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THE TREATISES OF BENVENUTO CELLINI ON GOLDSMITHING AND SCULPTURE.

TO THE METAL WORKERS OF THE GUILD OF HANDICRAFT, FOR WHOM I HAVE SET MY HAND TO THIS WORK, AND TO WHOM I LOOK FOR THE FRUIT IT IS TO BEAR.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

THE TREATISE ON GOLDSMITHING.

THE TREATISE ON SCULPTURE.

[ A GLOSSARY OF ITALIAN TECHNICAL TERMS FOR THE USE OF STUDENTS.]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND DIAGRAMS.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

DIAGRAMS.

AN INTRODUCTORY ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN AND OBJECT OF THE TREATISES & OF CELLINI’S POSITION AS CRAFTSMAN AND AUTHOR.

This translation is intended for the workshop; & to bring home to English craftsmen, & more particularly to my colleagues and pupils at Essex House, the methods and practice of the Goldsmith of the Renaissance. It is with this end in view that the work has been undertaken, and I am in hopes that the knowledge of this may induce my critics to give it a kindlier reading, aware as I am of its many shortcomings.

To the translator of the treatises two things are necessary, Italian scholarship and a thorough knowledge of workshop technicalities; these two qualities are difficult—perhaps impossible—to combine, and I am conscious of grave deficiencies in both, but more especially in the former. My endeavour has been to follow the lead set me by John Addington Symonds and to make this first English translation of the treatises serve, if but in some far-off measure, as a continuation volume to his masterly translation of the Autobiography. I have in many cases, therefore, adopted his manner of handling the subject, but inasmuch as the more technical and less directly personal matter with which the treatises deal, demands a somewhat different treatment, I have sought to retain what I would call the workshop vernacular, without at the same time sacrificing the archaism of the old Italian dialect.

Cellini’s graphic touch, which gives their manifold brilliancy to the varying passages of that wonderful autobiography, is equally evident in the treatises. But this very vividness increases the translator’s difficulty. The book is full of amusing workshop pictures and anecdotes; but it is always a workshop book. Cellini sees each process before him as he describes it, we, however, only hear the description, we do not see the process, hence it is often to the expert metal worker alone that some of the more complex technical narrations appeal, while the translator is as frequently in doubt as to whether he has realised the picture the author sought to draw. If, in my English rendering of some of these pictures, I have gone astray, I trust that my errors may be pointed out by those who are better able to follow the author’s meaning.

Apology is perhaps scarcely necessary for what will often appear to be loose or ungrammatical English; this may be an offence to the stylist or the pedant, & it certainly at first sight jars in what purports to be a scientific text book. It would have been perfectly easy for me to cut out the improper stories, trim up the phrases and give precision, accuracy, and even grammar to certain of the sentences, but this would not have been Cellini. We have him not writing, but rapidly & with a delightful forgetfulness and confusion, talking his treatises to a scribe, and then omitting to revise them; it is the spirit, therefore, of the spoken word, not the careful writing, that I have sought to render.

Another difficulty hampers the translator: the absence of any living workshop tradition upon which to fall back when his subject becomes too technical. In our day of the subdivision of labour the study of the ‘ Eight branches of the glorious Art of Goldsmithing’ as it was in Benvenuto’s time is a thing of the past. Except in a few instances where workshops are conducted with the enthusiasm of the artist rather than with the itching fingers of the tradesman, there is no such thing as an all round grasp of the Art such as Cellini postulates. To the tradesman, the sculptor’s ghost, the working jeweller, whether of Birmingham, Bond Street, or Clerkenwell, in the thousand and one gimcrack shops where they sell ‘merry-thought brooches,’ & ‘our latest stock of Christmas presents,’ the glorious Art of Goldsmithing has no meaning, or rather is a thing not of eight branches but of a hundred subdivisions, fanned into existence by a hundred callous machines, and workshop tradition has been destroyed by ‘the Trade.’ For the same reason the circle of readers will be small. To those of us who in recent years have been seeking to lift the art of the goldsmith out of the slough of industrial despond, to show once more what the human hand and fancy can create, and to relegate, without repudiating it, the machine to its right place in relation to human endeavour, all this manifold production of rubbishy trinkets, useless ornaments, and things made for ‘the Market,’ is stupid and wasteful, and makes for the destruction not the ennobling or beautifying of life.

But though small, the circle of my readers will be an earnest one. To such as are setting the standard of modern Art and Craft, to those who are fighting the trade, and seeking to relate the creations of their hands to their reasons for existence in life, this book of the aspirations & traditions of the old Italian will have some value. Fortunately their number is increasing, not only in England, but in Europe & in the United States. In the workshops of men like Frampton, Alfred Gilbert, Simmons, Fisher, Nelson Dawson; among the artists of Glasgow & Birmingham, or among the keener creative spirits in New York, whom I have found ready to welcome every genuine inspiration of the hand, will the real readers be found.

It is perhaps not my province as a translator to criticise the artistic merit of Cellini’s work, but as my hope in placing his treatises before English craftsmen is to familiarise them with his methods, I may perhaps be allowed to give a few words of warning. We must not take Cellini at his own valuation, and we must remember that he did not draw that subtle distinction between designer and executant that we nowadays are wont to do. The fact that every aesthetic criticism is inevitably biased by the style of its period must be taken into account by the student, if such criticisms as I myself, speaking as an artist, should venture to make, are to be of value to him. To Cellini’s best-known critics this applies in equal measure. Vasari, Delaborde, Milanesi, Brinckman, Symonds, have each had their point of view so to speak. To some, like Vasari, it has been coloured by what the Germans call ‘die Voll-Renaissance,’ of which Cellini in the art of goldsmithing was undoubtedly the central figure. To others, like Delaborde, it was influenced by the Romantic Reaction of the early Nineteenth Century, and to them his work was ‘an exploded myth.’ Criticised from the modern point of view—the point of view that distinguishes between goldsmith and sculptor, between craftsman & designer—we cannot rank him among the highest. There is a want of feeling for proportion in such work as we have of his, & the whole is marred by the overcrowded detail, often very exquisite in itself, of the parts; the craftsman indeed invariably overpowers the artist. Above all there is a want of spirituality in all his more important work, a want of refinement of soul, if one might so term it—a vulgarity. There is none of the εὐηθεια of Donatello, the graciousness of Ghiberti or Duccio, the mingled strength and sweetness of Verocchio, the simple grandeur of Pisanello. Michael Angelo’s manner perhaps we can trace, but of his inspiration and his self-control there is none.

If we take Cellini from the point of view he would himself have wished us to criticise him, he challenges us first as a sculptor & a designer of the figure. In this sphere, however, he falls far short of the standard he calls upon us to judge him by. Affected & uneven and imperfect in handling is his work when set beside that of earlier masters. Attenuated as we see in the nymph of Fontainebleau, thick & exaggerated as in the Perseus at Florence, leaden and stiff as in the Neptune and Cybele of the salt, there is about his figures always something manqué, they seem indeed to have in them the effort of a decaying school.

Much the same criticism applies to his work as a medalist. There is an absence of reserve & the fine feeling for his limitations which puts him to my mind far beneath Sperandio, Marende, Francia, or other of the great Cinquecento medalists, and it needs no artist to point to the superiority of the Greek coins with which with redoubtable modesty he compares his own.

To estimate his position as a jeweller is all but impossible, as there is not one jewel remaining that can be authenticated as his. If, however, we may be allowed to gauge his position as an artist from such pieces as are attributed to him in the Rothschild, Vienna, Paris, & Chantilly Collections, and of which I give some specimens on pages 22 and 24, I should be inclined to place him on an equal footing with any of the great masters of the early Renaissance or the Middle Ages in any country. The reasons of this are not far to seek. Jewellery is, before all others, an art of limitations. An artist cannot but put less of himself into a gem than into a statue, he is necessarily more cabined. Further, Cellini made most of his jewellery as a young man in Florence & Rome, when the traditions of the Florentine workshop which reared Brunelleschi, Donatello, Ghiberti, were still fresh upon him, & before he had as yet attempted the impossible task of translating the gusto grando of Michael Angelo into minor craftsmanship. Subject to the disproving of the attributions, I give therefore to Cellini as a jeweller an equal place with the artists of Greece and Japan, with those of Spain, England and Germany in the Middle Ages & the Renaissance, whose works are known to us; but as medalist, goldsmith and sculptor, I would place him on a much lower footing. My whole criticism might be summed up briefly thus: he was a very first-rate craftsman, but a very second-rate artist.

The Autobiography and the Treatises of Cellini must be read together, they tail into one another, the former gives the life of the man, the second the methods of the craftsman; both alike bring out the writer’s strong personality. A few words are needed as to their bearing upon one another, and the original of the present translation.

Both the ‘Vita’ & the ‘Trattati’ were dictated by Cellini to amanuenses; &, feeling their stylistic imperfections, he offered both, after their completion, to literary friends to polish and refine before publication. The ‘Vita’ he sent to the great historian Benedetto Varchi, who had the good taste and the wisdom to leave the MS. as it was, saying that he preferred it in its rough & unpolished condition; the latter was placed in less tactful hands,[1] & Gherardo Spini, a literateur[2] of the Florentine Academy, to whom this task has with good reason been attributed, undertook its recasting, to the no small detriment of the original. In this polished and emasculated form the ‘Trattati’ first appeared & for 300 years remained; the Editio Princeps[3] being published in Florence in the shape of a very beautiful volume in 1568, three years before Cellini’s death. It was not till 1857 that Carlo Milanesi, working on the lines of Francesco Tassi, who had in the Marciana re-discovered the original MS., gave to the world the work as Cellini had originally dictated it. It is on the ‘Trattati’ of the Marcian Codex, therefore, & not of the first edition, that this translation is based.

Cellini is fortunate in having been handled in our own day by four eminent and scholarly men, and to the work of each of these am I indebted. Milanesi,[4] 1857, may be placed first, and his admirable and exhaustive edition of the ‘Trattati’ cannot be too highly praised. Herr Justus Brinckman[5] followed him, in 1867, with his excellent translation of the ‘Trattati’ into German, and his very able comparative treatment of the work of the monk Theophilus[6] with that of the Cinquecento artist. In 1883 Eugène Plon[7] brought out his splendid volume on the life and works of Cellini, especially valuable for its illustrations and the critical investigation of the authentic and attributed works of the master. The work of our own John Addington Symonds is familiar to most English readers, and it is to the study of his masterly translation of the ‘Vita’ that I owe my first introduction to Cellini. To his memory I would wish here to express my gratefulness, and perhaps the best expression of this is in the assurance that through his introduction to Cellini has grown up the wish to familiarise the methods of the Renaissance workshop among English metal workers, & particularly among the metal workers of the Guild of Handicraft for whom this book is written.

My thanks are due to Messrs. Plon & Cie. for their kind permission to reproduce the blocks originally used in M. Eugène Plon’s volume, and which illustrate in this book the various examples as Cellini describes them; and I am indebted to many friends, artists & scholars for the most part, who have helped me with difficulties both in the text and in the workshop. To Mr. and Mrs. de Morgan and Captain Victor Ward for many hours of helpful, and, I fear, sometimes tedious revision; to Miss Constance Blount for her great assistance with the enamelling chapter, to Mr. Virtue Tebbs for his advice among the coins, to Mr. Wenlock Rollins & Mr. T. Stirling Lee in the complicated passages dealing with casting and the making of furnaces, and above all to Professor Roberts-Austen and Professor Church, not only for their invaluable help on all points dealing with metallurgy & stones, but also for their kind assistance in correcting the proofs of the whole book. I have likewise to thank for their courtesy in allowing me to refer to them in one way or another over technical & literary difficulties Mr. Heywood Sumner, Mr. M. Hewlett, Professor Giglioli of Naples, and Professor Fergusson of Glasgow.

C. R. ASHBEE.

Essex House, Bow, E.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Plon, 117.

[2] See Milanesi. ‘I. Trattati,’ &c., novamente messi alle stampe, &c.

[3] Pub. Firenze, 1568. Valentini Panizzi e Marco Peri, 8vo.

[4] Milanesi. ‘Due Trattati,’ &c.

[5] ‘Abhandlungen über die Goldschmiedekunst und die Sculptur v. Benvenuto Cellini.’ Justus Brinckman. Leipzig, 1867.

[6] Theophilus lived in the early half of the 11th century. See his ‘Diversarum Artium Schedula.’ Hendrie’s translation. Murray, 1847.

[7] ‘Benvenuto Cellini, orfèvre, medailleur, sculpteur, &c.’ Eugène Plon. Paris, 1883.

THE TREATISE ON GOLDSMITHING.

INTRODUCTION.

What first prompted me to write, was the knowledge of how fond people are of hearing anything new. Then in the second place, & this perhaps had greater weight still, I felt much troubled in mind because of all sorts of annoying things the which I purpose in the following treatise, with due modesty, to recount. That they will move my readers to great pity & no little anger in my behalf I am quite positive. Forsooth you can often attribute to difficulties of this kind the most opposite turns, to the greatest of evil the greatest of good, and had the troubles in question never come upon me, I for sure should never have set about writing down these most useful things. Thus it was that I did what no one had done before,[8] viz., undertook to write about those loveliest secrets and wondrous methods of the great art of goldsmithing. Things such as neither your philosopher, no, nor any other kind of man neither, if he be not of the craft, durst write about. But since they of the craft are for the most part better at work than at talk, they fall into the error of silence. This at least I determined to avoid and so set myself strenuously to the task. Perhaps never before, or at least so rarely that it has never been recorded, has a man been found who was a specialist in more than one or at most two of the eight different branches of this goodly art, but where he is, he knows, as you may imagine, how to make a good thing of them. Mind you, I don’t intend to talk about those kinds of muddlers who set themselves busily dabbling in all the eight branches at once, and who many and many a time are employed by such as either couldn’t or wouldn’t decide whether a bit of work was good or whether it was bad. Men of that ilk methinks may be likened to the sort of small shopkeeper who hangs out in the slums or suburbs of the town and does a little now in the bakery line, now in the grocery line, now in the apothecary line and now in general retail business—in fact, a little bit of everything and nothing good in anything. These sorts of fellows I don’t intend to talk about, but only of such as have come to the front in what they have done; and only of the right workmanlike way of doing things. Well, then, I mind me to begin with, of our city of Florence and of how we there were the first to revive all those arts that are the sisters of this art of mine; of how the earliest light dawned in the time of that first magnificent Cosimo de Medici; of how under him flourished Donatello the great sculptor, and Pippo di Ser Brunelleschi the great architect, and of that wondrous Lorenzo Ghiberti, in whose time were made the beautiful gates for what was once the ancient temple of Mars and is now the baptistry of our patron St. John.

Lorenzo Ghiberti. He was a goldsmith indeed! Not only in the wonderfulness of his own peculiar style, but because of his unwearied power of marvellous finish, and his exceeding diligence in execution. This man, who must be counted among the most admirable of goldsmiths, applied himself to everything, but especially to the casting of smaller work. And though now and then he set about doing large pieces, yet one can see that his particular line was the production of small work, and in this branch we may well call him a master in the art of casting. Indeed he pursued this with such excellence that as is still obvious to all, no man can touch him.

Antonio Pollajuolo, or the poulterer’s son, as he is always called, was likewise a goldsmith, and a draughtsman too of such skill, that not only did all the goldsmiths make use of his excellent designs, but the sculptors and painters of the first rank also, and gained honour by them, what was more! This man did little else beside his admirable drawing, but at this he was always busy.

Maso Finiguerra pursued only the art of engraving niello, in which craft he had no rival, and he too always made use of the designs of the aforesaid Antonio.

Amerigo wrought in the art of enamel, & was by far away the first craftsman in it either before or after his time. He too, great as he was, made use of the designs of Antonio del Pollajuolo.

Michaelangelo, the goldsmith of Pinzidimonte, was a capital fellow, and worked in a variety of divers things, and especially in the setting of gems. He wrought and designed well in niello, in enamel, in hammered work, and though he come not up to the other distinguished men just named, he deserves much praise. He was the father of Baccino[9] whom Pope Clement made a Knight of St. John. He added the surname Bandinelli on his own account, and since he had neither family nor arms really, he took the sign of his knighthood for a coat. About this man I shall have more than enough to tell as we go along.

Bastiano del Bernardetto Cennini was a goldsmith and worked also in a number of different things. His forefathers and he for many years made the dies for the coins of Florence, until the time that Alexander de Medici, the nephew of Pope Clement, became Duke. This Bastiano in his youth did admirable large metal ware—grosserie[10] and hammered work,[11] and verily he was a first-rate craftsman. And though I said above I wasn’t going to talk about bunglers who take up a number of different things indifferently, one must none the less distinguish between those who are bunglers & those who are good craftsmen and worthy of praise.

Piero, Giovanni, and Romolo, were brothers, the sons of one Goro Tavolaccino; they were goldsmiths too, they did good work and made good designs. Amongst other things they were very good at setting jewels in pendants, rings and so forth, and this they managed so tastefully that at that time, 1518, they had no equal. They also worked in intaglio, in bas-relief, and were not bad at hammered work.

Stefano Salteregli was a goldsmith too, a good man in his day, working like the others in a number of different things, but he died young.

Zanobi, son of Meo del Lavacchio, whose craft he followed, was a goldsmith also, had a charming way of working and designed admirably; but he died just when his beard began to bloom, at about the age of 20.

Indeed at that time there were many young fellows, whose equal and colleague I was, who promised great things to begin with; but the most of them has death snatched away, and the rest have either not stuck to the drudgery, or with undeveloped talents have got no further. As for me, I have heard myself blamed because I have talked so much about such excellent men in one profession only; but I have still to tell of work in filigree, an art though the least beautiful of many beautiful arts, still very beautiful for all that.

Piero di Nino was a goldsmith, who worked only in filigree, an art which, while it affords great charm, is not without its difficulties. He, however, knew how to work in it better than anyone else. Inasmuch as there was great riches in those days within the town, so was it likewise in the country, especially among the peasant folk of the plain, who used to get made for their wives a sort of velvet girdle with buckle and pin, about half a cubit long and covered all over with little spangles. These buckles and pins were all wrought in filigree with great delicacy and fashioned in silver of excellent setting. When later on I shall show how these things are made, I am sure the reader will find delight in them. I knew this Piero de Nino when an old man of near 90 years. He died partly from fear of dying of hunger, and partly from a shock he got one night. As for the dying of hunger it was this way: An edict had been issued in the city that no more belts should be worn either by peasants or others; and the poor old fellow, who knew no other branch of goldsmithing but this, was always grieving, and cursing from the bottom of his heart all those who had a hand in making this law. He lived near a draper’s shop, where was a young rogue of an urchin, the son of one of them that had made the law. The boy, hearing him thus continually cursing his father, ‘Oh, Piero,’ said he, ‘if you go on swearing like that, some fine day the devil will come and carry you off, bones and all!’ Now one Saturday night, when the old chap had worked right up to midnight to finish some job he was engaged on that was to go to Bologna, the urchin took it into his head to play him a practical joke and give him a fright. So he stood on the watch for the old man on his way home. The latter, as was his wont, locked up his shop, took his lantern in his hand, and, with the lappet of his cloak thrown over his head, trudged along ever so slowly, and as lonely as a ghost, home to his house, which stood in the via Mozza. Just as he was turning the corner of the old market the urchin, who was awaiting in ambush for him, and had tricked himself out with rag-tag, sulphur lights, blue fire, and such-like horrible devilries, suddenly jumped out upon him. The poor old thing was so terrified at the fearful monster thus suddenly coming at him, that he lost his senses; so much so that the boy, seeing he had played the fool, had to lead the old man home as well as he could, and consign him to the care of his grandsons, among whom was one called Meino, a courier, who afterwards became warden of Arezzo. Suffice it, the fright had been so great, that soon after the poor old fellow died. This is usually stated as the actual cause of Piero’s death, and I have myself ofttimes heard it narrated.

