Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/193

Rh PLATE 183 apparent, and can hardly be the work of the same school of goldsmiths. 1 The date of this Petrossa treasure is supposed to be the 6th century. The celebrated Gourdon gold cup and tray now preserved in Paris belong to about the same date. They are very rich and magnificent, quite free from any survival of classic influence, and in style resemble the Merovingian gold work which was found in the tomb of Child eric I. The cup is three inches high, shaped like a miniature two-handled chalice ; its com panion oblong tray or plate has a large cross in high relief in the centre. They are elaborately ornamented with inlaid work of turquoises and garnets, and delicate filigree patterns in gold, soldered on. In the 6th century Byzantium was the chief centre for the production of large and magnificent works in the precious metals. The religious fervour and the great wealth of Justinian and his successors filled the churches of Byzantium, not only with enormous quantities of gold and silver chalices, shrines, and other smaller pieces of ecclesiastical plate, but even large altars, with tall pillared baldacchini over them, fonts, massive candelabra, statues, and high screens, all made of the precious metals. The wealth and artistic splendour with which St Peter s in Home and St Sophia in Constantinople were enriched is now almost inconceivable. To read the mere inventories of these treasures dazzles the imagination, such as that given in the Liber Pontificalis of Anastasius Bibliothe- carius, which includes the long list of treasures given by Constantino to St Peter s before he transferred his seat of empire to Byzantium (330), and the scarcely less wonder ful list of gold and silver plate presented to the same basilica by Pope Symmachus (498-51 4). 2 During the 7th century France and other AVestern countries were but little behind Italy and Byzantium in their production of massive works, both secular and religious, in the precious metals. St Eloy, the French gold smith bishop, made a number of most splendid shrines and other sacred furniture in beaten gold among them large shrines for the relics of St Denis, St Genevieve, and St Martin, as well as gold thrones, plate, and jewellery for the French kings Clothaire II. and Dagobert I. At this time every cathedral or abbey church in Germany, France, and even England began to accumulate rich treasures of every kind in gold and silver, enriched with jewels and enamel ; but few specimens, however, still exist of the work of this early period. The most notable are Charlemagne s regalia 3 and other treasures at Aix-la-Chapelle, a few preserved at St Peter s in Rome, and the remarkable set of ecclesiastical utensils which still exist in the cathedral of Monza near Milan the gift of Queen Theodelinda in the early part of the 7th century. 4 The existing examples of magnificent early work in the precious metals mostly belong to a somewhat later period. The chief are the gold and silver altar in Sant Ambrogio at Milan, of the 9th century; the &quot; Pala d Oro,&quot; or gold retable, in St Mark s at Venice, begun in the 10th century (see METAL-WORK) ; and the gold altar frontal given by the emperor Henry II. and his wife Cunigunde, at the beginning of the llth century, to the cathedral at Basel. The last is about 4 feet high by 6 feet long, repousse&quot; in high relief, with figures of Christ, the three archangels, and St Benedict, standing under an arcade of round arches ; it is now in the Cluny Museum in Paris. 5 A similar gold frontal, of equal splendour, was that made for the arch bishop of Sens in 999. This was melted down, by Louis 1 Sodeu Smith, Treasure of Petrossa, 1869. 2 See D Agincourt, llistoire.de V Art, 1823. 3 Bock, Die Kleinodien des heil. r/imischen Reiches, 1864. 4 Arch. Jour., xiv. 8. 5 Archseologia, xxx. 144-48. XV. in 1760, but fortunately a drawing of it was preserved, and is published by Du Sommerard (All/urn, 9th series, pi. xiii.). A most valuable description of the various methods of work practised by gold- and silver-smiths in the llth and 12th centuries is given by the monk Theophilus in his Diversarum Artium Schedule (Hendrie s ed., 1847). He minutely describes every possible process that could be employed in making and ornamenting elaborate pieces of ecclesiastical plate such as smelting, refining, hammering, chasing and repousse work, soldering, casting (by the &quot;cire perdue&quot; process), wire-drawing, gilding with mercury amalgam, and the application of niello, enamel, and gems. The silversmith of those days, as in classical times, was not only a thorough artist with a complete sense of beauty and fitness in his work, but he was also a craftsman of the most varied fertility of resource, and made himself thoroughly responsible for every part of his work and every stage through which it passed, a most striking contrast to the modern subdivision of labour, and eager ness to produce a show of neatness without regard to real excellence of work, which is the curse of all 19th-century handicrafts, and one of the main reasons why our modern productions are in the main neither works of true art nor objects of real lasting utility. Italian Plate.- Before the latter part of the 15th century, large pieces of silver work were made more for ecclesiastical use than for the gratification of private luxury. The great silver shrine in Orvieto cathedral, made to contain the blood-stained corporal of the famous Bolsena miracle, is one of the chief of these. It is a very large and elaborate work in solid silver, made to imitate the west front of a cathedral, and decorated in the most sumptuous way with figures cast and chased in relief, and a wonderful series of miniature-like pictures embossed in low relief and covered with translucent enamels of various brilliant colours. This splendid piece of silver work was executed about 1338 by Ugolino da Siena and his pupils. The other most important pieces of silver work in Italy are the frontal and retable of St James in the cathedral at Pistoia, and the altar of San Giovanni at Florence (see METAL- WORK). On these two works were employed a whole series of the chief Tuscan artists of the 14th and 15th centuries, many of whom, though of great reputation in other branches of art, such as painting, sculpture on a large scale, and architecture, did not disdain to devote their utmost skill, and years of labour, to work which we now as a rule consign to craftsmen of the very smallest capacity. Among the distinguished names of Florentines who during the space of one century only, the 15th, worked in gold and silver, the following may be given to suggest the high rank which this class of work took among the arts : Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, Luca della Robbia, the two Pollaiuoli, Verrocchio, Michelozzo, Ghirlandaio, Botti celli, Lorenzo di Credi, Baccio Baldini, and Francin. The cities of Italy which chiefly excelled in this religious and beautiful class of silver-work during the 14th and loth centuries were Florence, Siena, Arezzo, Pisa, and Pistoia. Owing to the demoralization and increase of luxury which grew fn Italy with such startling rapidity during the early years of the 16th century, the wealth and artistic skill which in the previous centuries had been mainly devoted to religious objects were diverted into a different channel, and became for the most part absorbed in the production of magnificent pieces of plate vases, ewers, dishes, and the like of large size, and decorated in the most lavish way with the fanciful and over-luxuriant forms of ornament introduced by the already declining taste of the Renaissance. This demand created a new school of metal-workers, among whom Benvenuto Cellini