Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/477

Rh that had ever been seen at that period. The art attained to a still higher degree of excellence during the pontificate of Pope Leo X., when it received a powerful impulse from the talents and labours of Pier Maria da Pescia, who was a most faithful and successful imitator of the works of antiquity. Pier Maria had a competitor named Michelino, who was no less able than himself both in small and large works, and was considered a very graceful master.

By these masters the path to that very difiicult art was opened. Most difiicult of a truth it is, since the engraving in cavo may be truly called a working in the dark and at hazard, seeing that the artist has no means of knowing what he is doing but that of taking an impression in wax from time to time. Finally, however, the labours of these masters brought the art to such a state, that Giovanni da Castel Bolognese, Valerio Vicentino, Matteo dal Nassaro, and others, have been enabled to produce the admirable works of which we wdll now proceed to record the memorial.

To begin, therefore, I remark that Giovanni Bernardi of Castel Bolognese, in the course of three years, which time he passed very honourably in the service of Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara, brought many small works to completion for that prince, of which it does not need that I should make separate mention; but the first large production which he executed was an intaglio on crystal, wherein he set forth the whole Battle of the Rampart, a most beautiful thing. lie afterwards engraved the portrait of the Duke Alfonso on steel, for the purpose of making medals, and on the reverse he represented Our Saviour Christ, led prisoner by the multitude.

Giovanni then repaired to Rome, being induced to do so by the advice of Giovio; and there the intervention of the Cardinals Ippolito de’ Medici and Giovanni Salviati sufficed to procure him an opportunity for taking the portrait of Pope Clement YII., whereupon he made an intaglio for medals from the same, which was most beautiful, the reverse presenting Joseph making himself known to his brethren.