rocade, are placed upon the
carpet; and the tables and cabinets are very fine; and at little
distances there are set silver cases or boxes, filled with orange and
jessamine trees. In their windows they set things made of straw, to keep
the sun out; and in the evenings they work in their gardens. There are
several houses which have very fine ones, where you see grottoes and
fountains in abundance."

[Illustration: PLATE 25

AVILA THE CATHEDRAL. IRON PULPIT.

MDW 1869]

PLATE XXV.

_AVILA_.

IRON PULPIT IN THE CATHEDRAL.

MR. STREET'S illustrations and description of all that is left of the
old glories of Avila, previous to the epoch of the Renaissance, are so
complete, that I can feel no compunction in having gleaned only from
this delightful old city two specimens of the ability of the Spanish
smiths of the period he repudiates, and two others showing remains of
the domestic architecture of the same style.

Let it not be supposed, however, that it was only the school of the
Renaissance which produced masterly iron-work, and even masterly iron
pulpits, in Spain. Mr. Street has himself given us a beautiful woodcut
of the pulpit in the church of St. Gil, at Burgos. This exhibits no
other than Gothic details, while in the pulpit which forms the subject
of my twenty-fifth sketch, as will no doubt be observed, Renaissance
details are freely intermixed with Gothic ones. The whole, however
different in style in different parts, appeared to me to be
contemporaneous; and I, therefore, regard this pulpit as an interesting
example of a transitional style, later of course, than that followed in
the pulpit of Saint Gil, which Mr. Street describes as the earliest he
saw. In both, the primitive mode of working through thin plates
superposed to form tracery has been adhered to, and the whole of the
ironwork has been applied to a wooden framework. I regard the pulpit at
Burgos as likely to have been executed early in the fifteenth century,
and the one now under consideration as of the close of the same century;
and both may, I think, have been produced under the influence of the
masters from Cologne, who did such wonders, and set so many fashions, in
Burgos and its vicinity, especially at Miraflores.

[Illustration: PLATE 26

AVILA

THE CATHEDRAL

MDW 1869]

PLATE XXVI.

_AVILA_.

IRON PULPIT IN THE CATHEDRAL.

IN method of manufacture no less than in style of design this pulpit,
which forms a pen