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 NUMISMATICS

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NUMISMATICS

terially diminished by that fact. Both in composition and in execution he hsxs hardly been equalled, as, for instance, in his representations of the nobler animals, the Uon, casle, horse.

Pisano travelled through the whole of Italy, and portraj-ed the prominent princes and influential men of his time; he made the mcdallic art so popular that thenceforth artists, in all the important art centres of Italy, engaged in the manu- facture of medals. Such were Matteo de' Pasti, an admirable artist at the court of Rimini; the Vene- tians Giovanni Boldu and Gentile Bellini, the latter of whom made a port rait - medal for the sultan IVIehe- met; the Mantuan Speran- dio, the most prolific medallistof the fifteenth century, and many others. At this time, too, the stamped medal returns to prominence. In Rome Benvcnuto Cellini and, after him, Caradosso, and especially the masters of the papal mint are deserving of mention. The imitations of the bronze coinages of the Roman emperors by Cavino are truly admirable. Finally, at a somewhat later period, Italian medallists are found in the service of foreign princes: Jacopo da Trezzo in the Nether- lands, the two Abondio in Ger- many. Tlie Italian medal exerts the most powerful influence upon the development of the older French productions. The Italian Laurana in the latter half of the fifteenth century struck the first French medals, and the works of the next period clearly show Itahan characteristics. Not un- til the seventeenth century did a new style appear, in which the drapery especially is admirably reproduced; the most prominent artists were Jean Richier, at Metz, and, later, Guillaume Dupr6 and Jean Warin.

In Germany, the earliest large silver pieces were coined at Hall in the TjtoI, under the influence of Italian coinages; and to Gian Marco Cavallo, who was invited to Hall as engraver to the mint, these coins owe their important position in the history of art and their demonstrable influence upon many of the medals of Germany. These, the oldest specimens of the German mcdallic art, being at the same time coins, were stamped; but, like the Italian, the German medal does not reach its highest perfection in stamped, but in cast pieces. A considerable number of models made of boxwood, of Kehlheim stone, and, later, of wax are still extant. These portraits in wood or stone were at first regarded as final, and only by degrees did they come to be used as models for casting in metal. These cast medals, which made their appearance at the art-centres of Germany (in the beginning of the sixteenth century, Augsburg and Nuremberg) like- wise owe their origin to the Italian medal. But only their origin ; the further development of the German medal follows entirely original and independent lines until it reaches a degree of excellence, on a level with the Itahan. It is true that the Germans fail to produce the magnificent designs with their wealth of figures that we find on the reverse of Italian medals; instead,

families of the middle classes than was the case in Italy.

The German medal reaches its prime soon after the year 1500, considerably later than the Italian: among the oldest examples that have come down to us are those of Albrecht Diirer. Many of the artists give us no clue at all to their identity or sign tliemselvcs by marks or symbols that are often difficult to inter- pret. It has now become possible, however, to as- sign definitely a long series of very valuable medals to Peter Flotner, a master of Nuremberg, who must therefore be considered as one of the foremost of all medallists; he is closely followed by Matthes Gebel. Other noteworthy medallists of this period are Hans Daucher, most of whose work was done for the Court of the Palatinate; Hans Schwarz of Nuremberg, "the best counterfeiter in wood", who executed a large number of works for the members of the Diet of Augs- burg of 1518; Jacob Stampfer, in Switzerland; Fried- rich Hagenauer, one of the most popular artists; Joachim Descliler, who finally settled in Austria, where, especially in the mints of Vienna, Kremnitz, and Joachimstal, a large number of medals were struck at this period, not all of them, however, to the advantage of the mcdallic art; Hans Reinhard, from whom we have a number of very carefully chiselled pieces, and Tobias Wolf, both in Saxony. By the end of the sixteenth century the German medal has clearly passed its zenith and be- comes dependent upon foreign, and, at first, esjjecially Italian works. In the Netherlands the art attained a high degree of perfection. The great names here are Stephanus Hollandicus and, somewhat later, Konrad Bloc, both of the second half of the sixteenth century, and Peter van .'^beele of the seven- teenth century. In England the medallists are for the most part foreigners; of the native artists, who do not appear until very late, the most deserving of mention are Th. Simon and William and L. C. Lyon. Caspar and Simon Passe on the other hand attain great artistic skill in the pro- duction of very carefully engraved small, thin silver pieces. The other states are of less importance; they employed for the most part foreign artists.

The high artistic level which the medal attained in Italy and Germany at the beginning of the modern

Silver Medal — Modern French — by Dnpuis age could not be maintained permanently. For while

excellent pieces of work were produced here antl there, medals as well as coins, as works of art, deteriorated we find, more commonly, excellent representations of more and more. Not until after the middle of the coats of arms. The great strength of the German nineteenth century did the art receive a fresh impetus medal lies in the loving care bestowed upon the execu- and that first in France. Considering merely its ex- tion of the accurate portrait on the obverse; and this ternal manifestations, it is possible even to fix the ex- accords with the purpo.se of the medal, which was act date of the beginning of this movement. On 2 much more widely distributed among the prominent May, 1868, the chemist Dumas, president of the