Antonio di Salvi was another of our Florentine goldsmiths, a capital grosserie worker. He died at a very great age.

Salvatore Pilli likewise was a first-rate man, who also died very old; but he never worked in a shop of his own, but always in someone else’s.

Solvatore Guasconti was an all round man, more especially good in small things. His work in niello and enamel is well worthy of praise.

You must know too that there were ever so many others, all of them fellow Florentines, who commenced in the goldsmith’s art and took their inspiration from it for various other arts, such as sculpture, architecture, and other notable lines of work.

Donatello, for instance, the greatest sculptor that ever lived, about whom I shall have plenty to say later on, stuck to the goldsmith’s art right along into manhood.

Pippo di ser Brunellesco, the first who gave new vigour to the glory of architecture, he too was a goldsmith for a long time.

Lorenzo della Golpaia also was a goldsmith, and always continued true to the art. As for him, he was a very prodigy of nature, for he specialised in clock making, and finding his own peculiar bent in this line, so wonderfully reproduced the secret of the heavens and the stars that you really might have thought he lived up in the sky! Amongst other things he showed his cunning in a clock he made for the magnificent Lorenzo de Medici. In this clock he put the Medici arms, making them represent the seven planets; these used to move round slowly, and revolve just like the planets in the sky do. This clock is still in its place, but it is not what it used to be because it has been so badly taken care of.

Andrea del Verocchio, the sculptor, remained a goldsmith up to the time of manhood. He was the master of Lionardo da Vinci, painter, sculptor, architect, philosopher, musician;—a veritable angel incarnate of whom I shall have heaps to tell whenever he comes to mind.

Desiderio, too, was a goldsmith in his youth, who took to sculpture later, and was a great master in the art.

I can’t possibly recount all our Florentines who were adepts in the great goldsmiths’ art, suffice it that I have mentioned most of those who became famous therein. But I will say a word or two about some of the foreigners who seem to me pre-eminent, and I will begin with such as wrought in niello.

Martino[12] was a goldsmith from beyond the Alps, who came from some German town or other. He was a first-rate fellow in designing, & in intaglio work in the way they do it there. It was just about the time when the fame of our Maso Finiguerra spread abroad, who did those wonderful niello intaglios,—by the way, you may still see preserved in our lovely Church of St. John of Florence a silver pyx of his, with a crucifix above it, & the two malefactors, with a lot of detail of horses and other things. Antonio del Pollajuolo, whom I mentioned before, did the design, and Maso the niello work.

Well, then, this good German Martino set to with great diligence and zeal to practise the art of niello, and turned out a number of excellent things. But because he saw that he could not produce work that should come up to our Finiguerra’s for beauty and go, yet being a right-minded man, and wishing to do something that should be generally useful, he set to cutting his intaglios on copper plates with the graver (bulino) for so is the little steel tool called with which you engrave. In this wise he engraved a number of pretty little picture-tales, very well composed, and with great understanding of light & shade, in fact as far as one can say such a thing of a piece of German work, they were charming.

Alberto Duro also tried his hand at engraving, and with much greater success than Martino. He too was not satisfied with the results of his work in niello, and so determined to do engravings, and this he did so well that no one can hold a candle to him. He too was a goldsmith, nor was he satisfied with niello only, he resorted in addition to his engraving, and did extraordinarily well in that line.

Andrea Mantegni, our great Italian painter, tried it too, but couldn’t do it, so the less said about it the better.

Antonio Pollajuolo, the same happened with him, and because both these men could make nothing of it, I’ll say naught but that Mantegni was an excellent painter, and Pollajuolo an excellent draughtsman.

Antonio da Bologna[13] & Marco da Ravenna must also be counted among the goldsmiths. Antonio was the first who began to engrave in the manner of Alberto Duro. He studied closely the work of the great painter Raphael of Urbino. He engraved beautifully, could design in the right good Italian manner, and studied closely the style and methods of those old Greeks, who always know how to do things better than other folk. Many others pursued this branch of engraving, but because none of them came up to the great Alberto Duro, & even also a long way behind our Italian Antonio of Bologna, I’ll not mention them; more especially as to do so would be to go beyond the limits of our inquiry, which is to consider the lovely art of niello and all its many difficulties.

Now you must know that when I first was a goldsmith’s apprentice in the 15th year of the century, which was my 15th year too, the art of engraving in niello had quite fallen into disuse. It was only because a few old men still living did nothing else but talk of the beauty of the art and of the great masters who had wrought in it, & above all of Finiguerra, that I was seized with a mighty desire to learn it; so I set to diligently to master it, & with the examples of Finiguerra before me, made many good pieces.

My difficulty, however, was how to find out after I had engraved the intaglio how the niello that was to fill it ought to be made. So I went on trying ever so hard until I not only mastered the difficulties of making the material, but the whole art became a mere child’s play to me. Here, then, is the way in which niello work is done.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] Cellini had of course never heard of Theophilus, the monk of the 11th century, and his great treatise ‘Diversarum Artium Schedula.’

[9] Baccio Bandinelli, the sculptor, one of Cellini’s bitterest enemies.

[10] Grosseria. Cellini uses this term for all large ware as distinguished from ‘minuteria’ or small ware.

[11] Di cesello: what we should call repoussé.

[12] Martin Schongauer.

[13] Marcantonio Raimondi.

CHAPTER I. ON THE ART OF NIELLO.

Take an ounce of the finest silver, two ounces of copper well purified, and three ounces of lead as pure as you can possibly get it. Then take a little goldsmiths’ crucible sufficiently big to melt the three in together. You must first take the one ounce of silver & the two ounces of copper and put the two together in the crucible, and the crucible in a goldsmiths’ blast-furnace, and when the silver and the copper are molten & well mixed together, add the lead to them. Then quickly draw the crucible out, and with a bit of charcoal held in your tongs, stir it round till it is well mixed. The lead, according to its wont, will make a little scum, so with your charcoal try and take this off as much as possible, until the three metals are fully & cleanly blended. At the same time have ready a little earthenware flask about as big as your fist, the neck of which should, however, not be wider than might hold one of your fingers. Fill this flask about half full with very finely ground sulphur, & empty into this your molten mass, while quite fluid & hot. Then quickly stuff it up with moist earth, and holding it in your hand wrapped up in a stout bit of canvas, say for instance an old sack, shake it to & fro while it is cooling. As soon as it is cold, break the flask and take out the stuff, and you will see that by virtue of the sulphur it will have got the black colour you want. But mind you take care that the sulphur is the blackest you can get.[14] As for the flask, you may take one of those which are generally used for separating gold from silver. Take then your niello, which will now be in a number of little grains,—for you must know that the object of all this shaking up and down whilst cooling in the sulphur is to make it combine,—& put it anew into a crucible, then melt it in a moderate fire, adding to it a grain of borax. When you have recast it two or three times, and after each casting broken up your niello, take it out, for you will see it will now be splendidly broken up,[15] and that is as it ought to be,—and that will do.

Now I’ll show you how to apply and make up your niello; but first a word or two about the plate on which your intaglio is to be engraved, whether in silver or in gold, for niello is used only on these metals. If you want to get the plate on which you have cut your work nice and smooth & without holes,[16] you must boil it in a solution of clean water mixed with a deal of very clean charcoal, the best for this purpose being charred oak. When your work has cooked in the pot for about a quarter of an hour or so, transfer it to a beaker of clean fresh water, and scrub it for a long time with a clean brush till every particle of dirt be rubbed off it. Then see that you have ready a bit of iron long enough to hold the work to the fire: its length should be about three or four palms, more or less in accordance with what the nature of your work may seem to you to need. But mind you look out that the iron to which your work is fixed be neither too thick nor too thin; for it should be of such sort that when you put both to the fire they should heat equally; for if either the iron or the plate become heated first, you’ll make a mess of it, so pay great attention to this. Next take your niello, & crush it on an anvil, or on a porphyry stone, & do this with a pair of pliers or a copper rod, and so that it does not spring aside. Take care, too, that it is crushed to grains and not to a powder, & these grains should be as equal as possible, and about the size of a grain of millet or sago, if not less. After this put the niello grains into some sort of vase or glass bottle, and with fresh clean water wash it out well till it be quite purified from any dust or dirt that may have got into it during the pounding. This done, take a spatula of brass or copper, and spread the niello evenly over your engraved plate to about the thickness of the back of a table-knife. Then powder over it a little well-ground borax, but mind it be not too much. Put a few pieces of wood or charcoal so that you can blow them into flame with your bellows, and this done, put your work very slowly to the wood fire & subject it to the heat very dexterously till you see the niello beginning to melt. But look out that, when it does begin to melt, you don’t get it too hot, or into a red heat, for if it gets too hot, it will lose its natural character and become soft, because, the principal component of niello being lead, this lead will begin to corrode the silver, or even the gold of which your work is made; in this way you might have all your pains for nothing. Have great heed to this, therefore, which is as important as your good engraving to begin with.

Now before we follow the work through to the end, we will pause and consider things a bit. I advise you when you are holding your work over the fire and see the niello begin to disintegrate, to have at hand a fairly stout iron rod, with a flatted end: this end hold in the fire, and when the niello begins to run, rapidly put your hot iron over it, and, treating it as if it were wax, spread it well, until it has quite filled all the graven part of your intaglio. After this, when your work has got cold, take a delicate file, and file off your niello, & after you have removed a certain quantity, not so as to graze your intaglio, but sufficient to lay it bare, take your work and put it on the hot ashes or the live charcoal.

When it is a little hotter than the hand can bear, or even a bit hotter still, but before it gets too hot, take your steel burnisher, well-tempered, & with a little oil burnish your niello as firmly as the work would seem to admit of, and with due discretion in every case. The only object of this burnishing, is to stop up certain bubble holes[17] that sometimes come during the process. You’ve only got to have patience enough, and with a little practice you’ll find this burnishing stops all the holes up beautifully.

After this, take your knife & touch up the intaglio. Then to finish with take some Tripoli powder and pounded charcoal, & with a reed peeled down to the pith, scrub your work till it is smooth and beautiful.

Oh thou discreetest of readers, marvel not that I have given so much time in writing about all this, but know that I have not even said half of what is needed in this same art, the which in very truth would engage a man’s whole energies, and make him practise no other art at all. In my youth from my 15th to my 18th year I wrought a good deal at this art of niello, always from my own designs, and was much praised for my work.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] This is obscure, as the purest yellow sulphur would answer.

[15] Perhaps: ‘have a fine fracture.’

[16] Bucolini. Perhaps: ‘specks.’

[17] Spugnuzze.

CHAPTER II. ON FILIGREE WORK.

Though I don’t work much in filigree myself, I have none the less done one or two very difficult and very beautiful pieces of work in this line, and so I’ll say something about it. The art is a charming one, and when well executed & well understood is as pleasing to the eye of man as anything done in goldsmithing. Those who did the best work in filigree were the men who had a good grip of drawing, especially designing from foliage & pierced spray work, for everything that you set to work upon requires first of all that you think it out as a design. And though many have practised the art without making drawings first because the material in which they worked was so easily handled and so pliable; still, those who made their drawings first did the best work. Now give ear to the way the art is pursued.

Innumerable are the purposes to which you may apply filigree. So first of all we will begin with some of the ordinary every-day things & then have a look at such other things as will make a man’s mouth water. The more ordinary use to which filigree is applied, is for buckles and pins for belts, such as I told of in the introductory chapter of my book. Then is it used, too, for making crosses & earrings, small caskets, buttons, certain kinds of little charms and divers manner of necklaces; these latter are often worn with fillings of musk, as is also frequently the case with bracelets; & so an endless other variety of things. Now it is necessary that for everything that you want to execute in this line of work, you must to begin with make a gold or silver plate exactly in the way you want your work ultimately to be. After this is done, and of course, after you have made your drawing, have ready all the different kinds of wire of which you will have need, such for instance as thick and thin & middling, the usual three sizes, in due sequence, and perhaps a fourth size likewise. Then have ready some ‘granaglia’—granulated metal—for so the stuff is called; and in order to make this, you take your gold or silver, melt it, and when it is well melted, pour it into a pot of powdered charcoal. In this way every kind of granulated metal is made.[18] Then, too, you must have your solder prepared and ready to hand, and the right solder to use is the ‘terzo’ solder, so called because you make it with two ounces of silver and one of copper. Now though many are accustomed to make solder with brass, be advised that it is much better to make it with copper, and less risky. Take heed that you file your solder very fine, then put to every three parts of solder one of well ground borax, and, having well mixed them, put them in a borax crucible[19] such as a goldsmith uses. Then have handy some gum tragacanth,[20] a sort of gum which you can buy at any apothecary’s. Dissolve this gum tragacanth in a little cup or vase, or whatever is convenient. When you have all these things in order, you will also need by you two pairs of stout little pliers, and also a small sharp chisel cut angularly,[21] like the wood-engravers use; but its handle ought to be short, the length & size of the handle of a graver. For its object is to cut the wires in accordance as you may wish to twist them either one way or the other, as your design requires, or your taste determines. You will also need a copper plate fairly stout, very smooth, and about the size of the palm of your hand. When you have twisted your wire into the shapes you want, you must place it bit by bit on the copper plate, and so bit by bit with a camel’s-hair brush streak it over with the solution of gum tragacanth, arranging at the same time the little gold & silver beads tastily. During the time that you are piecing together your bits of leaves and other particles, the tragacanth water will hold them together sufficiently to prevent their moving. Then every time that you have composed a part of your spray-work, and before the tragacanth water has got dry, throw a little soldering powder out of your borax upon it, and put just as much as may suffice to solder your spray work, & not more. The object of putting just enough on, is that the work when soldered shall be graceful and slender, for too much solder makes it look fat.

Hereupon, when it is time for soldering, you will need in readiness a little stove, such as is used for enamelling, but since there is a great difference between the melting of enamel & the soldering of filigree, you will need to heat this furnace with a much smaller fire. Then attach your work to a little iron plate, but so that the work stands free above it, and put it little by little to the heat of the furnace, until the borax shall have fumed away, & done as is its wont. Now too much heat would move the wires you have woven out of place, so it is essential to take the greatest possible care,—really it’s quite impossible to tell it properly in writing: I could explain it all right enough by word of mouth, or better still show you how it’s done—still, come along—we’ll try and go on as we started!

When you are ready to begin soldering, and want to make your solder flow, put your work in the furnace, & place beneath it a few little pieces of well-dried wood, fanning them up a bit with your bellows. Then it is not a bad thing, too, after this to throw a few coarse cinders upon the fire, & this done at the right moment does a deal of good. But it is practice and experience, together with a man’s own discretion, that are the only real ways of teaching one how to bring about good results in this or in anything. When your work is soldered, that is to say if it be silver-work, you must to begin with, cook it in tartar[22] mixed with some salt or other, and cook it so long till all the borax is off it. This ought to last about a quarter of an hour, by which time it will be quite clean, & free from borax. If on the other hand it be made of gold, you must put it in strong vinegar for about 24 hours, until you see a little salt forming upon it. And so, after this manner can you fashion all sorts of rosettes that may be needed in your work, such as I have not only seen, but myself made, and that give much variety to the work, when you have ordered them each in their place, and in accordance with your design.

But now I’ll tell you yet something further about the cunning of this charming art; I’ll tell you of a wonderful and priceless work that was shown me in France, in Paris, their most beautiful & richest city—which the French, according to their language, call ‘Paris simpari,’ that is to say ‘sans peer,’ or without equal. It was in the service of King Francis in the year 1541. This most royal and splendid of Kings retained me in Paris, and gave me of his liberality a castle, standing in the city itself, and called by the name of the ‘little Nello.’ Here I worked for four years, the which will be recounted all in its place when I come to tell of the great works which I made for this most worthy King. Here I will continue my talk as to the way of working in filigree, and as I promised, tell of a work most rare—a work such as may perchance never again be executed—which I saw in this city. One day—a solemn fête day—the King went at Vespers to his ‘Sainte Chapelle’ in Paris. He sent word to me that I was to be at Vespers too, as he had something nice to show me. When Vespers were over the King called me to him through the Constable, who sometimes represents the King himself. This gentleman came, took me by the hand, & led me before the King, who with great kindness and affability began to show me the most beautiful trinkets and jewels, and briefly asked me my opinion on them. After these he showed me a variety of ancient camei about as big as the palm of a large hand, and asked me many things about them, on which I gave him my opinion. They had stood me in the middle of all of them;—there was the King, and the King of Navarre his brother-in-law, and the Queen of Navarre, and all the first flower of the nobility, & of those that came nearest to the crown; & before all of them his Majesty showed me many beautiful & priceless things, about which we talked for a long time to his great delight. Thereupon he showed me a drinking bowl without a foot & of a middling size, wrought in filigree with the choicest spray-work, upon which much other ornamental detail was admirably applied. Now list to my description of it! In among the spray-work and interstices of filigree were settings of the most beautiful enamel of various colours; and when you held it to the light these enamel fillings almost looked as if they were transparent—indeed it seemed impossible that such a piece of work should ever have been made. Thus at least thought the King, & asked me very pleasantly, since I had thus highly praised the bowl, could I possibly imagine how the work was done. I thereupon answered his question thus: ‘Sacred Majesty,’ quoth I, ‘I can tell you exactly how it is done, even so much so that you, being the man of rare ability that you are, shall know how just as well as the master himself that made it, knew, but the explanation of the methods that underlie its making will take rather a long time.’ At these words of mine all the noble assembly that waited on his Majesty thronged around me, the King declared he had never seen work of so wondrous a kind, and since it was so easy of explanation, bade me tell as I had promised. Then spake I: ‘If you want to make a bowl like this, you must begin by making one of thin sheet iron, about the thickness of a knife back larger than the one you want ultimately to produce in filigree. Then with a brush you paint it inside with a solution of fine clay, cloth shearings & Tripoli clay[23] finely ground; then you take finely drawn gold wire of such a thickness as your wise-minded master may wish that of his bowl to be. This thread should be so thick that if you beat it out flat with a hammer on your clean little cup, it bends more readily in the width than otherwise, in such a way that it may then be flattened out to a ribbon shape, two knife-blades broad, & as thin as a sheet of paper. You must be careful to stretch your thread out very evenly, & have it tempered soft, because it will then be easier to twist with your pliers. Then with your fine design before you, you commence to compose your stretched thread inside the iron bowl, first the principal members, according to their way of arrangement, piece by piece painting them over with solution of gum tragacanth, so that they adhere to the clay-solution with which you pasted the inside. Then when your craftsman has set all his principal members and larger outlines, he must put in the spray work, each piece in its place, just as the design guides him, setting it spray by spray, bit by bit in the way I have told you. And then when all this is in proper order, he must have ready his enamels of all colours, well ground and well washed. It is true you might do the soldering first before you put in the enamel, & you would do it in the way that I explained above when I considered the soldering of filigree work, but it’s as good one way as the other, soldered or not soldered. And when all the preliminary work is carefully done, and all the interstices nicely filled with the coloured enamels, you put the whole thing in the furnace, in order to make the enamel flow. To begin with you must only subject it to a slight heat, after which, when you have filled up any little openings with a second coat of enamel you may put it in again under a rather bigger fire, & if it appear after this that there are still crannies to be filled up, you put it to as strong a fire as the craft allows and as your enamels will bear. When all this is done you remove it from the iron bowl, which will be easy by reason of the paste of clay to which the actual work and the enamels are attached. Then with a particular kind of stones called “frasinelle,” and with fresh water you begin the process of smoothing it down, and you must go on with this so long till the enamel is polished down to an equal thickness throughout and as may seem good to you. And when you have got as far as the “frasinelle” can take you, you may continue your polishing with still finer stones, and lastly with a piece of reed and tripoli clay (as I explained it in niello work), then the surface of your enamel will be very smooth and beautiful.’ When the admirable King Francis heard all this description of mine, he declared that they who knew so well how to explain, doubtless knew still better how to perform, & that I had so well pointed out to him the whole process of a work that he had erst thought impossible, that now, owing to my description, he really thought he could do it himself. And therewith he heaped great favours upon me, such as you can’t possibly imagine.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] Fine granules of gold are made by cutting gold wire into short lengths, mixing the cut pieces with charcoal, placing the mixture in a crucible and then heating the whole up to the melting point of the metal. Afterwards the charcoal is washed away, and the gold granules (which have been fused into a round form) sorted according to size by sifting.

