Since the art of the coiner can teach the elements of stamping medals
in methods similar to those of the ancients, we will treat of that
art first. You must bear in mind that the ancients, though they made
their coins for use, undoubtedly made their medals for show; and as
regards the former, we moderns may pride ourselves on being able to
produce them with greater facility, and that, like the printing of
books and many such-like arts, is a discovery of ours, which though
it be out of my scope to speak of them here, I may have occasion to
touch on elsewhere. As to the coins, I shall, according to my usual
custom, speak with actual instances of the methods I have myself
wrought in. The first coins I made were for Pope Clement VII. in
Rome, who summoned me to come to him from Florence some eighteen
months after the great sack of Rome by the Lord of Bourbon. And since
the house of Medici was at that time expelled from Florence, the Pope
sent for me by the hand of Master Jacopo dello Sciorina,[79] the same
that kept the ferry across the Tiber, by the Banchi in Tresteveri
not far from the palace of Messer Agostino Chigi. This Master
Jacopo wrote me twice on the Pope’s account; when I got the second
letter, I made off as fast as I could, for of a truth those terrible
radicals[80] in power then would have hanged me had they found it
on me. Pope Clement, when I came, treated me with the most winning
kindnesses, and ordered me to make the coins for his city and Mint in
Rome. The first coins I made were gold pieces, worth about two ducats
each, on which were stamped figures of divers sort. On the one was
the form of a nude Christ, his hands bound behind him, done with all
the care and study I was capable of; down the sides of the figure
ran the legend ‘_Ecce Homo_,’ and around the circumference the words
‘_Clemens VII., Pont. Max._’, while on the other side was stamped the
head of the Pope.
A new occasion soon offered itself. Though I don’t want to write a
chronicle of events, & though I was not directly affected by them, I
can’t help touching upon them slightly. What the current talk in Rome
was at the time, I don’t need to dwell on; any man with a head on
his shoulders may easily imagine that for himself. The second coin,
a beauty, was likewise of gold, & a two-ducat piece. On one side was
a pope in his pontifical robes, & an emperor also in his regalia;
the two were supporting a cross which was in the act of falling to
the ground. I forget if there was a legend on this side; but on the
other were a St. Paul and a St. Peter in more than half relief, with
this legend around them: ‘_Vnus spiritus, una fides erat in Eis._’
This coin brought me much honour, for I put great labour into it. As
the Pope put more gold into it than its value warranted, it soon was
melted down again.
A third coin of my making was in silver, of the value of two carlins,
on the one side of which was the head of the Pope, and on the other
side a St. Peter, just the moment after he has plunged into the sea
at the call of Christ, and Christ stretches out his hand to him in
most pleasing wise, and the legend to this was ‘_Quare dubitasti?_’
In Florence likewise did I make all the moneys for Duke Alexander the
first of that name; they were 40 soldi pieces. And because the Duke
was curly headed, the people called these coins the Duke’s curls.[81]
On one side was his head, and on the other St. Cosmo and St. Damian.
In like manner did I make the coins called _barile_ and _grossone_.
As I said above, the ancients had not the facilities for stamping
coins we have, & therefore we never see any of the beautiful
sort,[82] for coins should be made, or rather their dies, with the
purpose of striking with the greatest ease. To begin with, two steel
tools are needed, one called the _pila_ the other the _torsello_.
The _pila_ is in the form of a small stake or anvil, upon which the
medal you wish to press is cut in intaglio. The other tool, the
_torsello_, is about five fingers high, its face being the size of
your coin, and it gradually tapers off toward the end. Both _pila_
& _torsello_ are made of carefully chosen iron, with their heads
covered in the finest steel about one finger thick. With his file the
master gives them whatever shape & size his coin may need. Then he
makes a concoction of earth, powdered glass, soot from the chimney,
and bole of Armenia,[83] adds a little horse-dung to this, mixes it
all up into a paste with a man’s urine, & puts it on to the ends of
the _pila_ and the _torsello_ to the thickness of about a finger.
These he then puts into the fire, which should be strong enough to
raise them to bright redness;[84] keeping the fire up for, say, a
good winter’s night, he then lets them cool down by allowing the fire
to go out.[85] The exact size of the coins is now given to the ends
of the dies, barring about half the thickness of a knife’s back
all round the circumference, and the face of each is then ground on a
soft, polished stone until both _pila_ and _torsello_ are absolutely
smooth. Then with the compasses the exact size of the coin is drawn
upon them, & also with another pair of compasses the circumference of
the letters that form the legend round is marked. In order that these
compasses should not shift about, a pair should be specially made of
thick steel wire and of the exact size needed. It is best to have at
least two pairs of each kind, and also one pair that will open and
shut as you please. When this is done, the _pila_ is firmly set in a
big lump of lead of at least 100 lbs. in weight. After this you can
proceed to the engraving[86] of your coin on the die.
