Note 452 — Chapter XXI · THE SPANISH ARCHITECTS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.

We have accidental evidence of the fact that Hontañon was an architect, for the “Master of the Works” of La Magdalena, Valladolid, contracted in A.D. 1570 to build the tower and body of the church according to his plan for a specified sum. But it will be observed that the date of this agreement is very late, and that, whilst the maker of a plan had become an architect in the modern sense of the word, the Maestro Mayor had descended to be, in fact, nothing more than the contractor for the work, also in the modern sense. Somewhat in the same way, we know that when the lantern of Burgos Cathedral fell, in A.D. 1539, Felipe de Borgoũa was summoned from Toledo to superintend the two cathedral masters of the works: from which it seems probable that they executed the work which Borgoũa designed. So again at an earlier date, in A.D. 1375, Jayme Castayls executed some statues for the west front of Tarragona cathedral, under the direction of Bernardo de Vallfogona, the Maestro Mayor.