[19] Borraciere: perhaps a borax pan.

[20] Dragante.

[21] Uno scarpelletto augnato.

[22] ‘Gomma di botte,’ i.e., tartrate of potash.

[23] Tripolo.

CHAPTER III. CONCERNING THE ART OF ENAMELLING.

Now let us have a talk about the beautiful art of enamelling, and therewith consider those excellent craftsmen who wrought best therein; and with the knowledge of their lovely creations before us see what is beautiful and what is difficult in this art, and get to understand the difference between what is really good and what is indifferent. As I said in the first chapter of my book, this art was well practised in Florence, and I think too that in all those countries where they used it, and pre-eminently the French and the Flemings, and certainly those who practised it in the proper manner, got it originally from us Florentines. And because they knew how difficult the real way was, & that they would never be able to get to it, they set about devising another way that was less difficult. In this they made such progress, that they soon got according to popular opinion the name of good enamellers. It is certainly true that if a man only works at a thing long enough, all his practising makes his hand very sure in his art: & that was the way with the folk who lived beyond the Alps.

As for the right and proper way about which I intend to talk, it is done in this wise. First you make a plate either of gold or silver & of the size and shape that your work is to be. Then you prepare a composition of ‘pece greca,’[24] and brick ground very fine, and a little wax; according to the season; as for the latter you must add rather more in cold than in hot weather. This composition you put upon a board great or small in accordance with the size of your work, & on this you put your plate when you have heated it. Then you draw an outline with your compasses in depth rather less than a knife back, and, this done, ground your plate anywhere within this outline and with the aid of a four-cornered chisel to the depth which the enamel is to be, and this you must do very carefully. After this you can grave in intaglio on your plate anything that your heart delights in, figure, animals, legend with many figures, or anything else you like to cut with your graver and your chisels, and with all the cleanness that you possibly can. A bas-relief has to be made about the depth of two ordinary sheets of paper, and this bas-relief has to be sharply cut with finely-pointed steel tools, especially in the outlines, and if your figures are clothed with drapery, know that these folds, if sharply drawn and well projecting, will well express the drapery. It is all a question of how deeply your work is engraved, and the little folds & flowerets that you figure on the larger folds may go to represent damask. The more care you put into this part of your work, the less liable your enamel will be to crack & peel off hereafter, and the more carefully you execute the intaglio the more beautiful your work will be in the end. But don’t imagine that by touching up the surface of your work with punches and hammer, it will gain anything in the relief, for the enamels will either not stick at all, or the surface that you are enamelling will still appear rough. And just as when a man cuts an intaglio he often rubs it with a little charcoal, such as willow or walnut wood, which he rubs on with a little saliva or water, the same you may do here when you cut your intaglio in order to see it stand out better, because the shine made by the metal tools on the plate will make it difficult for you to see your work. But, as owing to this the work gets a bit untidy and greasy, it is necessary, when you have finished it, to boil it out in a concoction of ashes[25] such as was described above for niello work.

Now let us say you want to begin enamelling your work, and that it is in gold. I propose telling you first of how to enamel on gold, and then how to do it on silver. For both gold and silver the same cleanness is necessary, and in either case the same method, but there is a little difference in applying the enamel and also in the actual enamels applied, for the red enamel cannot be put on silver because the silver does not take it. The reasons of this I would explain, were it not too long a business, so I’ll say nothing about it, especially as to do so would take us beyond the scope of our inquiry. Furthermore I have no intention of talking about how enamels are made, because that in itself is a great art, also practised by the ancients, & discovered by wise men, but as far as we are aware the ancients did not know of the transparent red enamel, which it is said, was discovered by an alchemist who was a goldsmith as well. But all I need tell of it is that this alchemist, while engaged in the search of how to make gold, had mixed together a certain composition, and when his work was done, there appeared among the stuff in the metal rest of his crucible a sediment of the loveliest red glass, just as we see it to this day. After much time and trouble, & by many mixings of it with other enamels the goldsmith finally discovered the process of making it. This enamel is far the most beautiful of all, and is termed in the goldsmiths’ art ‘smalto roggio,’ red enamel, or in French ‘rogia chlero’ (rouge claire) that is to say, and which means in other words, red and clear or transparent. A further sort of red enamel we have also, which is not transparent and has not the splendid colour, and this is used on silver because that metal will not take the other. And though I have not had much practical experience of it, I have tried it often enough to be able to talk about it. As for the other, it lends itself more aptly to gold by reason of its being produced from the minerals and compositions that have been used in the search how to make gold. Now let us return to the process of enamelling.

The method of enamelling is much the same as painting, for you can have as many colours as come within human ken. And just as in painting so in enamelling you have them all ranged in order and all well ground to begin with. We have a proverb in the craft which says: ‘Smalto sottilé e niello grosse.’ ‘Enamel should be fine, niello should be coarse,’ and that’s just what it is. You put your enamel in a little round mortar of well-hardened steel, and about the size of your palm, & then you pound it up with very clean water and with a little steel pestle specially made for the purpose of the necessary size. Some, to be sure, have pounded their enamels on porphyry or serpentine stone, which are very hard, & moreover have done this dry, but I now think that the steel mortar is much better because you can pound it so much cleaner. The reasons of this we may consider later, but because we want here to be as brief as possible & to avoid any unnecessary difficulties and useless confusion, all we need know is that the particular mortars in question are made in Milan. Many excellent men of this craft came from Milan and its adjacent territory, and I knew one of the best of them. His nick-name was Master Caradosso,[26] and he never wanted to be called by any other, and this nick-name was given him once by a Spaniard who was in a great rage because he was kept waiting by the Master for a piece of work which he had promised to get finished by a particular day. When the Spaniard saw that he could not have it in time, he got so fearfully angry that he looked as if he would like to do him an injury, at which Caradosso to appease his wrath, began excusing himself as best he could, and in such a plaintive tone of voice, and such an uncouth Milanese lingo, that the irate nobleman burst out laughing, and looking him straight in the face, cried out in his high & mighty manner: ‘Hai cara d’osso,’ that is to say, ‘You bum face.’ The sound of this appellation pleased Caradosso so much that he never would answer to any other. When later on one fine day he found out what it really meant, he would gladly have got rid of it, but he couldn’t, it was too late. I knew him as an old man of 80 in Rome, where he was never called by any other name than Caradosso. He was a splendid goldsmith, especially at enamelling, and I shall have more to say of him later on.

Now let us proceed with the beautiful art of enamelling. As I said above the best way of pounding the enamels is in a little steel mortar with water. I found out from personal experience that the best plan as soon as the enamels are ground is to pour off the water in which you grind them and put the powder in a little glass, pouring upon it just so much aqua fortis as may suffice to cover it; & so let it stand for about one-eighth of an hour. This done, take out your enamel and wash it well in a glass bottle with very clear, clean water until no residue of impurity be left. You must know that the object of the aqua fortis is to clean it of any fatty, just as fresh water is to clean it of any earthy impurities. When your enamels are all well washed in this way, you should put each in its little jar of glass ware or majolica, but take great care that your water is so contained that it does not dry up, because if you put fresh water to them your enamels will spoil at once. Now pay great attention to what I’m next going to tell you. If you want your enamels to come out properly you must take a nice clean piece of paper, and chew well between your teeth, that’s to say if you’ve got any,—I couldn’t do it because I’ve none left,—so should have to soften it and beat it up with a little hammer of iron or wood, whichever might be best; this done you must wash out your paper putty, and squeeze it till there is no water left in it, because you will have to use it as a sponge and apply it from time to time upon your enamels. The more your colours dry up during the process the better they will look afterwards. Then, too, I mustn’t forget to tell you another important thing which will also affect the good or bad enamelling of your work, and this necessitates your trying a piece of experimental work first.

To this end you take a plate of gold or silver, whichever material you elect to cut your intaglio upon, and on this experimental piece,—let us suppose it is gold,—put all the different colours with which you intend to work, having made as many little hollows with your graver as there are enamels. Thus you take a little bit of each, and the only object of this is to make the necessary preliminary trial, for by this trial you find out which run easy and which run hard, because it is very necessary that they should all run alike; for if some run too slowly and others too fast they would spoil each other, and you would make a mess of your work. All those preliminaries done, you may set to work at your enamelling; lay the nice clean colours over your engraved bas-relief just as if you were painting, always keeping your colours well covered up, and take no more out of one bottle than you can conveniently use at a time. It is usual, too, to fashion an instrument called a ‘palettiere’ (palette holder), this is made out of thin copper plate, & in imitation of fingers, it should not be bigger than your fingers, and there should be five or six of them. Then you take a lump of lead in the shape of a pear, with an iron stem to it, which would correspond to the stalk of the pear, and then you put all your bits of copper which you have hollowed out somewhat, one over the other on your pear stem. And this little finger-shaped palette you stand beside your work, and you put your enamels upon it, one by one, using due care. How careful you have to be with this cannot be told in words alone—you’ll have to learn that by experience!

As I said above, enamelling is similar to painting; though the mediums in the two sorts of painting in colours are oil & water, while that of painting in enamels is by dissolving them with heat. To begin with then, take your enamels with a little copper palette knife, & spread them out little by little very carefully over your bas-relief, putting on any colour you like, be it flesh colour, red, peacock blue, tawny, azure, grey or capucin colour, for that is what one of the colours is called. I don’t mention yellow, white & turquoise blue, because those colours are not suitable to gold. But one colour I forgot, and that was ‘Aqua Marina,’ a most beautiful colour, which may be used for gold as well as for silver. Then when you have all your enamels of all colours placed in the best of orders, you have to be careful in the first coat, as it is called, to apply them very thin and neatly, and just as if you were painting in miniature you put each in its place, exactly where it is to be. This done, have your furnace in order, & well heated with charcoal. Later on I will tell you further of furnaces and point out which are the best of the many different ones in use; but now let us assume that you have in it a fire sufficient for the purpose of the work you have before you. Then having your furnace as I say, in its place, you must put your gold work on an iron plate a trifle larger than the work itself, so that it can be handled with the tongs. And you must so ply it with the tongs and hold it to the mouth of the furnace, that it gets warm gradually, then, little by little, put it into the middle of the furnace, but you must take the greatest possible care that as soon as the enamel begins to move, you do not let it run, but draw it away from the fire quickly, so, however, that you do not subject it to any sudden cooling. Then, when it is quite cool, apply, just as carefully as before, the second coat of enamel, put it in the furnace in the same way, this time to a rather stronger fire, and draw it forth in the same manner as before. After this if you see your work need further touching up with enamel in any of its corners, as is often necessary, judgment and care will show you how to do it. For this I advise you to make a stronger and clearer fire, adding fresh charcoal, and so put your work in again, subjecting it to as strong a heat as enamel and gold can stand. Then rapidly take it out, and let your ’prentice be ready, bellows in hand, to blow upon it as quickly as possible and so cool it. This you have to do for the sake of the red enamel, the ‘smalto roggio’ of which we spoke above, because in the last firing it is wont to fuse with the others, and so to make new colour effects, the red, for instance, going so yellow that you can scarce distinguish it from gold. This fusing is technically called ‘aprire.’ When it has once more cooled you put it in again, but this time with a much weaker fire, until you see it little by little reddening, but take great heed that when it has got the good colour you want, you draw it rapidly from the fire & cool it with the bellows, because too much firing will give it so strong a colour as to make it almost black.

When you have duly carried out all these processes to your satisfaction, take some of your ‘frassinelle’—these were the bits of stones or sand that I described before when I told you about King Francis’ filigree bowl—and with them smooth your work over until you get the proper effect. Then finish by polishing it with tripoli as I showed you above, also in the filigree bowl. This method of finishing, which is by far the best and safest, is called hand-polishing, in contradistinction to a second method by which, after you have your work smoothed with the ‘frasinella’ and then well washed with fresh water so as to remove from it all dirt, you put it again on to the iron plate and into a clear fire and thus slowly heat it. In this method, by which you get the effect of polish much quicker than with the other, you leave the work in the fire till it is hot, and the enamels begin to run; but its disadvantage is that, as the enamels always shrink a bit, and shrink unequally in the firing, you cannot get so even a surface as by the hand-polishing. You have to take the same precautions, too, as you took when firing your ‘roggio clero,’ or red enamel. In the event of your not employing the latter—as would be the case on silver—you must take great care to observe the same precautions in putting your work in, but do just the opposite in taking it out of the fire, that is to say draw it very gradually from the furnace, so that it cools very slowly instead of very rapidly as was the case with the red enamel. Of course you may have to enamel a lot of pieces, such for instance as little pendants, and bits of jewellery, and other such things, where you are not able to use the ‘frasinella’ at all. Things of this kind, fruit, leaves, little animals, tiny masks and such like, are applied in the same way with well-ground and washed enamels, but cannot be similarly polished because of their relief.

And if by reason of the great time and labour and patience you spend upon the doing of all this your enamels begin to dry up, and thus fall off in turning your work, this you may remedy in this wise: take a few quince seeds, which you get by cutting the fruit through the middle, choose such as are not empty, and let them soak in a vase with a little water; this you should do over night if you want to enamel the next morning, and you should be careful to do it very clean. Then when you want to apply your enamels, having put a morsel of each colour on your palette (the finger palette I described to you above fixed on to the stem of your leaden pear) you mix with every bit of enamel you lay on your work, a tiny drop of this quince-seed-water, the effect of which is to produce a kind of gum which holds the enamels together so that they don’t fall, & no other gum has a like effect. For the rest, all you have to do is to carefully carry out the methods I have so far explained to you, and whether your enamel be on gold or silver, except in so far as I have told, those methods are the same.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] Probably powdered resin; in Hendrie’s ‘Theophilus’ it is given as common white pine resin from which the oil has been evaporated over hot water.

[25] Bollirlo in una cenerata.

[26] His real name was Ambrogio Foppa.

CHAPTER IV. JEWELLERY.

Now let us discuss jewellery, and of what pertains to precious stones. Of such there are four only, and those four are made by the four elements, the ruby is made by fire, the sapphire most obviously by the air, the emerald by the earth, and the diamond by water. In its due place I shall have something to say of the virtue of each. But what we have before us here is to talk about what pertains to the setting, in pendants, bracelets, rings, tiaras and crowns. We will leave diamonds till the last, because they are the most difficult of all stones to treat, and the reason of this is that while of other stones set in gold each one has its foil, of which more anon, the diamond of certain varieties has a tint which has to be specially prepared at the back of the stone, according to the peculiarities of each; and in their place will I tell you the loveliest things about them.

We will begin with rubies, of which there are various sorts. The first is the oriental ruby, which is found in our side of the Levant and near home; this part of the Levant, indeed, produces rarer and more beautiful jewels than any other lands. These Levant rubies have a mature colour, they are deep and very fiery. The rubies of the West on the other hand, though still red, lean towards peacock colour and are somewhat sharp and crude. Northern rubies are sharper and cruder still, while those of the South are quite different from the others, but so rare that they are very seldom to be met with, so I will mention one of their peculiarities only, they have not the same grand colour as the Levant ruby, but verge somewhat upon that of the ballas,[27] and though this has not the beautiful suffused colour it is none the less fiery, and so grand is it that they seem perpetually to scintillate by day, and by night throw out a gleam akin to that of a glow-worm, or other little creatures that shine in the dark. True it is that these southern rubies do not always possess this wonderful quality, but so delightful are they to the eye, that your good jeweller easily tells them from the others, the name carbuncle is, however, only applied to the very rare ones, and those that shine in the dark. As soon as we have considered, from personal experience, and from the experience of others, what are the best ways of setting jewels, we will talk of the qualities of the stones themselves. But I have a thing or two to say in order not to scandalize a certain class of men who call themselves jewellers, but may be better likened to hucksters or linen-drapers, pawn-brokers, and grocers; I have seen more than enough of wondrous samples in plenty of them in Rome, and there you may still see them to this day, with a maximum of credit and a minimum of brains. So what I say is out of respect to these dunderheads lest they should be shocked at my affirming that the real stones are of four sorts only, and thus wag their arrogant tongues at me & cry, ‘How about the chrysoprase or the jacynth, how about the spinell, how about the aqua marine; nay, more, how about the garnet, the vermeil, the chrysolite, the plasma, the amethyst, ain’t these all stones and all different?’ Yes, and why the Devil won’t you add pearls, too, among the jewels, ain’t they fish bones? I really don’t think it worth while to try and cope with veritable empty-headed ignoramuses, but I will say that there are many, very many, like them, and that your great princes are mainly to blame for encouraging them, since they quite put themselves in the hands of such men, and so not only do injury to themselves, but undervalue men that walk in the right way and do excellent work. But let us pass from this little digression & consider what is most beautiful and most rare in jewellery; a digression merely entered into because I don’t want ignorant men to jeer at me for having said nothing of the ballas and the topaz. The ballas is a ruby with but little colour, as if it were a kind of feminine form of the stone, called in the West the ballas ruby, but it is of the same hardness, and so a gem of the nature of the ruby, and differing from it only as to cost. The like holds good with the topaz, in its relationship to the sapphire, it is of the same hardness as the sapphire, and though of a different colour must be classified with the sapphire, just as the ballas must be with the ruby—what better classification do you want? hasn’t the air got its sun?

