36 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[February, 



It is but fair to mention that this practice is forced upon the Italian 

 engraver, as he can neither transport gallery pictures nor frescoes to 

 his study. 



The landscape engravings of Italy are not successful. Frigid imi- 

 tators of Woollet in general, their works are far inferior to tliose of 

 tlmt admirable master. 



Sculpture is certainly tlie art which stands highest in Italy. Canova 

 rescued it from the infamy into which it had sunk, and his genius at 

 once raised it to excellence. If I say that that immortal artist has 

 worthy successors amongst his countrymen, I express, as strongly as 

 possible, a favourable opinion of the state of tlie art. If we are to 

 term that the Roman school of sculpture which reckons amongst its 

 professors all the great sculptors of various nations who make the 

 Eternal City their fixed place of residence, then we must, 1 tiiink, hold 

 that it is the first school existing. England is worthily representeil 

 in that united school. 1 shall not venture upon any comparison be- 

 tween it and our present British school; but it is an important fact, 

 and to its honour, that, before Canova resuscitated sculpture in 

 Italy, England could boast a succession of very eminent sculptors. I 

 may mention the estimation in which our great Flaxman is held in 

 Italy. " Flaxman," said a dislinguished artist to mo on one occasion, 

 "was the greatest sculptor the wcnld has known since the time of the 

 Greeks;" and this opinion is very general in Italy. I touched shortly 

 on the state of painting in the different Italian capitals. I shall pursue 

 the same course with sculpture, but more briefly still, merely remark- 

 ing that, with one or two exceptions, there are no Italian sculptors of 

 eminence out of Rome. 



In connection with the arts of painting and sculpture, we may now 

 consider mosaic work and cameo-cutting as practised in Rome. The 

 art of mosaic work has been known in Rome since the days of the re- 

 public. The severe rulers of that period forbade the introduction of 

 foreign marbles, and the re|mblican mosaics are all in black and white. 

 Under the empire the art was greatly improved, and not merely by 

 the introduction of marbles of various colours, but by the invention of 

 artificial stones, termed by the Italians smalti, which can be made of . 

 every variety of tint. 



This art was never entirely lost. On the introduction of pictures 

 into Christian temples, they were first made of mosaic; remaining 

 specimens of these are rude, but profoundly interesting in a historical 

 point of view. When art was restored in Itidy, mosaic also was im- 

 proved, but it attained its greatest perfection in the last and present 

 century. Roman mosaic, as now practised, maybe described as being 

 the production of pictures by connecting together numerous minute 

 pieces of coloured marble or artificial stones; these are attached to a 

 ground of co]iper by means of a strong cement of gum mastic, and other 

 materials, and are afterwards ground and polished as a stone would be 

 to a perfectly level surface ; by this art not only are ornaments made 

 on a small scale, but pictures of the largest size are copied. In former 

 times the largest cupolas of churches, and not unfrequently the entire 

 walls, were encrusted with mosaic. The most remarkable modern 

 works are the copies which have been executed of some of the most 

 important works of the great masters for the altars in St. Peter's. 

 These are in every respect perfect imitations of the originals ; and 

 when the originals, in spite of every care, must change and perish, 

 these mosaics will still convey to distant ages a perfect idea of the 

 triumphs of art achieved in the fifteenth century. The government 

 manufactory in Rome occupies the apartments in the Vatican which 

 were used as offices of the Inquisition. No copies are now made, but 

 cases of swia//i are shown, containing, it is said, 18,000 different tints. 

 Twenty years were employed in making one of the copies 1 have men- 

 tioned. The pieces of mosaic vary in size from an eighth to a six- 

 teenth of an inch, and eleven men were employed lor that time on 

 each picture. 



A great improvement was introduced into the art in 1775 by the 

 Signor Raffielli, who thought of preparing the small! in what may 1)0 

 termed fine threads. The pastes or xinaltt are manufactured at Venice 

 in the shape of crayons, or like sticks of sealing-wax, and are after- 

 wards drawn out by the workman ;it a blow-pipe, into the thickness 

 he requires, often almost to a liair, and now seldom thicker than the 

 finest grass stalk. For tables and large articles, of course, the pieces 

 are thicker; but the beauty of the workmanship, the soft gradation of 

 the tints, and the cost, depend upon the minuteness of the pieces, and 

 the skill dis])layed by the artist. A ruin, a group of flowers or figures, 

 will employ a good artist about two months when only two inches 

 square, and a specimen of such a description costs from 5/. to 20/., 

 according to the execution ; a landscaiie, six inches bv four, woulil re- 

 quire eighteen months, and woald cost from forty to fifty pounds. This 

 will strike you as no adequate remuneration for the time bestowed. 

 The finest ornaments for a lady, consisting of necklace, ear-rings, and 

 broocbi cost forty pounds. For a picture of Paestuin, eight feet long. 



and twenty inches broad, on which four men were occupied for three 

 years, 1,000/. sterling was asked. 



