Note 50 — Chapter II · BURGOS.

The work of Berruguete and his school is so called in Spain from its plate-like delicacy of work in flat relief. For Renaissance work it has a certain air of rich beauty, not often attained in other lands; and, indeed, it is only a debt of justice due to the architects of Spain from the time of Berruguete in 1500 to that of the ponderously Pagan Herrera towards the end of the same century, to say, that whatever faults may be found with their overgreat exuberance and lavish display of decoration, they nevertheless possessed rare powers of execution, and a fertility of conception (generally, it must be owned, of very ugly things), for which they may well be envied by their school now, as they were in their own day. Indeed, if the revivers of Renaissance in these days ever think of such a thing as importing a new idea, I wish heartily that they would go to Spain and study some of her 16th century buildings.