A page of reputed Cellini Jewellery

Of these four sorts of stones, the ruby, the sapphire, the emerald, and the diamond, you must know that the first is far the most costly. A ruby, for instance, of five grains of wheat, & of as fine a fire as you could wish, would be worth about 800 golden scudi, and an emerald of the same size and beauty would run to about 400, similarly a diamond would be worth 100, & no more, while a sapphire would fetch about 10. These few facts I thought might be worth having to all those many youths always springing up and eager to learn the beautiful art of the goldsmith. To be sure, they ought to begin learning as soon as they can toddle, & use that greatest of all opportunities which is afforded by apprenticeship to some Master of renown, whether in Rome, in Venice, or in Paris. In all of them did I sojourn for a long while, and in all of them did I see and handle many and invaluable pieces of jewellery.

FOOTNOTES:

[27] Balaschio.

CHAPTER V. HOW TO SET A RUBY.

We will now continue our talk & consider the way of setting a ruby, and the box of gold in which it has to be fitted. This box, whether in a pendant, a ring, or what not, is always called the bezel. What you have first of all to observe in the setting of the stone in this bezel, is that the former must not be set too deep, so as to deprive it of its full value, nor too high, so as to isolate it from its surrounding detail. I mention this because I have seen mistakes made in both ways, and I am certain that practising jewellers who have a right knowledge of drawing and design would not go wrong in either the one direction or the other.

So let us place our fine ruby into its bezel. In order to what is technically called ‘set’[28] it, we must provide ourselves with four or five ruby foils[29] of which some should be of so deep a glow that they seem quite dark, and others differing in intensity till they have scarce any red in them at all. With all these different specimens of foils before us, we take hold of the ruby with a piece of hard black wax well pointed, pressing the wax upon one of the projections of the stone. Then your good jeweller tries his ruby now upon this foil, now upon that, till his own good taste determines him which foil will give most value to his stone. Sometimes the jeweller will find it may help him to move the stone to and from the foil, but he has to recollect that the air between the foil & the stone will always give an effect different to that afterwards given when the stone is set in the bezel where no air passes behind. Therefore your capable man places the cut foil in the setting, at one time bringing it close, at another interposing a space. Thereupon let him set his jewel with all the care, taste & delicacy of which an able man is master.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] Legare.

[29] Literally leaves that are of themselves red.

Another page of reputed Cellini Jewellery

CHAPTER VI. HOW TO SET AN EMERALD AND A SAPPHIRE.

Now, as to the emerald and the sapphire, the same skill must be used with the foils adaptable to them as with those of the ruby. And because I consider that practice always has come before theory in every craft, and that the rules of theory, in which your skillful craftsman is accomplished, are always grafted on to practice afterwards, I will give you a case in point of what once happened to me when I was setting a ruby of about 3000 scudi in value. This ruby had, when it came into my hands, been very well set at different times by some of the best known jewellers of the day. So I was incited to work at it with all possible care. Seeing that I could in no way satisfy myself with the result of my efforts, I locked myself up somewhere where no one could see me; not so much because I did not wish my secret to go further, but because I did not want to be caught trying so mean an experiment upon so goodly and wonderful a gem. I took a little skein of silk stained with Kermes, and with a pair of scissors cut it carefully, having previously spread a little wax in the bezel. Then I took the tiny bit of silk and pressed[30] it firmly on to the wax with the point of a small punch. Then did I put my ruby upon it, and so well did it make, and such virtue did it gain, that all the jeweller folk who had seen it first, suspected me of having tinted it, a thing forbidden in jewellery except in the case of diamonds, of which more anon. But for this ruby, some of the jewellers asked me to say what kind of a foil I had put behind it, upon which I answered that I had put no foil behind it. At this reply of mine, a jeweller who was with the gentleman to whom the ruby belonged, said, ‘If the ruby has no foil, you can’t have done anything else but tint it in some way or other, and that you know is forbidden.’ To which I replied again that I had neither given it a foil, nor done anything forbidden to it. At this the jeweller got a little nasty and used strong language, at which the gentleman who owned the ruby said, ‘Benvenuto, I pray you, be so good, provided I pay you for it, to open your setting and show it to me only, I promise you I’ll not tell anyone your secret.’ Then said I to him that I had worked several days on the job, and that I had my living to earn, but that I would willingly do it if he paid me the price of the setting, and, moreover, do it in the presence of all of them, because I should be much honoured in thus being able to teach my teachers. When I had said this, I opened the bezel and took out the stone in their presence. They were very much obliged, we parted very good friends, and I got very well paid. The ruby in question was a thick one, & so limpid and luminous that all the foils you put beneath it gave it a sort of uncertain flash, like that which shimmers from the girasol opal, or the cat’s-eye, two kinds of stones to which the dunderheads, of whom I told before, would also give the name of gems.

Now a word about the emerald and the sapphire, in both which gems one meets with the same peculiarities and difficulties as with the ruby, so I know of but little to say about them than that they are stones that are often falsified, which should be a warning to those who delight in gems or buy them, whether to set or to keep. There is a kind of Indian ruby with as little colour as you can possibly imagine, and I once saw a ruby of this nature falsified ever so cleverly by one of these cheats. He had done it by smearing its base with dragon’s blood, which is a kind of composition made of a gum that will melt in the fire, and that you can buy at any apothecary’s in Florence or Rome. Well, the cheat had smeared the base of the stone with dragon’s blood, & then set it in such a way that it showed so well, you would gladly have given 100 golden scudi for it; but without this colour it wouldn’t have fetched 10, and have been much more likely to come out of the setting. But the colour looked so fine, and the stone seemed so cunningly set, that no one unless very careful, would have spotted it.

It happened one day that I was with three old jewellers to whom I had expressed my doubts as to the genuineness of the stone, so they made me unset the ruby and they stood round me greedily watching, ready to pounce upon it. As soon as I had done it they all three jeered at me for my wisdom and said another time I should open my eyes better, for it was obvious that this stone was set by a good man, who wouldn’t do such a thing, and who knew his business right well enough. At these words of theirs I held out my hand, and begged them to let me see and have proof of my mistake, adding that if this time my good eyes had failed me, it might be because I was less keen-sighted than they, but I promised it shouldn’t happen again. When I had the ruby in my hand I soon saw with my sharp eyes what their dullness had missed, and quickly taking a little steel tool I scraped off the bottom of the stone. Then might that ruby have been likened to the crow that tricked itself out in the feathers of the peacock. I returned the stone to the jewellers and suggested to them that they would do well to provide themselves with eyes somewhat superior to those they were at present using. I couldn’t resist saying this because all three of them wore great big gig-lamps on their noses, whereupon they all three gaped at each other, shrugged their shoulders, and, with God’s blessing, made off. You come across similar difficulties and occurrences with emeralds and sapphires which I will omit, as I have other things of more importance to tell of.

I mind me also of having seen rubies and emeralds made double, like red & green crystals, stuck together, the stone being in two pieces, and their usual name is ‘doppie’ or doublets. These false stones are made in Milan, set in silver, and are much in vogue among the peasant folk; the ingenuity of man has devised them to satisfy the wants of these poor people when they wish to make presents at weddings, ceremonies, and so forth, to their wives, who of course don’t know any difference between the real and the sham stone, & whom the little deceit makes very happy. Certain avaricious men however, have taken advantage of a form of industry, made partly for a useful, and partly for a good end, & have very cunningly turned it to great evil. For instance, they have taken a thin piece of Indian ruby, and with very cunning setting have twisted and pieced together beneath it bits of glass which they then fixed in this manner in an elaborate & beautiful setting for the ring or whatever it was. And these they have subsequently sold for a good and first-class stone. And forasmuch as I don’t tell you anything unless I can illustrate it by some practical example, I’ll just mention that there was in my time a Milanese jeweller who had so cleverly counterfeited an emerald in this way that he sold it for a genuine stone and got 9000 golden scudi for it. And this all happened because the purchaser—who was no less a person than the King of England—put rather more faith in the jeweller than he ought to have done. The fraud was not found out till several years after.

Emeralds and sapphires are also manufactured out of single stones, and this so cleverly that they are often difficult to tell, but however wonderfully they are counterfeited in colour they are so soft, that any good jeweller with the average amount of brains, can easily spot them. I could tell you ever so much more about all this, but it must do for the present, because I have to pass on to a lot of other important and useful things.

FOOTNOTES:

[30] Calcai—possibly: ‘I frayed.’

CHAPTER VII. HOW TO MAKE FOILS FOR ALL SORTS OF TRANSPARENT JEWELS.

In order to make good foils for jewels it is essential to have steel tools, and all of the best and of the most finished description. Then, as you may suppose, for an undertaking of such importance you need the greatest possible care and patience, together with the greatest possible neatness. Long ago, when I was a lad of fifteen and began to learn goldsmithery, I knew a master in the art whose name was Salvestro del Lavacchio. This man only did stone-setting, & specialised on the making of his own foils for all sorts of gems. Though the foils from France and Venice and other places often showed up more splendidly, experience proved that they were not as lasting as Lavacchio’s, which were always thicker. For this reason the setting of the gems upon them was often more difficult than on the foreign foils, but so strong were they, and so telling to the gems, that as soon as they became a bit known, he got orders from all over the world and soon had no time for anything else but foil-making. Indeed it requires all a man’s energies to do this, so I thought I would give a few facts about it for the benefit of anyone anxious to learn. The first foil is called the common foil, it is of a yellow colour and is used for many jewels and transparent stones. But first a word as to the weight of a carat, which is a weight of four grains. The foils may be stated in weights thus:—

Melt the copper well first and then put in the two other metals; when they are well mixed cast them into a fairly long ingot mould, and don’t make it too thick.[31] When it is cast let it cool, then file it well, after which beat it very lightly and with the broad end of a hammer, often heating it again as you go on, but not putting it in water, nor cooling it with the bellows. And when you have beaten it down to about the thickness of two knife backs; flatten it with a strong rounded scraper, and pare off the edges quite smoothly till no crack remain. Then, when you are spreading it out, see that both it and your hammer be even, smooth, and burnished, and with every possible care make it as thin as you can, as, according to its nature, the metal will rend; the size of it should be about a couple of fingers, or a little longer, and the square should be of such dimensions as your metal will afford. Also mind that the size is such as you propose to make when your work is completed. But as, in beating, it will rend and crack, see that you watch this, and cut it accordingly, and to the utmost thinness possible. And all these pieces you must blanch, clean, and polish with tartar,[32] salt, and water, which is the blanching liquor ordinarily used for silver. Then wash in clear water, rub with a clean rag lightly, and then scrub it on a big copper tube that must be very clean and shining.

See that you scrape it with the sharpest of all possible goldsmiths’ scrapers, and do this with the greatest care in order that you do not mark it with notches. Then take it with a very clean and white cloth, and have by you a graver that shall be well sharpened on an oil stone, and clean off everything in the nature of grease or dirt. It is needful, when burnishing it, to be in a room where there is no dirt. Get a black hæmatite stone[33] such as the sword cutlers use for burnishing gold. When you have polished it very well give it its colour. This you do over a moderate and clean fire, keeping your piece of foil near the said fire, and take care that of the two sides, the unburnished one turns to the fire. Gradually you will see the colour come according as it takes the heat. It is necessary to vary the colour as need requires.

Pope Clement gave me the commission to make the button for his cope.[34] This morse I made about the size of an ordinary plate; but because of all its wealth of figure work I had better talk of that later when I treat of embossing and the many difficulties of that art. For the present I will consider only the jewels with which it was enriched. In the middle of the morse I set a diamond the facets of which were cut starwise to a point, for which Pope Julius II. had given 36,000 ducats of the Camera. I set the stone quite free (à jour) between four claws, in this manner did it seem to me to make better. I had given this setting a good deal of thought, but the stone was of such exceptional beauty that it caused me much less trouble than costly stones of similar character are wont to do. True, some jewellers were of a mind that it would be better to tint the whole base of the stone and the back facets,[35] but with my good results I got them to see that it was much better thus. Together with the diamond, and around it, were two large ballas rubies and two big sapphires, splendid stones, and four emeralds of a goodly size. To all these stones did I apply those same careful methods of which I have spoken above, thereby satisfying not only the Pope, but also the practising artists. For, previously, at the beginning of the work, and before I set to at the diamonds and the other stones—for they were right difficult to handle—certain old fossils in the art had, part in envy, part speaking true, sought to scare[36] me away from the job. ‘Verily,’ said they, ‘we know you to be sure enough in all that pertains to design & to the embossing of an excellent piece of work, but when you set to the tinting and arranging of such costly jewels, why, ’twill make the teeth chatter in your head with fright.’ Now I’m not the sort of fellow who’s afeard of any mortal thing, but I must say that this somewhat emphatic way of expressing their astonishment made me pause a bit. But I minded me of those gifts from God Himself, & which come to a man without any toil of his own; comeliness for instance, or strength, or handiness, and to me methought God had given surety of purpose. So much was this so, that I could afford to turn laughing away from all their silly prattle. The tale of Phœbus came to my mind, and how at the outset he had sought to fright his son Phæton from wishing to guide the chariot of the sun; but then, you see, when all was done, I was luckier than Phæton, for I did not break my neck, but came out of it with much honour and profit to myself.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] Lo gitta in uno canale un poco largo, e non fare la verga molto grosso.

[32] Gomma.

[33] Amatita nera.

[34] This great piece, perhaps Cellini’s masterpiece, was melted down in the present century.

[35] Pàdiglione: or in English, pavilions.

[36] Spaventavano.

CHAPTER VIII. ON THE CUTTING OF THE DIAMOND.

As we have now said enough of the three gems, ruby, emerald, and sapphire, we must perforce consider at greater length the diamond. Now, though the diamond is said to be kin to water, let no man suppose that this need imply an absence of colour, perfume, and taste such as would be the case in good water. Just as water may have both colour, perfume, and taste, even so the diamond; not that the diamond actually has perfume or taste, but it has colours as many as nature herself. I propose here only to mention two, and these diamonds about as splendid as it is possible to imagine. The first was a stone I came across in the reign of Pope Clement, a diamond literally flesh-coloured, most tender, most limpid, it scintillated like a star, and so delightful was it to behold that all other diamonds beside it, however pure & colourless, seemed no longer to give any pleasure and to lose their gratefulness. The second was a stone I saw in Mantua, it was green, & green such as you might see in a very pale emerald, but it shone just like any diamond, and as no emerald ever shone; indeed it seemed the most glorious of all emeralds. Though I have seen all imaginable colours in diamonds, the mention of these two may suffice.

Now for just a word about the cutting of the diamond, that is to say on the changing of the stone from its roughness into those lovely shapes so familiar to us, the Table, the Facetted, & the Point.[37] Diamonds you can never cut alone, you must always do two at a time on account of their exceeding hardness, no other stone can cut them; it is a case of diamond cut diamond. This you do by means of rubbing one against the other until a form is obtained such as your skilful cutter may wish to produce, and with the diamond powder that falls from them in the process, the final polish is subsequently given. For this purpose the stones are set in little cups of pewter[38] and held against a wheel by means of certain little pinchers prepared on purpose, and they are thus held with their dust mixed with oil. The steel wheel upon which the diamonds are cut and finished should be about the thickness of a finger, & the size of an open hand and of the finest steel excellently tempered. This wheel is fastened to a hand mill and turned round as fast as it is possible to turn it. Four to five diamonds, or even six, can be applied to the wheel at the same time, and by bringing to bear a sufficiently heavy weight you can increase the pressure of the diamonds upon the wheel and give greater grip to the dust which wears them away, and so they are finished. I could tell you a deal more, and all about the ways of cutting, but because it is not in my own craft, I will not bore you with it; ’tis sufficient for me to have given a general sketch of the method in question.

To return however to the subject we have in hand, I will say something of the tinting of the diamond, of its setting in gold, and of the variation between one stone & another on account of the above-mentioned colours. However great the variety of these colours is, the wondrous hardness of the stone is similar in all cases, or at least the variation is so slight that the process of cutting is the same. With the greatest possible care will I show how I set about making tints for diamonds, and give likewise a number of instances, on various exceptional occasions, that I have come across in diamonds of great importance: it is only owing to experiences such as I have passed through that one is able satisfactorily to show the great difficulties that stand in the way of those who wish to make them fine settings. I will begin with one occasion when Pope Paul III. of the house of Farnese was given a diamond by the Emperor Charles V.,—’twas when he returned from the capture of Tunis & paid a visit to the Pope in Rome. The diamond in question was purchased in Venice by certain servants of the Emperor’s for 12,000 scudi, and it was set merely in a plain and simple bezel with a little claw.[39] In this fashion it was given by the Emperor to the Pope, as soon as he visited him, & I heard tell that he gave it as a sign of his goodwill and friendliness, the latter receiving it courteously with the same spirit. Now forasmuch as the Pope, for a month previously, had ordered a present to be prepared for the Emperor, worthy to pass between them, he had held much counsel on the matter with many, and so called for me, and asked me in the presence of his Council, but quite privately, to give him my opinion on the matter. I straightway said that, inasmuch as the Pope was the veritable head of the Christian religion, and the veritable vicar of Christ, the most fitting gift from the Pope to the Emperor seemed to me to be a fine Christ of gold set upon a ground of lapis lazuli, an azure stone from which they make ultramarine; the foot of this crucifix I said should be of gold & set with jewels, and of such value as should please his Holiness. And because I had, with great care, already executed three gold figures that might serve for the base of this cross, & because they symbolised Faith, Hope, and Charity, and were already completed, the suggestion pleased the Pope mightily, and he bade me set to & make a model of what I proposed, for him to see.

The South Kensington Breviary and another Cellini attribution

At this model I wrought for a day and a half, and then brought it to him completed. Pleased as he had been at my suggestion, he was simply delighted when he saw the model, and determined to give me the job; we clinched the bargain in no time, I was paid the earnest money and bidden to bestir myself. I strained every nerve to bring this beautiful work to being, but so it was, I was hindered from finishing by certain beasts who had the vantage of the Pope’s ear. ’Tis a thing that often happens, this, with all princes; the worst men in the whole court are often the best listened to, and these fellows believe for them what they don’t even believe themselves. One of these men whispered such evil things into the Pope’s ear, that he got him to believe that it would be better to make a present to the Emperor of a breviary of the Virgin in miniature that had been made for the Cardinal Hippolitus de Medici as a gift to the Lady Julia Gonzaga, that this little book should be bound in a cover of fine gold set with what variety of stones might please his Holiness, and that the Emperor would like this much better, because he could make a present of it to his wife the Empress. And so it came that the Pope got so gammoned, that he was dissuaded from the crucifix, and bade me make the little book, which I accordingly did.[40] When the Emperor arrived in Rome, I had not yet put the finishing touches on the book because it took some time before they made up their minds about it; none the less the cover was visible, as it had all been put together, and it looked splendid with all its gorgeous jewels set upon it. Then the Pope sent to let me know that I must have it in order as well as I possibly could within three or four days, as he wanted to show it, incomplete as it was, to the Emperor, and that he would excuse me to the latter for not having completed it, on the plea of illness. As for that I will speak of it in its place.