I shall now notice the mosaic work of Florence, before touching on 

 cameo-cutting. It differs entirely from Roman mosaic, being composed 

 of stones inserted in comparatively large masses ; it is called work in 

 pielra dura. The stones used are all more or less of a rare and pre- 

 cious nature. In old specimens the most beautiful works are those in 

 which the designs are of an arabesque character. The most remark- 

 able specimen of this description of pietra dura is an octagonal table 

 in the Oubinetio di Daroccio, in the Florence Gallery. It is valued at 

 20,000/. sterling, and was commenceil in IG23 by Jacopo Datelli, from 

 designs by Ligozzi. Tv.enty-two artists worked upon it without in- 

 terruption till it was terminated in the year 1(J49. Attempts at land- 

 scapes, and the imitation of natural objects, were usually failures in 

 former times, — mere works of labour, which did not attain their ob- 

 ject; but of late works have been produced in this art, in which are 

 represented groups of flowers and fruit, vases, musical instruments, 

 and other compatible objects, with a truth and beauty which excite 

 the utmost admiration and surprise. These pictures in stone are, 

 however, enormously expensive, and can only be seen in the palaces 

 of the great. Two tables in the Palazzo Pitti are valued at 7,000i., 

 and this price is by no means excessive. These are of modern design, 

 on a ground of porphyry, and ten men were employed for four years 

 on one of them, and a spot is pointed out, not more than three inches 

 square, on which a man had worked for ten months. But Florentine 

 mosaic, like that of Rome, is not merely used for cabinets, tables, or 

 other ornamental articles : the walls of the spacious chapel which is 

 used as the burial-place of the reigning family at Florence are lined 

 with pietra dura, realizing the gem-encrusted halls of the Arabian tales. 

 Roman mosaic, as we have seen, is of great value as an ally to art ; but 

 Florentine mosaic can have no such pretensions, and time and money 

 might be better bestowed. The effect is far from pleasing in the cha- 

 pel I have alluded to, and I think that the art might be advantageously 

 confined to the production of small ornaments, for which it is eminently 

 adapted. 



An imitation of the pietra dura is now made to a great extent in 

 Derbyshire, wh.ere the Duke of Devonshire's black marble, said to be 

 quite equal to the famous Nero Antico, is inlaid with malachite, Der- 

 byshire spars, and other stones ; but the inlaying is only by veneers, 

 and not done in the solid as at Florence. This, with the softness of 

 the materials, makes the Derbyshire work much cheaper, and yet for 

 a table, twenty to twenty-four inches in diameter, thirty guineas is 

 asked. Were a little more taste in design and skill in execution shewn, 

 the Derbyshire work might deserve to be more valued, as the mate- 

 rials, especially the black marble, are beautiful. 



I shall now return to cameo-cutting. This art is also of great anti- 

 quitv, and is pursued ^^■ith most success in Rome, where there are 

 several very eminent artists now living. Cameos are of two descrip- 

 tions, those cut in stone, ov pietia dura, and those cut in shell. Of the 

 first, the value depends on the stone, as well as in the excellence of 

 the work. The stones most prized now are the oriental onyx and the 

 sardonyx, the former black and white in parallel layers, the latter cor- 

 nelian, brown and white ; and when stones of four or five layers of dis- 

 tinct shades or colours can be procured, the value is |)roportionably 

 raised, pro\'ided always that the layers be so thin as to be manageable 

 in cutting the cameo so as to make the various parts harmonize. For 

 example, in a head of Minerva, if well wrought out of a stone of four 

 shades, the ground should be dark grey, the face light, the bust and 

 helmet black, and the crest over the helmet brownish or grey. Next 

 to such varieties of shades and layers, those stones are valuable in 

 which two layers occur of black and white of regular breadth. Except 

 on such oriental stones no good artist will now bestow his time ; but, 

 till the beginning of this centaury, less attention was bestowed on mate- 

 rials, so that beautiful middle-age and modern cameos may be found 

 on German agates, whose colours are generally only two shades of 

 grey, or a cream and a milk-white, and these not unfrequently cloudy. 

 The best artist in Rome in pitlra dura h the Signor Girometti, who 

 has executed eight cameos of various sizes, from lA to 3-i inches in 

 diameter, on picked stones of several layers, the subjects being from 

 the antique. These form a set of specimens, for which he asks 3,000/. 

 sterling. A single cameo of good brooch size, and of two colours, 

 costs -J'-'/. Portraits in stone by those excellent artists Diez and Saulini 

 may be had for 10/. These cameos are all wrought by a lathe with 

 pointed instruments of steel, and by means of diamond dust. 



Shell cameos are cut from large shells found on the African and 

 Brazilian coasts, and generally show only two layers, the ground being 

 either a pale coffee-colour or a deep reddish-orange : the latter is most 

 prized. The subject is cut with little steel chisels out of the white 

 portion of the shell. A fine shell is worth a guinea in Rome. Copies 

 from the antique, original designs, and portraits, are executed in the 



