, under the name of the "Reduction of England." The materials used in this monument were chiefly timber and canvas, and the cost of construction was upwards of 15,000 ducats; the columns and walls were coloured in imitation of brown stone, the bases, capitals, escutcheons of arms, wreaths, and draperies in imitation of bronze, and the heads and limbs of the figures, of white marble. Vasco Pereyra, Alonso Vasquez, Perea,' and Juan de

1 Perea is mentioned by Espinosa de los Monteros, but not by Cean Bermudez; he may be identical with V. Pereyra.