After this the Pope with his own hands gave me the diamond he had received from the Emperor, told me to take the measure of his forefinger and make him a ring as richly wrought as possible and as quickly as ever I could. Off I hurried to my workshop, and with the greatest dispatch and in the space of two days produced as rich a ring as was ever made. Now Pope Paul had waiting in attendance on him a number of Milanese who patronised a certain Milanese jeweller, Gaio by name. This Gaio came before the Pope, and all off his own bat, without ever having been as much as asked, ‘Holy Father,’ quoth he, ‘your Holiness knows that by profession I am a jeweller, & that I am better skilled at my craft than any man ever born. Now your Holiness has given Benvenuto a diamond to set, and the diamond is one of the most difficult stones in the whole world to set, and this particular diamond is more difficult than any other diamond, and it is a very beautiful stone, and a very costly stone & withal a very delicate stone, & Benvenuto is a very young man, and though he is enthusiastic enough about his art, & apt enough at his work, the tinting of so precious a stone is rather too tough a bone for tender gums like his. In my opinion your Holiness would do well to commission two or three old and tried jewellers to go and look Benvenuto up & not let him tint the diamond without their advice. It was a jeweller called Miliano Targhetta of Venice, your Holiness, who tinted and set the stone as your Holiness has it at present. This was an old man, and never did any one better know how to fix foils and tint stones.’

Weary of this plaguey babbler, the Pope told him he might go and do what he liked & thought best. So off the fellow went to look for Raphaello del Moro the Florentine, and Guasparri Romanesco, both of them men of great cunning in the matter of jewels; with these two he came to my shop on behalf of the Pope. Then did he begin to babble so tiresomely that I could scarce contain myself. The other two talked sense & were decently civil, so I turned to them in my politest manner, explained to them my views and begged them to let me have a couple of days to prepare a few tints to try this lovely stone, for this could only do good. In the first place by trying a few rare tints for the diamond, I might be able not only to teach myself, but lure on others who were following the art, & in the next place the stone might so gain at my cost, that it might delight them, do the Pope a service, and bring much credit to me. All the time I was giving them my reasons, that insolent beast of a Gaio kept fidgeting about with his feet and his head and his hands, ever and anon interjecting the most irritating words, so that I very nearly lost my temper altogether. But the others, men of sense they, managed it so that I got the time I asked for. As soon as they were gone, I set to like anything to make my tints, and this is how I did it.

FOOTNOTES:

[37] In tavola, a facette, e in punta.

[38] Piombo e stagno.

[39] Gambo.

[40] The illustration given is probably not of the breviary in question, but it is a reasonable Cellini attribution.

CHAPTER IX. HOW YOU TINT A DIAMOND.

Take a very clean lamp with its cotton wick as white as possible, its oil, too, should be old, sweet and clear, then stand it on the ground, or, if you like, between two bricks. On the top of the two bricks put a concave copper disc, its upper surface cleanly polished, and its under surface acted upon by the flame to a third part of it, but not more. Be careful that only a very little soot collects on the disc at a time, because if too much soot comes, it may catch fire and be no use to you. Then, from time to time, while the flame smokes, take a little smooth paper and brush the smoke soot off the disc into a clean vessel. You may know that the soot doesn’t catch fire till it grows to a coat the thickness of two big knife backs, so you needn’t fear to let it smoke itself to a thickness of one knife back at a time. Then you take mastic,[41] a sort of gum that every apothecary sells, not, however, too fresh; you may know the fresh gum by its being bright and pale; on the other hand it mustn’t be too old, and the old gum you will know by its being yellow and dry, and of little substance. When you have chosen the right sort of mastic, neither too fresh nor too dry, you proceed to select from it the roundest and cleanest grains, because, you know, when they fall from the tree they are apt to absorb earth and other impurities. All this done, as I have told, you put a little pan of live charcoal on the bench, and heat at it some small pointed steel instrument, with which you proceed to spike one of the mastic grains, not, however, spiking it right through the middle. This you then hold nearer and nearer to the fire till it begins to get hot, when you quickly, with a little spittle on your fingers, squeeze the hot mastic grain; the result of this squeezing will be a tear-drop, as limpid and pure as you can possibly imagine. Then quickly cut it off with a pair of scissors from the dirty part of the grain, and save it in a clean place. This process you repeat till you have as many mastic tears as you need.

Then you set to and make your linseed oil, & this is how you do it. You pick out the cleanest and best grains, grains without insect holes and perfect, and place a handful at a time on a porphyry stone, or a very clean copper or iron plate. On this you spread the grains, and place over them an iron plate about one finger thick and five fingers square, this plate having been previously heated so that it would singe paper, but no hotter. To the weight of it you add the pressure of some great hammer, and then you will soon begin to see the oil oozing out of the grains, but you must mind that your iron is neither too hot nor too cold, for if it be too cold the oil won’t ooze out, and if too hot it will be scorched up and bad, but if well-tempered the oil will be admirable. Then ever so carefully you lift up the plate and the grains, and with a clean knife scrape off the oil. You have also to note that what is first pressed from the grain is a little water, this you will tell by its running to the edges of the stone, while the genuine oil remains in the middle. Then you take the oil and put it into a clean glass vase. Next you have also to provide a little sweet almond oil; and some folk use olive oil two years old, not more, and very sweet and clean. Then you want a spoon about four times the size of an ordinary spoon, and have in readiness your pan of live charcoal. You put your tear drops of mastic into the spoon, and, with a very clean silver or copper spoon, you begin to melt them over the fire. When your mastic is melting you add a little of the grain oil to it, in proportion about one part of linseed to six of mastic, and so mix the two liquids together, then apply the third, be it oil of olive or almond. After they are fused you add a little purified turpentine, and finally the lampblack you prepared to begin with, putting just so much & no more, as you need for your tint.

Divers sorts of diamonds require some a darker, some a lighter tint; some again need a softer, some a harder tint, and so it is necessary, whenever you are setting a diamond of great importance, to try it with the hard and the soft, or with the dark and the light in accordance with the quality of the stone and the judgment of the good jeweller. Some have put as little lampblack as possible when tinting a diamond that seemed too yellow, and have instead mixed with their tint indigo, a blue colour known to every painter. They have even let indigo entirely take the place of lampblack, & this did they do when they tinted a diamond that looked like clear topaz. In these cases was a dark tint applied with admirable effect, and for this reason, by mixing the two colours, blue and yellow, they make green, hence the yellow diamond with the blue tint made an admirable water; and, if it be well applied, it becomes one colour, neither yellow as heretofore nor blue owing to the virtue of the tint, but a variation, in truth, most gracious to the eye. Inasmuch as all stones have, then, to be treated in accordance with the ability of the master and the quality of the stone, the cunning with which you treat them will depend on the amount of your experience in the art applied to each particular stone, and each several occasion.

Now to return to that big diamond, a notable example of its kind, that I set for Pope Paul, and which I had only to tint, because the setting was already made. As I told you, I had asked Rafaello, Guasparri and Gaio to allow me some two days’ space; during this time I made a set of experiments in tints, and by great labour produced a composition which made a much finer effect beneath the diamond than had been made by the master, Miliano Targhetta. And when I had made sure that I had beaten so admirable a man, what did I do but set to work anew with still greater energy to see if I could not beat even myself. As I told you above, this particular diamond was a most peculiarly difficult one to manage because of its subtlety,[42] and the good jeweller is he who produces his effect with the tint alone without having recourse to the reflector,[43] about which I shall have occasion to speak in its place.

When I had quite satisfied myself I sent to fetch the three old jewellers, and when they arrived I had arranged all my tints in order for them. When the three appeared that presumptuous Gaio marched into the shop first, and seeing all my apparatus neatly ranged about for the purpose of tinting the stone in their presence, he straightaway began wagging his head, pumping about with his hands, and chattering. ‘Benvenuto,’ said he, ‘all this is mere sillyness, mere bagatelle, you just turn up again that tint of Master Miliano’s, and apply it, and don’t lose any time about it, because we haven’t any to waste, owing to all the important commissions we have to execute for the Pope.’ At this Raphaello seeing that I was just about to fly into a most terrible passion, interposed; he was a good fellow was Raphaello, and also the oldest of them, and he began to say soothing words to me, encouraging things, and such-like, and so just calmed me in time. The other man also, Master Guasparri Romanesco, in order to put a damper on that beast of a Gaio, he too began saying things, funny things which didn’t come off, because I wasn’t in a mood for funny things. After a bit, perceiving that I was getting to be a source of quarrel between the three men, I turned to them and spake thus: ‘God Almighty,’ said I, ‘has, with the gift of speech, granted to mortals four different ways of expressing themselves, and these are they: the first is called to reason, which means to explain the reason of things in a sensible way; the second is called to talk, which means to make words, words of good import that is, and which, if they don’t explain the reason of things, may yet be in the way of doing so; the third is called to chatter, and that means to say things of little value, funny things that sometimes please, and that don’t hurt you; the fourth is just to grasshopper gabble,[44] and nothing more, and that’s what people do who hav’n’t got any sense in their heads at all, and want to show it off as much as they can. So, my good friends, I will just reason with you, and expound to you my reasons. Master Raphaello, of a sooth, has talked elegant words, sound words; Master Guasparri, to cheer us up, has chattered a few amiable and funny things, none of which have got anything to do with what we have in hand; Gaio, what has he done? why just drivelled in the most sickening way, but since his grasshopper gabble hasn’t done me any special injury I’m not going to lose my temper over him, and shall just take no notice of him at all. So now I pray you, gentlemen, just to let me tint the diamond in your presence, & if my tint does not turn out better than Master Miliano’s, I can still use his, and I shall have shown you how at least I have tried my best to improve it.’

Scarce had I finished these words of mine when that beast of a Gaio called out, ‘So according to this I’m a driveller, am I?’ Whereupon the good Raphaello began soothing him down with amiable words till the beast got a bit pacified; I meantime set to work with my tints upon the diamond. Raphaello and Guasparri were all agog to see me tint the diamond, and first I tinted it with my own tint, the first one, and this showed up so well that they were in doubt as to whether or not I had not surpassed that of Miliano; and they praised me abundantly. Then Raphaello turned to Gaio and said: ‘You see, Gaio, that Benvenuto’s tint, even if it has not surpassed Miliano’s, makes a close second; and so ’tis always right to give encouragement to a young man like Benvenuto who tries to do well.’ I turned to him, thanked Raphaello for his pleasant words, and said, ‘Now, my good friends, we’ll take out my tint, & in your presence put in Master Miliano’s, and then shall we be better able to judge on which the diamond makes best.’ I quickly took out mine & put in Miliano’s. Raphaello and Guasparri said that the stone showed better with mine, and all three said that I should re-apply my tint as rapidly as I could before the impression was lost to their eyes. Whereupon I replaced mine quickly and handed it them. All three were agreed, and Gaio before all—his ass’s face quite beaming up—and they declared most amiably that I was a clever fellow, that I had good reasons for my action, & that I had beaten Master Miliano’s tint by a long way, a thing they never imagined possible. At this I made a bow, not without a little pride,[45] but so as not to be noticed, and said to them: ‘Dear masters, since you have vouchsafed me such kind encouragement to so good an end, I am only too ready on my part to be judged by you, and since you admit that I have beaten Miliano, will you now decide whether or not I have beaten myself, only just give me a quarter of an hour’s grace?’

Therewith I left them and went up to the attic of my house, where I had all in order that I wanted to do. What I did there I’ll tell you now, I’ve not told it anyone yet, and it brought me much honour in this diamond, but it does not necessarily succeed in others, and cannot be done without much labour and experience. I took a fair sized grain of mastic, cleared it well of its skin as I told above, so that it was as pure and bright as possible, & with all imaginable delicacy, having well cleaned the diamond, spread it over the stone with the aid of a moderate fire. Then I let it cool, holding it tight with the tongs used for tinting. When dry and cool I had my black tint ready, spread the same carefully and before a gentle heat on the top of the clear coat of mastic. This method suited so well to the tenderness and peculiar water of the diamond in question, that it seemed to remove from it any internal imperfections & make of it a stone of perfect quality. Then down I ran and put it into Master Raphaello’s hand. He uttered an expression of astonishment like you do when you see a miracle. The two others, Guasparri and Gaio, likewise expressed amazement, only more so, and praised me up to the skies, Gaio even so far let himself down as to begging my pardon. Then they said to me, all three of them together: ‘12,000 scudi was the worth of this diamond before, but, of a truth, it is worth 20,000 now.’ We shook hands amicably and parted the best of friends.

FOOTNOTES:

[41] The varnish resin, commonly called gum mastic.

[42] Sottile; i.e., the refinement of the water.

[43] Specchietto.

[44] Elsewhere, in one of his minor treatises on the arts, Cellini defines this word ‘Cicalare’ as the chatter of birds, a murmur of neither concord nor discord.

[45] Baldanza: swelling, brag.

CHAPTER X. HOW TO GIVE A DIAMOND ITS REFLECTOR.

In order not to leave out any of the few things that I have mastered, we will now discuss what is termed the reflector[46] of the diamond. This reflector is put beneath such diamonds as are so delicate as not to be able to stand a dark tint, such as would turn them black. If it happen that their delicacy is not great, and their water is good, it is customary to give them the tint under the step facets alone, and to combine the reflector with this, and the result is admirable.

The reflector is made in this wise. You take a small piece of crystal glass, quite clean, and free from cracks or flaws. You cut it into a square of a size that shall fit into the bezel in which you propose to set your diamond; and you tint your bezel with the black tint of which we spoke above. Be careful to put the said reflector, the glass of which is tinted on the lower side only, in the bottom of the bezel, low enough to admit of the diamond standing over but not touching it, because if it does it will not reflect well.[47] This is how all the tenderest diamonds should be set, and beautiful they look, too. Beryls and white topazes and white sapphires, white amethysts, and citrine quartz,[48] are all set in the bezel with a reflector of this kind, if they are of a sufficiently important size. It must be borne in mind that no stones but diamonds will stand a tint at the back, because they turn black, and lose their splendour. So much for the reflector.

It is an extraordinary thing that the diamond, which is the most limpid and brilliant of all earthly stones, gains a thousand-fold in beauty when you, as it were, soil it with a black tint, while all other light stones, as soon as you touch them with a tint, lose their splendour, and turn black; forsooth this is owing to some occult power, some secret of nature in the diamond, which human imagination cannot penetrate. There are certain sapphires, which the ingenuity of man can turn white, by putting them in a crucible in which gold is to be melted,[49] and if not at the first heating, then at the second or third. Indeed your cunning gem-setter will always pick the palest sapphires, because, though they have the least colour, they are the hardest in substance. The same holds good of topazes, which are of similar hardness to sapphires, & so may be classified with them. I propose here only to touch on these two stones in so far as they have kindred qualities to the diamond. There are few, then, however great their experience, when having before them the two stones could tell which of the two was the diamond, often being unable to distinguish them at first sight. The peculiar virtue of the diamond, however, admits of the trying of a simple experiment, by which you can at once distinguish one stone from another, and it is this. You take your tint & rub both stones with it; your true diamond grows in brilliance & beauty, the other becomes deadened and splendourless. And this test suffices without trying the test of hardness too, but if you rubbed the two stones together you would soon find out the diamond. Though the sapphire is so much harder than the ruby & the emerald, it is a thousand times less so than the diamond. By the way, I need hardly mention that it would be absurd to test a polished gem by the above method. That’s as much as I want to say about the diamond.

FOOTNOTES:

[46] Specchietto.

[47] This diagram may be taken to illustrate Cellini’s description:

Diagram illustrating the specchietto for the diamond
D. Diamond.
A. Reflector.
B. Bezel tinted inside.

[48] Citrini.

[49] Nel quale sia dell’oro che s’abbia a struggere.

CHAPTER XI. ABOUT WHITE RUBIES AND CARBUNCLES.

I promised to tell you something about the finest sort of rubies, but before doing this, I want you to know something about another sort of ruby, called the white ruby. This stone is white by nature, not by any heating process like the other stones mentioned above, & its whiteness may be likened to the chalcedony, the twin sister of the cornelian. The latter has a sort of unpleasing livid pallor, & for this reason is not used much.

I have oft found many such in the bellies of wild fowl, so also the loveliest turquoises. I used to be very fond of going out shooting. I made my own powder, and became such a rare fine shot, that I should be ready to stand any test you like. I always shot with the simple ball, & as for the powder, well, I’ll talk of that in its right place, but it was quite different from the powder commonly used. In this wise did I use to march over the Roman Campagna, at the time when the birds of passage return, and in their bellies I found stones of all sorts, turquoises, white & coloured rubies, also emeralds, & every now and again a pearl. But, as I said, these white rubies are of very little use; only you know them for rubies because of their great hardness.

Of carbuncles: according to promise I’ll tell you of these, & first of what I have seen with my own eyes. In the time of Pope Clement VII. there turned up a certain Raugeo, who was called Biagio di Bono. This man had a white carbuncle, similar to the white ruby mentioned above, but possessing so delightful a brilliance, that it shone in the dark, not so splendidly perhaps as the coloured carbuncles, but still so that when you put it into a very dark place it seemed as a glowing ember, and this did I see with my own eyes—but I must tell you in this connection an anecdote of a little old Roman gentleman—old, did I say?—nay, very old, for his grandson was one of my shop assistants. This man came often to my place, & always had lots of pretty things to chat about. One fine day we fell a-talking about gems, and the old gentleman spake thus: ‘Once when I was a young man, I happed to be in the Piazza Colonna, and I saw one Jacopo Cola, a distant kinsman of mine, coming along; he was beaming all over, and he held out his closed fist to some friends who had been sitting on a bench hard by, and were just getting up. He spake thus to them: “What d’ye think, my friends? I’ve made a good day to-day, for I’ve found a little stone so beautiful that it is worth many scudi, and I found it in my vineyard, and I suppose it must have belonged to our ancestors, because as you know this vineyard lies beneath the great ruins familiar to all of you. Well, when I was coming home from work, & had gone about 200 yards, I was prompted to make water. As I was doing this and looking towards the vineyard, I fancied I saw a spark glowing at the foot of one of my vines; it seemed to me a perfect age before I could finish what I was about. When I did, I’m blessed if I could find anything, however hard I tried; so I thought I’d go back again & have another look, and keep my eyes fixed upon it, so back I went the same way, and then all of a sudden out burst the spark again. Well, I kept looking & looking at it, till, see here! I found this,”—so saying he opened his fist and showed his treasure. While he had been talking, a Venetian ambassador, who was coming along on his mule with a few servants, had stopped to listen. After a bit this gentleman came up close, as if he wanted to hear all about this wonder of a fire being transformed into a stone; then, very politely accosting my poor kinsman, “Gentlemen,” said he, “If I am not presuming upon you, or appear to be taking too great a liberty, might I beg of this gentleman to allow me to look at the beautiful stone that he says he found in his vineyard.” At these words Cola opened his fist, which he had kept locked up tight, & said to the ambassador: “There he is, look at him as much as you like!” The Venetian gentleman, who was a man of perfect manners, continued with the politest language: “If I am not appearing too presumptuous,” he said, “I would make so bold as to ask if you, sir, are disposed to part with the stone, & if so, at what you esteem its value?” The poor Roman, whose coat was somewhat frayed & out at elbows—a fact which had given the Venetian pluck to drive his bargain—said: “Well, it isn’t exactly that I’ve got to sweat for my daily bread, but if you’re ready to pay the stone’s value, I don’t mind obliging you. Look at him well now, and see if you like him. I shall require ten ducats of the Camera for him.” The Venetian simpered satisfaction for a bit, & then spake in the fashion of those polished gentlemen, much more polished than your Roman, who, though they are examples to the world in glory, are not up to your consummate Venetian in speech—they can’t out with it fast enough: “One favour only I beg of you; I never carry much money in my purse, may I entreat you to send the jewel to me by some trusty servant of yours, & I will give him what you have asked.” The poor Roman, who knew no trustier friend than himself, said he would go along with him personally, and winking to one of his mates, to whom he had told all his adversity, he strode off with the ambassador, who dismounted & walked beside him. Then the Venetian, in order to prevent the latter from repenting of his bargain, began chatting in the most delicious manner, in a manner such as only your Venetian can, & enough to take any Roman’s breath away. The one listened, enjoying these exquisite nothings, the other prattled along as hard as he could, the journey really seeming an eternity to him. At length he reached his house, and putting his hand into a purse in which he had a great pile of ducats of the Camera, he spread them out with open hand before the astonished gaze of the poor Roman; the latter, who had gone many a long year without seeing the like of such, feasted his eyes on this delicious looking gold, & then put the jewel in the ambassador’s hand. One, two, three, the latter counted out the ten ducats, shouted in haste to his servants that they should saddle his good horse, & taking out two more ducats, called out to the Roman, who was just going off: “Here, I say, these two gold ducats I give you over & above our bargain, to buy a rope to hang yourself with!” The proud Roman couldn’t make out why he was thus spoken to; he fired up, & wanted to make for the ambassador, but our fine gentleman quickly mounted his horse, and sped away from Rome. Later on it transpired that he had had the jewel beautifully set, and gone off with it to Constantinople, where a new prince had ascended the throne. Owing to the rarity of the stone, he asked and received for it a fabulous sum, with which he afterwards betook himself again to Venice.’ That is all I ever heard of this kind of carbuncle.

