Probably, as Señor Ramírez de Arellano facetiously supposes, Cristóbal, after such a course of treatment, would be lame for all his life. At any rate, he died in 1605, though whether from the gentle handling of the stableman and herbalist is not recorded in these entries.
Still keeping to the sixteenth century, in other parts of Spain we find the silversmiths Baltasar Alvarez and Juan de Benavente, working at Palencia; Alonso de Dueñas at Salamanca; and Juan de Orna at Burgos, about the same time that the foreigners Jacomi de Trezzo and Leo Leoni were engaged at the Escorial. Cuenca, too, boasted three excellent silver-workers in the family of Becerril, mentioned by Juan de Arfe in company with other craftsmen of the time of the Renaissance.[52] Stirling says of Cuenca and the Becerriles: "They made for the cathedral its great _custodia_, which was one of the most costly and celebrated pieces of church plate in Spain. They began it in 1528, and, though ready for use in 1546, it was not finished till 1573. It was a three-storied edifice, of a florid classical design, crowned with a dome, and enriched with numberless groups and statues, and an inner shrine of jewelled gold; it contained 616 marks of silver, and cost 17,725-1/2 ducats, a sum which can barely have paid the ingenious artists for the labour of forty-five years. In the War of Independence, this splendid prize fell into the hands of the French General Caulaincourt, by whom it was forthwith turned into five-franc pieces, bearing the image and superscription of Napoleon."[53]
[52] "_Con estos fué mi padre en seguimiento Joan Alvarez tambien el Salmantino, Becerril, que tambien fué deste cuento, Juan de Orna, y Juan Ruiz el Vandolino._"
[53] _Annals of the Artists of Spain_, vol. i. pp. 161, 162.
A more reliable notice says that this _custodia_ was begun by Alonso Becerril and finished by his brother Francisco. The third member of this family of artists, Cristóbal, who flourished towards the end of the sixteenth century, was Francisco's son.
[Illustration: XVI GOTHIC _CUSTODIA_ (_15th Century_)]
Towards the close of the Gothic and during the earlier phases of the Renaissance movement in this country, enormous quantities of gold and silver began to be employed in making these _custodias_ or monstrances of her temples; so that the fifteenth century may well be called, in Spanish craftsmanship, the "age of the _custodia_." A century ago the reverend Townsend, loyal to the Low Church prejudices of his day, spoke of this object with something of a sneer as "the depository of the Host, or, according to the ideas of a Catholic, the throne of the Most High, when, upon solemn festivals, He appears to command the adoration of mankind." Riaño's description is more technical. "The name of _custodia_," he says, "is given in Spain, not only to the monstrance or ostensoir where the Blessed Sacrament is exposed, but also to a sort of temple or tabernacle, of large size, made also of silver, inside which is placed the monstrance, which is carried in procession on Corpus Christi day (Plate xvi.). In order to distinguish these objects one from another, the name of _viril_ is given to the object which holds the consecrated Host; it is generally made of rock crystal, with a gold stem and mount ornamented with precious stones. The small tabernacles are generally objects of the greatest importance, both from their artistic and intrinsic value." A third description of the monstrance, written in quaint and antiquated Spanish verse by Juan de Arfe, is truthfully if not melodiously translated into English rhyme by Stirling:--