[167] Malvasia.
[168] "Floret item nunc Romæ Jacobus Bononiensis, qui Trajani Columnæ
picturas omnes ordine delineavit, magna omnium admiratione, magnoque
periculo circum machinis scandendo."--V. Raphaelis Volaterrani
Anthropologia, p. 774. A. ed. 1603. fol.
[169] "Unum apud modernos reperio, de quo apud antiquos nulla extat
memoria, de incisoribus seu sculptoribus in argento; quæ sculptura
Niellum appellatur. Virum cognosco in hoc celeberrimum et summum, nomine
Franciscum Bononiensem, aliter Franza, qui adeo in tam parvo orbiculo
seu argenti lamina, tot homines, tot animalia, tot montes, arbores,
castra ac tot diversa ratione situque posita figurat seu incidit, quod
dictu ac visu mirabile apparet."--Camillo Leonardi, Speculo Lapidum,
lib. iii. c. 2.
The assertion that Niello was unknown to the ancients, it is unnecessary
to refute here. Francia was master of the mint during the usurpation of
the Bentivogli, after their expulsion by Giulio the Second, and
continued to superintend its issue to the Pontificate of Leo. His coins
and medals are said by Vasari to equal those of the Milanese Caradosso;
and it is probably for their excellence that he was looked up to as a
god (un Dio) at Bologna.
[170] Δύο----ἐνείκεον----
----ὁ μὲν εὔχετο, πάντ' ἀποδοῦναι,
Δήμῳ πιφαύσκων· ὁ δ' ἀναίνετο, μηδὲν ἑλέσθαι.
Ilias. Lib. xviii. l. 498.