CHAPTER XII. MINUTERIE WORK.

Minuterie work is all that class of work done with the punch, such as rings and pendents and bracelets. In my time, too, it was the custom, among other charming things, to make little medals of gold which were worn in the hat or the cap; and on these medals portraits were engraved in low or half relief, and in the round, and they looked just lovely. The greatest master in this art that I ever knew, lived in the times of the Popes Leo, Adrian, and Clement, and he was Caradosso of whom I told you above. Now will I tell you not only of the method which he adopted in his craft, but that which was employed by other masters. It was Caradosso’s custom to make a little model in wax of the form he wished his work to be. When he had carefully finished the modelling of this and filled in all the undercutting, he made a cast of it in bronze of the proper thickness; then he beat out a gold leaf rather thicker, if anything, in the middle, and so as to admit of its being easily bent, and in surface some two knife backs bigger than the surface of the model. This he proceeded to beat out into a slightly curved form, and to soften with heat, and then laid on to the bronze model, and with punches of the right sort,—wooden ones to begin with of birch or cornel,[50] the latter by preference—he very, very carefully followed the shape of his figure or whatever it was he was working on. Ever so much care is necessary while doing this to prevent the gold from splitting. And on you work, now with your wooden, now with your steel punches, sometimes from the back, sometimes from the front, ever most mindful to keep an equal thickness throughout, for if it become thicker in one place than in another, the work would not attain so fine a finish. It was just in this very getting of the gold so equal all over that I never knew a man to beat Caradosso. Well, then, when you’ve got your model worked up to the point of relief at which you want to bring it, you begin with the greatest cunning to bring the gold together over the legs and over the arms and round behind the heads of the figures & the animals, then, if, when all has been well worked together, there is still a little bit of gold loose at the edges, you carefully cut it off with a pair of scissors. And the little bits that stick out at the back of the legs and arms and heads, that is to say those in high relief, are likewise ever so carefully beaten down. By the way, I ought to have told you that your gold must be good, gold of at least twenty-two-and-a-half carats, but not quite twenty-three carat gold, for you’d find that a bit too soft to work in; and if it were less than twenty-two-and-a-half it would be too hard, and rather dangerous to solder.

And now for the soldering, if you’ve brought your work on so far. For this same hot soldering you take a little verdigris, the best you can get, from its original cake, nor must it ever have been used before, & it should be about the size of a young hazel nut without its rind, with it you put the sixth part of salts of ammonia and as much borax; when these three substances are well-pounded together you dissolve them in a glass of clear water. Then with a soft wood shaving you take the mixture, which will now have the substance of a paint, and spread wherever there are joint lines on arms, legs, heads, or on the ground of your work. After this you pepper a little more well-pounded borax upon them out of your borax castor, and then light a fresh fire of partly consumed-wood coal and put your work in the fire. See that your coals are set with their unconsumed sides away from it as they are apt to smoke. This done, erect a little grating of coal on top of your work, minding, however, that the charcoal does not touch the work itself. Be ready at hand when the charcoal is beginning to glow and your work is growing fire-coloured, to blow wind over it with your bellows very skillfully and very evenly, so that the flames may play all round it alike. If you blow too hard the fire will spring up and burst into flame, and you run the risk of melting and spoiling your work. Watching with care you will see the outer skin of gold begin to glow and then to move; as soon as you note this, quickly take a brush and sprinkle a little water on your work, which will there and then be beautifully soldered without any need of special solder being applied to it. And this one might call the first firing.

Indeed, the first soldering ought not to be called soldering at all, but rather firing in one piece, because there is so much virtue in the verdigris when combined with the salts of ammonia and the borax, that it only moves the outer skin of gold, and so fuses[51] it together that it all grows to one even strength. After this you put your work into vinegar very strong and clean and mixed with a little salt, and in this you let it bide overnight. Next morning you find it bright and free of all borax.

After this you put a little stucco at the back of it so that you can work on it with your punches; and this stucco you make of Greek pitch resin with a little yellow beeswax, together with a little brick dust or well-ground terra cotta; and this is the real right sort of stucco on which you may lay your medals, or any other similar work you may have to chase. Then, as to your punches, you must have no end of these, from the broadest, getting smaller and smaller down to the very tiniest; and every one of these must have no sort or kind of cutting edge, because, you see, they are only to be used for the purpose of beating in and not of taking away; and this beating in you have to do ever so delicately.

Now of a sooth shall you find that in the doing of this you will have made lots of little holes and rents, and these same have got to be soldered up. Not, mark you, in the way you did it before, but by the making of a special solder, and in this wise: You take six carats of pure and fine gold & put with it one-and-a-half carats of fine silver and of fine copper, melting the gold first, and then putting the others to it, and so you have your solder, and with it you may make good all your holes and rents. Note further, that at every fresh soldering you must introduce a fresh alloy of silver and copper[52] so as to prevent the solder of the time before from running together; and so on, too, in between each turn, out you take your work, press it on the stucco, & chase over it with your punches until you have wrought it to such finish as you may desire. And then you have the whole fair method of the Master Caradosso of whom I told you before.

Now I’ll tell you of another fine way of working employed by other able men who ran him pretty close. After the model in wax has been made and you have decided what it is you want to create, you take a sheet of gold, as I explained above, thin at the sides and thick in the centre, and you little by little beat it from the back with your larger punches until it is bossed up much like your model; by this means you don’t need to use your bronze,[53] and you bring your work considerably forward before even in the other method the casting is done. In the former method, too, you will have had, before each re-joining, to rub your medal down with glass paper (such stuff as the glass makers sell) in order to clean from it most carefully whatever matters the fumes from the bronze may have sullied the gold withal. But if you follow my second method you won’t need to do this glass papering, because you won’t be bothered by the nasty stains the bronze makes on the gold.

Whenever I can, while thus telling of my craft, I purpose giving you a practical example, which you know is always a much better way of explaining what a man means, & which will make those of my readers who are eager to learn and to practise and delight themselves in these divers methods, much more likely to believe what they read. In the manner above described I once fashioned a medal for a certain Girolano Maretta, a Sienese; and on this medal was a Hercules rending the jaws of the lion. Both Hercules and lion had I wrought in such high relief that they only just touched the background by means of the tiniest attachments. The whole work had been done in the second of the above methods, that is to say without the bronze models; now working from in front, now from the reverse, and brought to such a height of delicacy and finish of design that our mighty Michael Angelo himself came to my very workshop to see it, & when he had looked at it a minute or so, he, in order to encourage me, said: ‘If this work were made in great, whether of marble or of bronze, and fashioned with as exquisite design as this, it would astonish the world; and even in its present size it seems to me so beautiful that I do not think ever a goldsmith of the ancient world fashioned aught to come up to it!’ These words stiffened me up[54] just, and gave me the greatest longing to work, not only in the smaller things, but to try larger things also. For, thought I, words such as these, coming from so great a man, can but have the following meaning: Had the figures been tried on a large scale I should not have produced them with near such beauty as on a small; and while, on the one hand, the great man gave me so much praise, he, on the other, intimated that one who could do things in little of such merit might yet not be able to do them in great. But still, not so much because I imagined this to have been Michael Angelo’s meaning, as that I had heard that he had expressed it in words to others, these words of his inspired me with longing to learn yet a thousand times more than I knew already.

This happened about a year after the sack of Rome; I was in Florence at the time. When I had made the medal, one of our Florentine gentlemen, by name Federigo Ginori, came & looked me up. He was a great lover of beautiful things, and especially fond of men of talent, to whom he was a great patron. In former days he had been many years in Naples on business, & there he had fallen in love with a great princess. On his return to Florence he bethought him of having a medal made, whereon to record this somewhat formidable attachment of his. So he came and found me out, and spake: ‘Benvenuto, my well-beloved, I have seen a little medal by your hand made for Girolano Maretta, and albeit I long to tell you that it is impossible for any medal to cap that one, yet for the love you bear me, make another for me, will you, if not more then at least as beautiful as that one; and in this medal I should like to see an Atlas with the heavens on his back; & I should like it all so exquisitely done that it shall be recognised at once; & pray don’t bother about any considerations of cost whatever.’ I set to work and made a little model with all the diligence I could, fashioning the Atlas in question out of white wax. Then, having said to the gentleman that he might leave the working out to me, I determined to make a medal that should have a field of lapis lazuli, the heavens a ball of crystal, & engraven upon them the signs of the zodiac. So I made a plate of gold, and began, bit by bit to work my figure up in relief with all the patience you can possibly imagine. I took a small rounded stake,[55] and on this I wrought little by little, working up the gold from the ground with a small hammer, working right into arms and legs, & making all alike of equal thickness. In this manner, & with the greatest diligence and patience I brought the work to completion. This we call ‘lavorare in tondo,’ working in the round; that is without putting the figure on pitch, or such a stucco basis as I described above. It wasn’t till I’d worked it up to a certain point that I then took my punches and continued it on the stucco with very great finish. Then little by little did I raise the figure off its ground,[56] which is a thing very difficult to explain how to do—still I’ll tell you as best I can. Previously we saw how the arms & legs of the figure might be worked as one and part of the gold background, and thus make it possible for the background to be utilised as a fitting part of the design. Now, however, since the background is not needed as a part of the design, it may be used up; therefore with a small hammer on your little stake or anvil, & with the small end of the hammer you work gently on the gold, and with the action of the hand push the gold behind, using the punches as well, so that the figure comes up in high relief from the ground. In the other method where you left the figures on the ground, you didn’t want them in high relief, but took care that your fine ground never got out of line; now, however, since you have no use for it, you can twist it about at will, care only being taken that sufficient gold is left for the attachments at the back, and when all the background is cut away you can proceed to fix your figure on to whatever independent background you may have devised for it. After this you give it a last coating of solder to finish up with, but without however laying your work on the stucco, for the simple reason that there are now no more open places for the stucco to go in. This is how I did the Atlas, & when I had finished him, I fixed him in those places where he was to touch the lapis lazuli background by means of fastening two little pins or stakes of gold, of sufficient strength, into holes made in the lapis, and so he was firmly set. Then I got a lovely crystal ball, of good proportion to my Atlas, engraved the zodiac thereon, and fixed it upon the nape of his neck, so that he held it high in his hands. To end all I made a most sumptuous frame adorned with gold, full of foliage, fruits, and other conceits, and set the whole of my work within it. Nor ought I to forget a very pretty sentiment that had to be added in the shape of a Latin motto. My gallant, inasmuch as he was enamoured of so great a lady, and of rank so much loftier than himself, wished me to place on the medal the words ‘summam tulisse juvat.’

Some say that this gentleman died shortly after, though still quite in his youth, by reason of his love for the lady. As he had been a friend of Messer Luigi Alamanni, also a great lover of art, the latter at his death came into possession of the medal, & he, while at a later time on a visit to the King of France, made a present of the medal to the King. Then began the King to make most earnest inquiry as to whether he knew the master who had made the medal. Messer Luigi declared that he did not know him personally, albeit he was all along my very dear friend. King Francis thereupon began to have a great longing that I should come & enter his service, the which in the end I did. But of that I’ll tell later on, all in its proper place, because that didn’t happen till many years after.

I promised to speak in good time of a clasp that I made for Pope Clement to fasten his cope with. Now since I can’t do your fine elegant manner of writing I’ll tell about my craft as clearly as I can, and as well as my simple mind will permit it, and best of all, I’ll give some more examples of things that happened to me—I shall be much safer if I do that. This clasp was a very big and a very hard job; for, albeit a small piece of work, there is little doubt but that these small pieces of work are often harder the smaller they are. The clasp was about the size of an open palm and circular in form. Within it was a design of God the Father giving the benediction. The head and arms of the Father were worked completely in the round, the rest was raised in good relief out of the background, and was surrounded by a number of jolly little angels, & of these some of them were peeping from out of His mantle, some were scattered about among jewels, of which I’ll tell you first. These angel babies were some of them done completely in the round, others in high relief, others again in bas-relief. And I so devised it that God the Father was seated on the big diamond, which had been bought it was said for 30,000 scudi. This suggests the reflection as to how much harder it is for a man to do a piece of work in which his design is limited by having to use special jewels or aught else in particular. Still for all that, you can do anything if only you set to work at it with all the love & the zeal that your noble craft demands of you, and so did I, and this is how I did it. I flattened out a sheet of gold about a finger’s width wider than my work was to be, having first made a very highly finished model of it. Then I began beating up the middle of the plate with my small hammers upon the stake; & now working with the narrow end on the front, now on the back, I gradually bossed up the gold, using the punches in like manner, till the figure little by little took shape; & so, little by little, first using one tool, & then another, I gradually mastered the material, till one fine day God the Father stood forth in the round, most comely to behold.

Pope Clement had got to hear that I worked in a method different from Caradosso, for certain envious men had told it to some of his suite, & by reason of their evil tongues the holy father imagined that I was an ignoramus and not up to managing so big a job. So he sent for me to come and show him the method in which I worked, and how far I had got. Straightway I went to him, bringing with me my work as far as it had got. God the Father stood out from it already & showed very well how He was going to look when finished. For my part I thought that the work in the metal excelled that in the wax, and so thought his Holiness also; and being the sensible man that he was, he turned to certain gentlemen of his suite & said: ‘Great is the virtue of determination,[57] the more she is troubled with envy the more beautiful doth she become, & grows in despite thereof. I know but little of the technique of the work, but I am well assured that it is much more beautiful now than in the model I saw before: only I can’t for the life of me see how you are going to get that crowd of angels on to this disc without spoiling what you have done already.’ On this I described to the Pope the way in which I purposed to bring the angels to the fore, one by one, first those that were to be quite in the round, then those of less relief, working the gold up thick into the places where the highest relief was to be, in fact just as I had worked up God the Father, and employing hammers and punches alternately, now from in front, now from the back; and I showed him how the highest part of the relief was the hardest part of the work, and how the great art was to get the gold of as equal thickness as possible all over. Of course I know quite well that our good Master Caradosso worked in a different way, and indeed I learnt many goodly things from him; and for those who have learnt their craft, ’tis easy to put two and two together. But I’m of opinion that Caradosso’s method of working on the bronze model would have been much more difficult to employ in this instance, would have taken a much longer time, would have needed ever so many botchings and solderings, & would have run all the risks of the fire into the bargain. Thus my experience was that by employing the other method you got rid of all these difficulties and had your work done much quicker.

At these words of mine the good Pope, who was really an exceedingly capable man, said: ‘Go, my Benvenuto, work in your own way, finish it for me quickly, and it shall be well for you; and when, from time to time, I bid you come, bring your work with you; not that I may instruct you thereon, but that I may have the joy of beholding such goodly handiwork as yours.’

The age of a good prince whose delight is in the encouragement of all beautiful things is the age for men of talent, and such a time came about in the days of the first Cosimo de Medici, who was their great patron. It was he who gave Filippo Brunellesco, Donatello, & Lorenzo Ghiberti their opportunity. Filippo was as fine an architect as ever was; Donatello sculped in marble and in bronze, & even wrought wondrously in the difficult art of painting. Lorenzo Ghiberti made the bronze gates of S. Giovanni that have no equal in the world. Then came Lorenzo de Medici, under whom was developed Michael Angelo Buonaroti, most marvellous of men. He had scarce given proof as yet of his great powers when God willed that he should be called to Rome by Pope Julius II., who not only took pleasure in all that was beautiful, but also understood it, and so set Bramante, the architect, to work. Bramante, who, though a painter of little credit, had such a bent towards architecture in its grandest manner, that good Pope Julius, of his bountifulness, gave him lots of work and a salary of 1000 scudi a year to boot. Seeing how fond Pope Julius was of all kinds of beautiful work, and how he had a mind to have the inside of the Sistine Chapel painted, Bramante introduced Michael Angelo, who was then living in Rome almost unknown & of little account. The work was entrusted to him, & such goodly encouragement did he receive in the painting of that wonderful chapel that the grand manner of painting was as it were revived. Then came Pope Leo X., and at the same time Francis, King of France; and these twain ran it hard between them as to which should gather the greatest talent about him. Then came the luckless Pope Clement, and he helped and furthered the arts too, ’tis true, but he had so much adversity in his papacy, and there was so much trouble in the land, that he could never help as much as his kindly soul longed to do. I know well to tell of this for I served him during all his papacy, and was quite a young man at the time.

It was in connection with the work of which I have been telling you above that the Pope said he wished to see the designs and models of all those who thought themselves able to undertake the work; and this was soon after the great sack of Rome, and I had come thither from Florence, and when I heard the rumour of it, I too made me a model in white wax of the size the work was to be, & taking it with me presented myself before the Pope. Many artists were there showing the sketches they had prepared for this beautiful commission, & when I joined them the Pope had already seen a goodly number, and they were set before his Holiness by one Micheletto, a stone-carver, an able man enough in his own line. In all these divers designs their authors had so devised it that the big diamond was set in the middle of the breast of God the Father.[58] The Pope himself had suggested the motive of the design, but when he saw how everybody alike had set so great a stone into the breast of so tiny a figure he said: ‘Why can’t that stone be set in some other manner except always in the breast?’ Whereupon some of them replied that it could not be set otherwise if right value was to be given to it in the design. The Pope, who was beginning to weary of so many designs, turned to me and asked if I had brought nothing to show; while I was still undoing my box the Pope turned to some of the older masters, and said to them: ‘’Tis always well to look at everybody’s rendering of a thing: albeit Benvenuto is young, yet have I seen work of his that convinces me that he is in the right way.’ Then when I had uncovered my model & put it before him; he had scarce seen it when he turned to me and cried out: ‘You’ve hit it! that’s how I want it done!’ Then he turned to the others & said: ‘See you now how this diamond can perfectly well be applied in another manner. Mark how Benvenuto has made a stool of it and seated his figure thereon; a better way of rendering it I can’t conceive.’ Straightway he had me paid 500 golden scudi, and with most courteous words bade me God speed to my work. And this was the beginning of such work as I—simple man as I am—have been enabled to do for the world.

