306 IDENTIFICATION OF THE ARTISAN AND ARTIST. 



number of illustrations and examples, in proof of tliat principle wliicli I 

 have laid down. 



I will begin first, then, with illustrations from metal work. Now, the 

 period in which there was the greatest perfection in this sort of work, 

 as is universally acknowledged, is from about the fourteenth century — 

 1300, I think to IGOO, or at least after 1500. It is singular that, in that 

 period, five at least, very probably more — but we have it recorded of five 

 of the most distinguished sculptors whose works are now the most highly 

 prized, that they were ordinary working goldsmiths and silversmiths. 

 This is given us in their respective biograpliies: Benvenuto Cellini, Luca 

 della Eobbia, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, and Baccio Bandinelli, all 

 of whom were goldsmiths and workers at first, developed most extra- 

 ordinary talent as sculptors. How was this done ^ Can we conceive a 

 person who is merely a workman, working upon such plate as is put 

 before him, becoming a man of high first-class character in art? There 

 have been exami^les, but they are rare. But here we have five men, in a 

 limited period, becoming most eminent. Now, what was the reason of 

 that? It was because the jeweler, the silversmith, who worked with his 

 hands, was educated, not only as an artist, but an artist of the highest 

 class; and Vasari observes, in the life of Bandinelli, that in those times 

 no man was reputed a good goldstnith who was not a good draughtsman, 

 and who could not work as well in relief. We have a principle then 

 established, that the person who did the material work in -the finer works 

 was an artist, who could not only draw, but model, and did the same with 

 the metal itself; for that is the nature of that class of work of which I 

 have spoken. 



Now, take the life of Cellini. Here was a man who originally was put 

 to a totally diiferent employment. His father had no higher ambition 

 conceruiug him than that he should become a great player upon the 

 flute; and he teased him during all the last years of his life because he had 

 no taste for this, and would run after goldsmiths and others, and learn 

 the diiferent branches of their profession. He led the most wonderful 

 life. Ho was to day at Eome; next day at Florence; then he was at 

 Naples; then at Venice ; then in France; then back again : that he could 

 have done any work, in fact, seems incredible to any one who reads his 

 life. And he did not travel by train or any ijublic conveyance which 

 could take on his luggage. He traveled on horseback each time, from 

 Eome all the way to Paris. He had no luggage; he was a poor man, 

 and whenever he came and started his shop, he began by making his 

 own tools; and he worked with his scholars, who were generally young 

 men that became themselves eminent in the profession, in a little open 

 shop, looking to the street; there he himself hammered and carved and 

 cast and shaped, and did whatever else was necessary for the work. He 

 was an actual working goldsmith ; and the beauty of his works consists 

 in this, that they have the impress of genius so marked upon them, that 

 they never could have been designed by one person and executed by an- 