[Illustration: Coins and Medals from various collections]
You very carefully cut upon the finest steel your design, _e.g._,
the head of whatever prince you are serving, and in order to do this
nicely you must first have your steel well softened in the fire in
the way I showed you the _pila_ & _torsello_ were; only take heed
that your tool is of the very finest steel. And the tools with which
you work have to be made specially for the purpose. Thus for a head
I should make the tool in two pieces, and for the various figures
on the reverse of a coin I should use a number of different pieces
according to my discretion. Some have worked with very few, but in
so doing have much greater difficulty in sinking the design into the
die. The more such pieces you have, the easier it becomes; but you
must always give great care in the combination of your punches. And
this combining is done while the master is engaged in cutting the
intaglios by taking frequent impressions on a piece of polished tin,
to which you can give the right circumference with your compasses,
until you get the results you wish.
The tools used for this purpose have two names, in some instances
they are called _punzoni_ (punches), and in other cases _madre_
(matrices), and of a truth they are the mothers that may be said to
beget the figures and all the other things you fashion in the die of
your coins.[87] The men who did the best work in coining always did
the whole of the work upon either the punches or the matrices, and
never once touched up the dies with either gravers or chisels, for
that would be a great blunder, as all the various dies necessary for
making many impressions of the same coins, would be a bit different,
and thus cause slight differences in the coins themselves, and that
would be making things easy for forgers, whereas coins well wrought
in the way above described could be less easily copied. But I must
return to you, dear reader, where I left off above, with the _pila_
stuck in the lead.
Take your _madre_ or punches, and since it almost always is a
prince’s head that is cut into the _pila_, set to with the first
piece of your combination, and, fitting each into its place, strike
it a blow with the hammer, and lift hand and tool up as smartly and
rapidly as you brought them down, for if the _madre_ shift, even but
ever so slightly, it will tend to blurr your work. In like manner add
the limbs and the heads of your figures in such wise as your craft
and your experience shall teach you, and so on similarly any other
things, coats of arms, devices, beautiful alphabets, the beading for
the coins’ border, till all are well fashioned in both _pila_ and
_torsello_. And since I should omit nothing for your better guidance,
know that the hammer needful for stamping in the larger _madre_, such
for instance as a head would need, ought to weigh about 4 lbs., while
those requisite for the smaller punches may weigh less; those for the
smallest of all—for the beading for instance—may be very tiny—each
according!
When the sinking by both _pila_ and _torsello_ is completed, set
to and file off the superfluous margin right up to your border of
beading. See that it is strongly blunted[88] where you have filed
it towards the beading, for without this your die would spoil and
quickly perish, but where it is blunted it will not spoil. Then set
to and temper your steel;[89] to this end you heat it, and let it
glow, neither too much nor too little, but just sufficient to temper
it aright. And forasmuch as in the tempering a film is formed that
would tend to spoil your fair impression, you must take great care
to prevent it. As we say in the craft, the dies should be _rosso
appunto_, to the point of redness, neither more nor less; and to make
them so you do this. You take some clean iron scale[90] and place it
on a board and then rub _pila_ and _torsello_ alike on this until
they are thoroughly bright, and the film quite gone from them, and in
the same manner may you afterwards brighten your coins. And—another
little hint—you clean out the deeper parts of your dies with pieces
of pointed cork tipped with iron scale, & then everything is done &
you can give your dies to the stamper, at the mint.
I must not forget to tell you, as I promised, how it was that the
ancients never turned their coins out as well as we; & the reason of
it was because they cut their dies out direct with goldsmith’s tools,
gravers, chisels, punches, & that was very difficult for them to do,
especially as the mints needed a large number of these dies—_pile_
and _torselli_.
I need give you but one instance of what I mean, gentle reader, and
you will see how right I am. On one occasion when I was making the
dies for Pope Clement in Rome, I had to turn out thirty of these iron
_pile_ and _torselli_ in one day; had I gone to work in the manner of
the ancients, I could not have produced two, nor would they have been
as good. Thus it was that the ancients had to employ a large number
of die cutters, and these could never do their work as well as they
wished to do it, having never attained our facility.
But now will I tell you of medals which the ancients made
superlatively well; & whatever I may have omitted in dealing with
coins I will make up for in treating of medals, so that you shall
learn all in listening to both.
FOOTNOTES:
[79] _See the ‘Vita,’ Symonds, Book I., xlii._
[80] _Terribilissimi popolani._
[81] _E ricci del Duca Alexandro._
[82] _Meaning in the way Cellini describes them._
[83] _Terra di bolo Armenio_: _red earth that was and is used in
gilding grounds, &c._
[84] _Ricuocano._
[85] _Cellini’s method of hardening differs from that of Theophilus;
the latter in describing the tempering of files, Book III, Chapter
xvii., practically employs animal charcoal to case-harden his metal._
[86] _Cellini uses the words ‘stampare’ and ‘intagliare’ in their
generic as well as their specific sense._
[87] _What we should call engraved punches._
[88] _Bolso forte._ _This might be: ‘strongly backed,’_ i.e., _the
reverse of undercut_.
[89] _Cellini’s description is not very clear; see note, pp. 68 & 74._
[90] _Scaglia_: _perhaps fine oxide of iron. Professor Roberts-Austen
suggests that this may have been what is now called ‘rouge.’_