You remember I promised in the beginning of my book to tell the causes that inspired me to write it, causes which will move men to great wrath & to great compassion for me. Well, I can’t keep it locked up in my breast any more, I must out with it! I have just told how great princes give opportunity to men of genius, & cause to re-kindle through them the beautiful art of the past. Well, I make bold to say that Francis, King of France, was the greatest lover of genius & the most open-handed of any man that ever lived in the world. I was called to his Majesty when I was in Rome, and I joined him in the year 1540, being just forty years of age. This king gave me all sorts of goodly work to do, the which I will describe all in their place, according as their various methods demand.

During my time with his Majesty I made my first big works in sculpture and bronze, works of great size; never had I to ask him for pay or provision, but I just lived on his lordly liberality; for out of it he made me a stipend of 1000 scudi annually, & gave me into the bargain a castle that is in Paris called ‘Petit Nello,’ wherein I served him four entire years. And forasmuch as there was great war in these parts, I begged grace of his Majesty to let me travel to Italy; which favour he accorded me, though none too willingly. In the end I left with his good will, and remained his creditor for 700 ducats of gold of my salary, & in addition all the stock and material for the great works I had been engaged on, the which amounted to about 15,000 scudi.

In my castle,[59] which I left under the guard of my two pupils, Pagolo Romano and Ascanio Napoletano, I left several great and small vases made of my own silver, not to mention a large vase all embossed with figures. This one I had made with the King’s silver, & the others, as I have said, were made from my silver, & therefore mine. And over and above all this I left behind all the flower of the studies of my twenty years in Rome, and all the rich furniture of my house, which was such as to be worthy of hosting any noble lord or gentleman. The Bishop of Paira, who was a friend of mine, did I thus entertain, and bring away from the hostel where he was staying, during a long sojourn in Paris; & to many others too, in like manner, I gave abundant hospitality. I affirm that I came to Italy for no other purpose than to keep my six poor nephews, sons of my own sister; and I gave aid to all of them as soon as I was again among them. Before departing from Italy I went to seek out my lord the illustrious Duke Cosimo de Medici in order to pay him my respects, and ask his permission to return again to France. This amiable prince gave me as warm a greeting as could possibly be imagined, & intreated of me to make him a model for a statue of Perseus with the head of Medusa in his hand, telling me that he wished to erect the statue under one of the arches in the great loggia of the Piazza. This raised a mighty zeal for glory within me, & I said to myself: ‘So is a work of yours to stand between one of Michael Angelo & one of Donatello, both of them men who surpassed the ancients in genius? What greater treasure could I desire than the honour of being set between these two mighty men?’ And forasmuch as I knew that my studies in this art had by no means been slight, I promised myself that my work should hold its own beside theirs. In lightness of heart and full of energy I set me to a model of a Perseus about the height of a cubit, such as his excellency had commissioned; and when I had done it I took it to him, and he marvelled at it & said: ‘Benvenuto, if you had the courage to do this thing in great as admirably as you have done it in little, I trow for a certainty that it would be the loveliest work in the Piazza.’ These words moved me greatly, and in part with confidence for what I had already done, in part with great ambition for what I had still in mind to do, I said to the Duke, but with due modesty: ‘Most excellent sire, consider well that in this Piazza are works by Donatello and by Michael Angelo Buonaroti, perhaps the biggest men that ever were in the world; as for my own little model, I will undertake to turn out the work at least three times more beautiful than this model you see here.’

A Wax Model for the Perseus

At these words of mine the duke shook his head, & I took leave of him. Two days after he set a room at my disposal, supplied it with material and all the appliances needful for doing the work, the which by slow degrees in a few years and after great difficulties needless here to relate, I completed in the state you now see it. The noble duke said to me in winning words that I had been better than my promise, and as I had contented him so well he was minded similarly to content me in whatever way I might wish. At this so charming speech from his Excellency I asked leave first before he accorded me aught for my labours, to be allowed to go on a pilgrimage to Vallombrosa, Camaldoli, Erma and S. Francesco, in order to give thanks to God for having helped me through so many difficulties, all of which I will tell of in their place. At these words his Excellency was graciously pleased to let me go, and so I went on my way, giving thanks to God. In about six days I returned, and at once called upon my lord, who welcomed me again with the greatest favour. Two days later he seemed a bit grumpy without my having ever given him any cause for being so. When I asked him for leave of absence, he refused to grant it, and at the same time he gave me no more commissions, so that I could serve neither him nor other man. Nor was I able to find out the reason for the evil plight I was in. So in my despair I felt sure my bad luck was due to the influence of those heavenly powers who have dominance over us here below; & in this state set to work to write my whole life, my origin, and all the deeds I had done in the world, and I also described the many years in which I had served the illustrious Duke Cosimo. But on thinking the matter over I was minded how great princes often take it ill if their subjects complain & tell the truth about them; so with much heart-burning & not without tears I tore up what I had written about the part of my life spent in Duke Cosimo’s service & threw it into the fire, vowing that I would never write about it again. But for the mere purpose of being of some use to the world, since I was thus left with nothing to do, and moreover prevented from doing aught, & wishing to give God some sort of thanks for having made me the man I was, I set to write what I am now writing. Well, it’s off my mind now, so let us get back again to good Pope Clement, who gave me so many opportunities of doing great work, of all of which I will duly speak.

A little more about the cope clasp, then. Having thus bossed up God the Father and wrought the whole thing in a manner different from Caradosso, I set myself afresh to fashion little by little the angels round about Him, especially those that were of higher relief than others. Everybody knows that this is one of the most difficult things to do in our craft, and likewise one of the most pleasing, for just think, I bossed up in high relief with my punches in the manner I described above, some fifteen little angels without ever having to solder the tiniest rent, and all this I was able to do because of my diligence, my knowledge, my patience, and my mastery over all the best methods of workmanship. The Pope would scarce let three days pass without sending for me, and each time would he see first one, then another angel baby peep forth, and this made him marvel greatly, and each time he asked me how on earth I managed to do it; & how I could bring so difficult a piece of work about in so short a time, and all without a single rent.

‘I have seen,’ said he,—and he was a man who knew a good thing when he saw it—‘many works of Caradosso which were full of holes and solder long before they had got as far as this.’ And thus each time he gave me good encouragement, & I pegged merrily away at my work. When I had completed all the high relief angels and joined together the gold behind their heads and arms and legs, and filled up the openings, I began with great care the soldering, doing it in the way I described above, but putting with each new soldering a fresh alloy of the baser metals (i.e., the copper & the silver). Now forasmuch as I did not wish to disfigure so large a work with many solderings, and also because I wanted later on to enamel it, I put it to the fire as little as possible, managed to get all the legs and arms and heads together at one go, & finished the lot in four firings. This done, I began with great diligence to work over the soldered parts, especially those on the background, till I had it all of uniform evenness, whereupon I set it once more on the pitch (i.e., the stucco), & once more wrought it over with the punches. A large number of angels in bas-relief, & many in mere outline were still to do, so them I brought out boldly with the punches; upon this I melted the pitch out again, heated the gold well, & applied it once more to the pitch, but this time with the under side of the work uppermost, so that all my figures were buried in the pitch; also this time made the pitch a bit softer because I was going to emboss from the back the figures which I had outlined in from the front; & this I did with great skill, determining which I wanted to boss up most. Then once again I emptied out the pitch, and placed the work face upwards on the harder pitch, and most cunningly finished it all over with the punches as I described above. As there were still the gems to go upon it I made a base to the work, with an eye attached, so that it might therewith be applied to the cope on the Pope’s breast. This base was all worked around with different little snails and masks and other pleasing trifles, and was firmly fastened with invisible screws to the boss, and looked just as if it had been soldered on. As, moreover, the work was enamelled in various places, especially round the frame work, I set to to burnish it up to a fine finish on the bare & unwrought parts, and this is how I did that: I took some four or five hard pointed stones[60] which are sharp at the ends and thicken upwards in the manner and of the size of punches, and I used with them some well-powdered pumice stone. The object of using these stones is to take out the marks of the steel tools, the punches, chisels, files, and such-like, & to give it a fine uniform surface; and last, but not least, a brilliancy of colour which would not be so easy if the marks of the steel tools (and the skin they make) were not obliterated. To finish the draperies also, I used a very fine steel tool exquisitely tempered and then broken off, for the broken end gives the right delicacy of texture;[61] and I tapped it all over the draperies with a small hammer weighing about two scudi or less, & this is what we call camosciare, tanning the surface. [62] A further different method yet may be employed for larger drapery, & this is called granire, graining, and is done by a sharp-pointed steel tool, but not broken like the other one. Then there is yet a further method by which the ground is sharply accentuated from the figures by hatching it over with a fine sharp graver [63] in one direction crosswise, for it does not turn well the other way. When all the above has been carefully carried out, put your work in a clean glass vase, & get some little children to make water over it, for their urine is purer and warmer than men’s. Then prepare to give it its last finishing touches by colouring. This you do with verdigris & salts of ammonia; the verdigris must be as pure as possible; and if you want it firm and richly coloured add a twentieth part of clean saltpetre, the stuff they make gunpowder with. These must all be well ground together, but mind you don’t grind them upon iron or bronze, they must be pounded on stone and with stone; porphyry is the best stone of all. You then take the powder you have made from the above, put it in a glass flask, and mixing it with a strong white vinegar, make a paste of it not too moist nor too dry, and apply this paste to your work with as fine a hog sable as you can find, putting it on very evenly and to about the thickness of half a knife’s back. At the same time you must have ready a wood-coal fire half-burnt out, spread the coals so that you can lay your work upon them, put it in the fire & with your pinchers take a few glowing coals and move them up and down over the paste, especially where it is thickest, so that it heats equally all over. You must be careful not to do this for too long, there’s all the difference between heating & scorching your work, and if you did this it would get a bad colour on the one hand, & on the other be difficult to clean afterward. When you see the paste drying equally and about half-dry, put your work on to a stone, or on a wooden table; and cover it up with a clean basin till it has got cold. Then put it again into a glass jar, and if you want it to come out well, let the little ones make water over it again as before. After this clean it up with small soft hog sables. This injunction need only be observed in cases where the work is enamelled, in other cases it will do just to dip it in urine after the heating of the paste of verdigris. After this the precious gems are set firmly with screws and clamps, and last of all the base is, as I told you before, firmly screwed on.

Yet another way there is of working upon gold, particularly in cases where you want to introduce figures of about half a cubit in size. Pursuing my method of always making things clear to you by means of examples, I mind me of many of the cardinals in Rome who used to have crucifixes in their private cabinets; these crucifixes were about the height of a palm or a finger more, & were made of gold, silver and ivory. The first of these gold crucifixes was made by Master Caradosso, and most admirably designed, and I suppose he got about 100 scudi apiece for them, or more. First I’ll tell you the way he made his, then I’ll tell you how I made mine, which differed considerably from his method, & was much harder, but was sooner finished, and produced more beautiful results. It was in this wise: Caradosso would make a little model in wax of the size he wished his work to be, but he made the legs apart, & not as is customary with the Crucified, one crossed over the other. Then he cast his model in bronze; and cutting his gold sheet in triangular form some two or three large fingers wider all round than would cover his model, he laid it thereon and hammered it over with rather long wooden hammers till it looked like a half relief; next he proceeded very carefully to work it all over front and back with punches & hammers till the relief stood out to his liking; then, still with the same tools, he joined the ends of gold together at the figure’s back until they touched on the round of the head, back, and the legs. After this he filled the figure with pitch, i.e., the aforesaid stucco, and with punches and hammers brought out[64] all the muscles and limbs. Then he emptied the pitch out again, joined & soldered the gold together, using gold of two carats less than the gold of his figure, leaving one hole still open at the shoulder to admit of the pitch being again poured in and out; and then wrought it over once more with his punches; very carefully placed the feet crosswise, and then gave it its last coating and finish. I don’t employ this bronze method because I don’t think bronze & gold go well together, the bronze tending to crack the gold, and the whole thing taking a long time in the execution. Owing to my experience and my all round knowledge of the craft, I went straight to the gold with my punches and a number of small stakes called caccianfuori; and so, while Caradosso was still fiddling away with his bronze casting, I had got several days’ work ahead of him, and was quit of the bother of the bronze firings into the bargain; and thus, though in other respects I followed all the methods of this excellent man, also in enamelling and in colouring, it came about that I did much more and obtained much better results than he.

King Francis’ Salt, first view

Now my friend, in order to keep my promise with you as to the real practical things, and to show you that I’m not one who goes cribbing other people’s ideas & methods but has worked them out with his own hands, I’ll tell you of the salt cellar[65] I made for King Francis I. It was oval in shape and about two-thirds of a cubit round, and the base of it was about four man’s fingers high, and very richly ornamented. And I divided it up in such pleasing wise as one’s craft will allow; one part I made as ocean and the other as earth, and on the side of ocean I had put a figure of gold about half a cubit high, completely rounded & made with punches and chisels, in the manner told above. Ocean was personified by Neptune, God of the Sea, and I made him in a shell, a kind of nautical triumphal car to which were yoked four sea-horses—horses’ heads and fishes’ tails. In Neptune’s right hand I put his trident, while his left was stretched out the whole length of his arm. Over a most richly wrought bark which was meant to hold the salt, were graven most minutely and cunningly battles of marine monsters; on the opposite side to Neptune was a female figure, of the same size as the male, and I so devised it that the legs of the male & the female were crossed most gracefully one with the other, and in each the one leg was bent and the other extended, thus typifying the mountains & the even places of the earth. By the side of the female figure I put a little Ionic temple, most richly wrought, and this was to hold the pepper; in her right hand was a very elaborate cornucopia of leaves and fruit and flowers, and on the earth where she sat I indicated a number of beautiful little beasties, just as on the other side I had fashioned a variety of exquisite little fish peeping up from the sea. Furthermore, in the oval body of the salt I had planned out eight niches, in each one of which figured Spring, Summer, Autumn & Winter, on one side, and Dawn, Day, Twilight and Night on the other. In the hollow of the salt’s base was a block of ebony, of which, however, only a tiny strip showed beneath, and the which, being black, told well against the gold. This base again rested on four balls of ivory, set half way into the ebony and so devised that they turned on their pivots, and you could move the salt cellar about hither and thither on the table, & roll it where you liked. I must tell you some absurd things that happened to me when I presented the salt to the most Christian King. His Majesty had referred me to one of his treasurers, a Monsieur de Marmagna, a shrewd old fellow, and terribly fierce. Now you know the French & the Italians are deadly enemies; well, this old gentleman, about a month before I brought the salt-cellar to the King, had shown me a little bronze statuette a trifle bigger than my gold ones. This figure was an Antique, & represented Mercury with his caduceus in his hand. He told me that it belonged to a poor peasant who would gladly sell it, whereupon I said that if he did not care to buy it for himself, I, who knew the figure to be of very charming workmanship, would willingly give 100 golden scudi for it, and like the frank and open man I am, I praised the figure greatly, declaring I had never seen a lovelier. Whereupon that evil old man said he would do his best to get it for me, and gave me great hopes of getting it, for that I had set it at a higher value, & offered more than any other connoisseurs who had seen it. I thought no more about the matter till the day that I brought my salt-cellar to King Francis. The good King examined my work very carefully, and expressed himself most satisfied, when, just as all were expressing their delight, that wicked old fellow drew forth his statuette & said to the King: ‘Sacred Majesty, this figure is an Antique, as you may readily see; and ’tis of so excellent workmanship that Benvenuto here has himself offered 100 golden scudi for it. I had it brought among my baggage from Languedoc at the time of my treasurership; but courage failed me to present it to your Majesty until I had satisfied myself that it was of sufficient excellence to merit your acceptance.’

King Francis’ Salt, second view

At these words the King turned to me, and, in the old boy’s presence, asked if what he had said was true. I replied: Most assuredly, and that the work appeared to me admirable. Whereupon the King said: ‘Then God be praised that here in our own day there be yet men born who can turn out so much more beautiful things than the ancients.’

Therewith he smiled, and gave old M. de Marmagna back his statuette, for of course he saw that the intention had been to disparage my work beside the antique. Hundreds of most graceful & complimentary things did he continue to say about my work, so much so that I never wished for any better remuneration for it than I got that day.

FOOTNOTES:

[50] Cornus sanguinea, or dogwood.

[51] E con quello stesso lo ammarginano, a tale; che viene a essere per tutto una equal durezza.

[52] Or it might be rendered: ‘You must put in the ready-made solder a little of the alloy,’ which is softer in the fire; each new soldered piece having to be softer than the last to avoid the running again of the earlier work: the alloy is presumably half copper and half silver, though Cellini does not say so; elsewhere he talks of one copper to two silver, so it might well be one carat of silver and the half carat of copper.

[53] Occorre adoperare il bronzo.

[54] Mi s’appicorno a dosso.

[55] Tassetino tondo.

[56] Spiccando dal suo campo.

[57] E gran cosa la forza che ha la virtù.

[58] See Cellini’s Autobiography, Symonds’ translation.

[59] See Cellini’s Autobiography, Symonds’ translation.

[60] Punte di pietre.

[61] Una certa grana sotilissima.

[62] This might be better rendered as ‘matting’ or ‘posting.’

[63] Possibly what we should call a ‘scorper.’

[64] Ricercando.

[65] See Autobiography.

CHAPTER XIII. ON CARDINALS’ SEALS.

This sort of work is delightful. In my time in Rome, that was about 1525, there was a certain master from Perugia, called Lautizio, who practised nothing else but the making of seals for the bulls of cardinals. These seals are about the size of a ten-year-old child’s hand, and they are made in the shape of an almond. The cardinal’s title is engraved on them, and usually in the form of a rebus, or allegorically. Lautizio used to get at least 100 scudi for each seal he made. Now always sticking to my method of describing things from work I have done with my own hands, I’ll tell you of two that I made in this branch of my art.

The first was for the Cardinal of Mantua, brother of the Duke. On it was engraved the ascension of our Lady, with the Twelve Apostles, for so ran the Cardinal’s title. The other seal, much more richly figured, was for the Cardinal Ippolito of Ferrara, brother of Duke Hercules. On this one was engraved St. Ambrose on horseback, with a whip in his hand chastising the Arians. And as two stories had to be wrought upon it, for the Cardinal had a twofold title, it was divided down the middle and the legend of St. John the Baptist preaching in the desert was engraved on the other part, and both subjects were wrought with figures. For the Mantua seal I got 200 ducats, for the Ferrara one, 300.

