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?
[Illustration: 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._