Now, as to the emerald and the sapphire, the same skill must be used
with the foils adaptable to them as with those of the ruby. And
because I consider that practice always has come before theory in
every craft, and that the rules of theory, in which your skillful
craftsman is accomplished, are always grafted on to practice
afterwards, I will give you a case in point of what once happened
to me when I was setting a ruby of about 3000 scudi in value. This
ruby had, when it came into my hands, been very well set at different
times by some of the best known jewellers of the day. So I was
incited to work at it with all possible care. Seeing that I could in
no way satisfy myself with the result of my efforts, I locked myself
up somewhere where no one could see me; not so much because I did
not wish my secret to go further, but because I did not want to be
caught trying so mean an experiment upon so goodly and wonderful a
gem. I took a little skein of silk stained with Kermes, and with a
pair of scissors cut it carefully, having previously spread a little
wax in the bezel. Then I took the tiny bit of silk and pressed[30]
it firmly on to the wax with the point of a small punch. Then did I
put my ruby upon it, and so well did it make, and such virtue did it
gain, that all the jeweller folk who had seen it first, suspected me
of having tinted it, a thing forbidden in jewellery except in the
case of diamonds, of which more anon. But for this ruby, some of
the jewellers asked me to say what kind of a foil I had put behind
it, upon which I answered that I had put no foil behind it. At this
reply of mine, a jeweller who was with the gentleman to whom the
ruby belonged, said, ‘If the ruby has no foil, you can’t have done
anything else but tint it in some way or other, and that you know
is forbidden.’ To which I replied again that I had neither given it
a foil, nor done anything forbidden to it. At this the jeweller got
a little nasty and used strong language, at which the gentleman who
owned the ruby said, ‘Benvenuto, I pray you, be so good, provided
I pay you for it, to open your setting and show it to me only, I
promise you I’ll not tell anyone your secret.’ Then said I to him
that I had worked several days on the job, and that I had my living
to earn, but that I would willingly do it if he paid me the price of
the setting, and, moreover, do it in the presence of all of them,
because I should be much honoured in thus being able to teach my
teachers. When I had said this, I opened the bezel and took out the
stone in their presence. They were very much obliged, we parted
very good friends, and I got very well paid. The ruby in question
was a thick one, & so limpid and luminous that all the foils you
put beneath it gave it a sort of uncertain flash, like that which
shimmers from the girasol opal, or the cat’s-eye, two kinds of stones
to which the dunderheads, of whom I told before, would also give the
name of gems.
Now a word about the emerald and the sapphire, in both which gems
one meets with the same peculiarities and difficulties as with the
ruby, so I know of but little to say about them than that they are
stones that are often falsified, which should be a warning to those
who delight in gems or buy them, whether to set or to keep. There
is a kind of Indian ruby with as little colour as you can possibly
imagine, and I once saw a ruby of this nature falsified ever so
cleverly by one of these cheats. He had done it by smearing its base
with dragon’s blood, which is a kind of composition made of a gum
that will melt in the fire, and that you can buy at any apothecary’s
in Florence or Rome. Well, the cheat had smeared the base of the
stone with dragon’s blood, & then set it in such a way that it showed
so well, you would gladly have given 100 golden scudi for it; but
without this colour it wouldn’t have fetched 10, and have been much
more likely to come out of the setting. But the colour looked so
fine, and the stone seemed so cunningly set, that no one unless very
careful, would have spotted it.
It happened one day that I was with three old jewellers to whom I had
expressed my doubts as to the genuineness of the stone, so they made
me unset the ruby and they stood round me greedily watching, ready to
pounce upon it. As soon as I had done it they all three jeered at me
for my wisdom and said another time I should open my eyes better, for
it was obvious that this stone was set by a good man, who wouldn’t do
such a thing, and who knew his business right well enough. At these
words of theirs I held out my hand, and begged them to let me see and
have proof of my mistake, adding that if this time my good eyes had
failed me, it might be because I was less keen-sighted than they,
but I promised it shouldn’t happen again. When I had the ruby in my
hand I soon saw with my sharp eyes what their dullness had missed,
and quickly taking a little steel tool I scraped off the bottom of
the stone. Then might that ruby have been likened to the crow that
tricked itself out in the feathers of the peacock. I returned the
stone to the jewellers and suggested to them that they would do well
to provide themselves with eyes somewhat superior to those they were
at present using. I couldn’t resist saying this because all three
of them wore great big gig-lamps on their noses, whereupon they
all three gaped at each other, shrugged their shoulders, and, with
God’s blessing, made off. You come across similar difficulties and
occurrences with emeralds and sapphires which I will omit, as I have
other things of more importance to tell of.
I mind me also of having seen rubies and emeralds made double,
like red & green crystals, stuck together, the stone being in two
pieces, and their usual name is ‘doppie’ or doublets. These false
stones are made in Milan, set in silver, and are much in vogue among
the peasant folk; the ingenuity of man has devised them to satisfy
the wants of these poor people when they wish to make presents at
weddings, ceremonies, and so forth, to their wives, who of course
don’t know any difference between the real and the sham stone, &
whom the little deceit makes very happy. Certain avaricious men
however, have taken advantage of a form of industry, made partly for
a useful, and partly for a good end, & have very cunningly turned it
to great evil. For instance, they have taken a thin piece of Indian
ruby, and with very cunning setting have twisted and pieced together
beneath it bits of glass which they then fixed in this manner in an
elaborate & beautiful setting for the ring or whatever it was. And
these they have subsequently sold for a good and first-class stone.
And forasmuch as I don’t tell you anything unless I can illustrate
it by some practical example, I’ll just mention that there was in my
time a Milanese jeweller who had so cleverly counterfeited an emerald
in this way that he sold it for a genuine stone and got 9000 golden
scudi for it. And this all happened because the purchaser—who was no
less a person than the King of England—put rather more faith in the
jeweller than he ought to have done. The fraud was not found out till
several years after.
Emeralds and sapphires are also manufactured out of single stones,
and this so cleverly that they are often difficult to tell, but
however wonderfully they are counterfeited in colour they are so
soft, that any good jeweller with the average amount of brains, can
easily spot them. I could tell you ever so much more about all this,
but it must do for the present, because I have to pass on to a lot of
other important and useful things.
FOOTNOTES:
[30] _Calcai_—_possibly: ‘I frayed.’_