The seals are made in the following manner. You take a smooth and polished black stone, and draw thereon the design you want to appear on the seal; and with black wax, a bit hardened, you fashion whatever relief you wish the seal ultimately to impress. When this is very delicately accomplished, you take a little volterrano gesso,[66] or any other gesso, provided it be very fine—boiled gesso it should be—& after having moistened your wax by painting it over very lightly with a fine paint brush and a little clean and pure olive oil, you put the gesso on your wax. You must mind not to get too much oil on your wax, for it would then hurt the gesso and prevent it from penetrating into the finer delicacies of the wax. Before pouring on your gesso in the liquid state, you must make a little wall or embankment of fresh clean clay, about two fingers high, all round your seal. As you pour your gesso on, you guide it about very carefully into all the interstices of the wax by means of a long-haired brush.[67] After the gesso is well set, remove it from the wax. This, of course, will be easily done, as there is no undercutting, for since the work is ultimately to serve the purpose of a seal, no projections are permissible. Then you clean out the matrix with a knife, removing any scum or spoiled surface that may have been made by the gesso on the inside, and polish it all up all round.

Now there are two ways of casting in silver, both of them are good and both of them will I describe to you. ’Tis true that one is a little easier than the other, but as I say, both are good and you may adopt whichever most wins your fancy. Do not, however, fail to try both, because it is good for you to learn them, & you will find them very helpful to you in many ways in other branches of the goldsmith’s art. The first method was the one employed by Lautanzio, and he, as I said, was the greatest master in this branch of work whom I ever knew. He used to take what is called earth for founding in boxes,[68] the same that all the bronze founders use, and from which they cast the harness of horses & mules, brass studs, and such-like trappings. And forasmuch as this clay is known all the world over, I shan’t bother about describing it, but only say that it is a kind of tufa earth. By the bye, as I write I am minded of a very rare kind of this tufa which is found in the bed of the Seine in Paris. While there I used to take what I wanted from hard by the Sainte Chapelle, which stands on an island in Paris in the middle of the Seine. It is very soft, and has the property, quite different from other clays used for moulding purposes, of not needing to be dried, but when you have made from it the shape you want, you can pour into it while it is still moist, your gold, silver, brass, or any other metal. This is a very rare thing, and I have never heard of it occurring anywhere else in the world.

Before considering the other kinds of clay that may be used for this sort of work, it will be best for me to tell you carefully how to make your gesso model for casting your seal from. After it is well cleaned with the knife in the way above described, powder it with a little fine charcoal-dust, or smoke it over with the soot from your lamp or taper; either will do, and I really needn’t describe this, because everybody knows how to do it. Then press the model into a caster’s sand-box of sufficient size to hold it conveniently.

This done, dry well that portion of the mould where the figures come (that is to say if you are using the Italian, not the Paris clay), then have ready a little dough[69] in the form of a cake similar in shape & thickness to what your silver or metal seal is finally to be, and put this over the figures formed by the gesso and which will appear in relief, having previously smoked over the mould with a little candle-smoke. This done, take the second box, fill it with the same moist earth and when dried set it upon the first. Mind in so doing that you do not disturb the part already dried where the figures are.[70] This second half you will easily mould. Then open the mould, and after taking out the dough-cake, make the mouths and the two vent holes, beginning at the bottom and going up as high as the mouth or ingress hole. When both parts are dry, smoke them over with a little candle-smoke and let them cool, have your silver well molten and then pour it in. Experience shows that it is better to pour the silver into cold than into hot matrices.

Now, for the second method, differing considerably from the first, but, as I have employed both, and the second not only for seals but for casting all sorts of other things too, I’ll describe it to you also. When you have from your original wax cast a gesso matrix in the manner above described, take a little of the same gesso, mix with it a little pith of horn[71] well dried, a further part of tripoli,[72] & finally another part of well-powdered pumice stone, and pound these four parts well up together. Then add as much water to them as shall give them the consistency of a paste—neither too thick nor too fluid. Then with a fine brush paint the surface of your seal all round over the wax projections and into the interstices, with a little olive oil. Waiting till it is well dried in the way we Florentines call verdemezzo, that is to say neither too dry nor too moist,[73] make a little wall of clay about two fingers high all round it, and pour the above mixture into the work and paint it well in and around the whole of your subject. Pile the mixture up at least two fingers high and make about four fingers more of it at the upper end on account of the almond form which is the shape your seal will be, for you need there greater size for the pouring-in mouth of your silver or whatever metal you may be using. When the gesso is thoroughly dried, which will not be till some four hours or so, separate the one piece of gesso from the other, taking very great care that none of your design is injured. As you may well imagine, it was much easier to separate the matrix from the wax in the first method than from the composition in the second, because in the former it had a firmer consistency. If some of the arms and heads don’t appear to you to come out quite a success, and remain stuck in the matrix, you can remedy that in either of the following ways. You can either pick out the bits remaining in the mould with a small paint brush, & re-apply them with a little powdered tripoli, and since your design is in relief you will easily see the impressions made by it in the mould. Or, for the other way, you can clean out the mould entirely, paint it round again and fill it up with the composition in the same way as before; often if the first turn has not come out well, the second does.

But pay the greatest possible attention to what I am going to tell you now. Make a waxen form, almond-shaped, and of the exact size your seal is to be, hollow it out, and lay it over the surface of your gesso relief. Then make your little ramparts of earth about this wax, taking heed to make due provision for the channel of the casting, which should be of ample length; & here I ought to tell you that the longer your channel is the better chance your work has of turning out well. There are no end of little details still to be observed, but if I were to tell you all of them I might as well begin teaching you your A B C. So I assume that my readers are people who have mastered the first principles of the Art. I would remind you, too, that both the ingress mouth & the vents have to be made of wax & applied to the wax core. These vents are fixed below, & turn up around the seal towards the ingress mouth; they must not, however, come in contact with the latter, because they have to do their own work of drawing out the air.[74]

This done, bind up your seal with well-tempered iron or copper wire, and let it bide in the sun, or some place where it can get warm & well dried. Then put it in your little furnace of tiles and iron hoops and melt out the wax with such heat as may be needful. Of course your wax must have been free from all impurities or it would never melt out properly. And when you have melted it out you make the fire stronger till your mould is regularly burnt, & the more it is baked the better your work will be. Then let it cool, and because the silver adapts[75] itself more readily to the cold than to the hot mould—cold, mark you, but not moist—when it is well molten pour it in. But ere you do this, in order that it may not burn,[76] strew a little borax over it and upon that a handful of well ground tartar,[77] and you will find this help your work wonderfully. Then dip the mould in water in order better to separate it from the silver, and so break it open. This done clean the silver off at the points where the channel & the vent holes come, and give it a subtle finish with the file. After this, in order to give the seal its final touches, you place it on the pitch, and, with your first gesso matrix before you, work the silver with your punches, gravers and chisels, touching up and completing your subject now here, now there, figures, swags, arms, bodies, legs, all alike, accentuating[78] them in the matrix with your steel tools. To see better how you are getting on, you may occasionally press in a little black wax, or whatever colour pleases you better, to gauge the projections. Now note this: my custom was to cut out the heads, hands and feet of my figures on small steel punches, and thinking the work came clearer and got a better result, I struck these punches with dexterous strokes upon the seal with a hammer into their different places. Also you should make in a similar manner an alphabet of steel punches, likewise many other conceits according as taste prompts. When I was in Rome, or elsewhere, working in this line, I ofttimes amused myself by making new alphabets, each for its occasion, for they wear out soon, and I got much credit by my inventiveness. Your letters should be well formed, & shaped as a broadly cut pen might shape them; the strokes going up or down with the action of the hand, the letters being neither too fat and stumpy, nor too long and thin, for both these are unpleasing to behold, the moderately slim ones are the nicest to look at.

I ought not to omit telling you that the cardinal’s arms, or whatever they may be, have to be done on the seals; and these are always richly ornamented with figure work, and I often used to have for the handle where-with the seal was attached, some fine beasts, or as often figures, according to the emblem of the gentleman for whom the seal was made. You should be careful not to omit these little complimentary touches because they redound to the honour of the master & please the patron whom he serves. I made, among others, such a handle in gold for the Duke of Mantua after I had made the one for his brother the Cardinal; and in addition to all the care I had put into the seal itself, I added a little Hercules for the handle, & he was sitting on his lion’s skin, and had his club in hand. For this tiny figure I made no end of studies, & it brought me much honour with the sculptors and painters, and among these was Master Giulio Romano; some of them made use of the design, too, for other purposes, and I was well paid for it.

Some artists have gone straight to work at their seals with merely cutting directly into their silver, and without casting at all, but pluckily doing their design straight on in the reverse with genuine knowledge of their art, and using the steel dies of which I told you, and they succeeded in it, too. I also have done this, but I have found the casting method more practicable; though both are good, and can lead to excellent results.

FOOTNOTES:

[66] Gypsum or plaster from Volterra (the 1568 edition has ‘gesso cotto Volterranno.’)

[67] Un penelletto alquanto grandicello di vaio—what I think in the English workshop would be called a ‘rigger.’

[68] Che si chiama terra da formare nelle staffe. It is not a clay, but as he says, a sand tufa (‘areno di tufo’) a volcanic spongey rock like pumice, and they make cement of it.

[69] Pasta di pane crudo.

[70] The 1568 edition gives a clearer version of this process than the original codex, which is confusing. I have translated it as literally as possible, but the following might be read as more descriptive of the process: The gesso matrix has been pressed into the sand of the first box, and has made the mould of the relief work of the seal, the dough is to make the shape of the body. It would be roughly cut away to clear the figures, and carefully placed over the part moulded. Then the second box would be put on, and the moist earth tightly packed in. After this the boxes would be separated and the dough taken out.

[71] Midollo di corna. See Hoepli’s handbook ‘Oreficeria’ for the modern process.

[72] Calcined sulphate of iron.

[73] Or, as we English would perhaps say, ‘tacky.’

[74] This, which is the ordinary cire perdue process, is again described in Chapter XXII., where Cellini deals with a vase he is making. The accompanying diagram illustrates it in its application to seals. The mouth or ingress hole, or what will become the mouth, is rolled in wax and attached to the top, the two vents are rolled and attached in a similar way below, but so as not to touch the pattern.

Diagram illustrating the application of the cire perdue process to seals
V VENT. (Sfiatatoio)
M MOUTH OR INGRESS HOLE. (Bocca)
A ALMOND-SHAPED SEAL.

[75] Segli accosta.

[76] Riarda: i.e., oxidise.

[77] Gromma di botte: tartrate of potash.

[78] Risserando.

Specimens of Cardinals’ Seals

CHAPTER XIV. HOW TO MAKE STEEL DIES FOR STAMPING COINS.

Since the art of the coiner can teach the elements of stamping medals in methods similar to those of the ancients, we will treat of that art first. You must bear in mind that the ancients, though they made their coins for use, undoubtedly made their medals for show; and as regards the former, we moderns may pride ourselves on being able to produce them with greater facility, and that, like the printing of books and many such-like arts, is a discovery of ours, which though it be out of my scope to speak of them here, I may have occasion to touch on elsewhere. As to the coins, I shall, according to my usual custom, speak with actual instances of the methods I have myself wrought in. The first coins I made were for Pope Clement VII. in Rome, who summoned me to come to him from Florence some eighteen months after the great sack of Rome by the Lord of Bourbon. And since the house of Medici was at that time expelled from Florence, the Pope sent for me by the hand of Master Jacopo dello Sciorina,[79] the same that kept the ferry across the Tiber, by the Banchi in Tresteveri not far from the palace of Messer Agostino Chigi. This Master Jacopo wrote me twice on the Pope’s account; when I got the second letter, I made off as fast as I could, for of a truth those terrible radicals[80] in power then would have hanged me had they found it on me. Pope Clement, when I came, treated me with the most winning kindnesses, and ordered me to make the coins for his city and Mint in Rome. The first coins I made were gold pieces, worth about two ducats each, on which were stamped figures of divers sort. On the one was the form of a nude Christ, his hands bound behind him, done with all the care and study I was capable of; down the sides of the figure ran the legend ‘Ecce Homo,’ and around the circumference the words ‘Clemens VII., Pont. Max.’, while on the other side was stamped the head of the Pope.

A new occasion soon offered itself. Though I don’t want to write a chronicle of events, & though I was not directly affected by them, I can’t help touching upon them slightly. What the current talk in Rome was at the time, I don’t need to dwell on; any man with a head on his shoulders may easily imagine that for himself. The second coin, a beauty, was likewise of gold, & a two-ducat piece. On one side was a pope in his pontifical robes, & an emperor also in his regalia; the two were supporting a cross which was in the act of falling to the ground. I forget if there was a legend on this side; but on the other were a St. Paul and a St. Peter in more than half relief, with this legend around them: ‘Vnus spiritus, una fides erat in Eis.’ This coin brought me much honour, for I put great labour into it. As the Pope put more gold into it than its value warranted, it soon was melted down again.

A third coin of my making was in silver, of the value of two carlins, on the one side of which was the head of the Pope, and on the other side a St. Peter, just the moment after he has plunged into the sea at the call of Christ, and Christ stretches out his hand to him in most pleasing wise, and the legend to this was ‘Quare dubitasti?’

In Florence likewise did I make all the moneys for Duke Alexander the first of that name; they were 40 soldi pieces. And because the Duke was curly headed, the people called these coins the Duke’s curls.[81] On one side was his head, and on the other St. Cosmo and St. Damian. In like manner did I make the coins called barile and grossone.

As I said above, the ancients had not the facilities for stamping coins we have, & therefore we never see any of the beautiful sort,[82] for coins should be made, or rather their dies, with the purpose of striking with the greatest ease. To begin with, two steel tools are needed, one called the pila the other the torsello. The pila is in the form of a small stake or anvil, upon which the medal you wish to press is cut in intaglio. The other tool, the torsello, is about five fingers high, its face being the size of your coin, and it gradually tapers off toward the end. Both pila & torsello are made of carefully chosen iron, with their heads covered in the finest steel about one finger thick. With his file the master gives them whatever shape & size his coin may need. Then he makes a concoction of earth, powdered glass, soot from the chimney, and bole of Armenia,[83] adds a little horse-dung to this, mixes it all up into a paste with a man’s urine, & puts it on to the ends of the pila and the torsello to the thickness of about a finger. These he then puts into the fire, which should be strong enough to raise them to bright redness;[84] keeping the fire up for, say, a good winter’s night, he then lets them cool down by allowing the fire to go out.[85] The exact size of the coins is now given to the ends of the dies, barring about half the thickness of a knife’s back all round the circumference, and the face of each is then ground on a soft, polished stone until both pila and torsello are absolutely smooth. Then with the compasses the exact size of the coin is drawn upon them, & also with another pair of compasses the circumference of the letters that form the legend round is marked. In order that these compasses should not shift about, a pair should be specially made of thick steel wire and of the exact size needed. It is best to have at least two pairs of each kind, and also one pair that will open and shut as you please. When this is done, the pila is firmly set in a big lump of lead of at least 100 lbs. in weight. After this you can proceed to the engraving[86] of your coin on the die.

Coins and Medals from various collections

You very carefully cut upon the finest steel your design, e.g., the head of whatever prince you are serving, and in order to do this nicely you must first have your steel well softened in the fire in the way I showed you the pila & torsello were; only take heed that your tool is of the very finest steel. And the tools with which you work have to be made specially for the purpose. Thus for a head I should make the tool in two pieces, and for the various figures on the reverse of a coin I should use a number of different pieces according to my discretion. Some have worked with very few, but in so doing have much greater difficulty in sinking the design into the die. The more such pieces you have, the easier it becomes; but you must always give great care in the combination of your punches. And this combining is done while the master is engaged in cutting the intaglios by taking frequent impressions on a piece of polished tin, to which you can give the right circumference with your compasses, until you get the results you wish.

The tools used for this purpose have two names, in some instances they are called punzoni (punches), and in other cases madre (matrices), and of a truth they are the mothers that may be said to beget the figures and all the other things you fashion in the die of your coins.[87] The men who did the best work in coining always did the whole of the work upon either the punches or the matrices, and never once touched up the dies with either gravers or chisels, for that would be a great blunder, as all the various dies necessary for making many impressions of the same coins, would be a bit different, and thus cause slight differences in the coins themselves, and that would be making things easy for forgers, whereas coins well wrought in the way above described could be less easily copied. But I must return to you, dear reader, where I left off above, with the pila stuck in the lead.

Take your madre or punches, and since it almost always is a prince’s head that is cut into the pila, set to with the first piece of your combination, and, fitting each into its place, strike it a blow with the hammer, and lift hand and tool up as smartly and rapidly as you brought them down, for if the madre shift, even but ever so slightly, it will tend to blurr your work. In like manner add the limbs and the heads of your figures in such wise as your craft and your experience shall teach you, and so on similarly any other things, coats of arms, devices, beautiful alphabets, the beading for the coins’ border, till all are well fashioned in both pila and torsello. And since I should omit nothing for your better guidance, know that the hammer needful for stamping in the larger madre, such for instance as a head would need, ought to weigh about 4 lbs., while those requisite for the smaller punches may weigh less; those for the smallest of all—for the beading for instance—may be very tiny—each according!

When the sinking by both pila and torsello is completed, set to and file off the superfluous margin right up to your border of beading. See that it is strongly blunted[88] where you have filed it towards the beading, for without this your die would spoil and quickly perish, but where it is blunted it will not spoil. Then set to and temper your steel;[89] to this end you heat it, and let it glow, neither too much nor too little, but just sufficient to temper it aright. And forasmuch as in the tempering a film is formed that would tend to spoil your fair impression, you must take great care to prevent it. As we say in the craft, the dies should be rosso appunto, to the point of redness, neither more nor less; and to make them so you do this. You take some clean iron scale[90] and place it on a board and then rub pila and torsello alike on this until they are thoroughly bright, and the film quite gone from them, and in the same manner may you afterwards brighten your coins. And—another little hint—you clean out the deeper parts of your dies with pieces of pointed cork tipped with iron scale, & then everything is done & you can give your dies to the stamper, at the mint.

I must not forget to tell you, as I promised, how it was that the ancients never turned their coins out as well as we; & the reason of it was because they cut their dies out direct with goldsmith’s tools, gravers, chisels, punches, & that was very difficult for them to do, especially as the mints needed a large number of these dies—pile and torselli.

I need give you but one instance of what I mean, gentle reader, and you will see how right I am. On one occasion when I was making the dies for Pope Clement in Rome, I had to turn out thirty of these iron pile and torselli in one day; had I gone to work in the manner of the ancients, I could not have produced two, nor would they have been as good. Thus it was that the ancients had to employ a large number of die cutters, and these could never do their work as well as they wished to do it, having never attained our facility.

But now will I tell you of medals which the ancients made superlatively well; & whatever I may have omitted in dealing with coins I will make up for in treating of medals, so that you shall learn all in listening to both.

FOOTNOTES:

[79] See the ‘Vita,’ Symonds, Book I., xlii.

[80] Terribilissimi popolani.

[81] E ricci del Duca Alexandro.

[82] Meaning in the way Cellini describes them.