January 1, 1896.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



17 



BOOKS RECEIVED. 



Prehistoric Man in Ai/rshire. By John Smith. (Elliot Stock.) 

 Illustrated. 12s. 6d. 



The Wild-Fowl and Sea-Fotcl of Great Britain. By A Son of 

 the Marshes. Edited by J. A. Owen. (Chapman & Hall.) Illustrated. 

 14s. 



Birds from Moidart and Elsewhere Drawn from Xature. By 

 Mrs. Hugh Blackburn. (David Douglas.) Illustrated. 



Euclid's Elements of Geometry. Edited by H. 31. Taylor, M A. 

 Books 1-6, 8, 11-12. (Cambridge Cuiversity Press.) os. 



Molecules and the Molecular Theory of Matter. By A. D. Bisteen. 

 (Quin & Co.) Illustrated. 8s. 6d. 



The Housing of the Working Classes. By Edward Bowmaker, 

 M.D. (Methuen.) 2s. 6d. 



Principles of Metallurgy. By A. H. Hiorns. (ilacmiUan.) 

 Illustrated. 6s. 



First-Stage Mechanics. By P. Rosenberg, M.A. (University 

 Correspondence College Press.) 2s. 



Practical Inorganic Chemistry. By G. S. Turpin, il.A.. D.Sc. 

 (MacmiUan.) Illustrated. 2s. 6d. 



An Almanack for 1S96. By Joseph Wliitaker, F.S.A. 



Dynamo Attendants and Their Dynamos. By A. H. Gribbings. 

 2ndEdition. (Rentell.) Is. 



Annuaire Astronomique pour 1S96. Par Camille Flammarion. 

 Illustrated. Ifr. 25c. 



The Influence of Literature on Architecture. By Arthur T. 

 Bolton. (London : 9, Conduit Street.) Illustrated. 

 , The History of Mankind. By F. Ratzel. Part III. (Macmillau.) 

 Illustrated. Is. 



ITALIAN MEDALS. 



By G. F. Hill. 



IT has long been customary to speak of coins and 

 medals'" together as if they were but species of the 

 same artistic genus ; and, in so far as method and 

 technique go to constitute a work of art, the connec- 

 tion is to some extent justified. But the objects for 

 which the two thmgs are produced are, it is needless to 

 insist, totally different. It has been usual to speak of 

 certain Syracusan coins as "medallions,'' but the only 

 excuse for the term is the unusually showy and magnificent 

 character of their design. The beautiful gold piece of 

 Eucratides, King of Bactria, now at Paris, may be meant 

 for a medal ; but its weight is equivalent to twenty staters, 

 and it must therefore remain in the doubtful class. Certain 

 " show-coins " struck in Germany at various times cannot 

 be classed with either species exclusively, for they could be 

 accepted as current coin. But if these are medals, they 

 are exceptions to the general rule that the medal is not 

 meant for circulation as a medium of exchange, and should 

 be regarded purely as a piece of metal work. The Roman 

 medallions, which were mentioned in a former paper, are 

 real medals, and were only considered along with Roman 

 coins for the sake of convenience. 



In the matter of medals the ItaUans hold that pre- 

 eminent position which belongs to the Greeks in coins. f 

 Like all the rest of the art of the early Renaissance, the 

 early medallic art of Italy, while stimulated and inspired 

 by the art of Rome, is by no means a mere imitation. It is 

 as distinctively Italian as the sculpture and painting of 

 the nation. Unlike the art of Greek coins, however, the 

 medallic art of Italy sprang into being fuUy developed, 

 and went through no primitive stages hke its sister, 

 sculpture. Sculpture of very considerable merit had existed 

 in Italy since the thirteenth century ; but it is not until 



* The term " medal ' was, until the present century, used in- 

 differently for coin (when re|i;arded as a curiosity or preserved in a 

 collection) or medal — more frequently the former. It is now 

 restricted iu English to mean the commemorative piece, though 

 often used by journalists to translate the French medailte, when 

 that word should be rendered '' coin." 



+ See •' Coinage of the Greeks," Knowledge, June, 1S95, and 

 '• The Coinage of Home," November, 1895. 



the middle of the fifteenth century that the medal 

 can be said to be established as a work of art in 

 Italy ; for a few exceptional pieces of earlier date need not 

 be considered. In 13S0 there was born at Verona, Vittore 

 Pisano, or Pisanello, of whom it may be said that had 

 Italy produced no other medaUist she would still have 

 stood at the head of the art. In all essentials Pisano 

 shows more power and more originality than any of his 

 successors. The medal is in the majority of cases, at least 

 in Italy, commemorative of a person ; portraiture, there- 

 fore, is an essential element, and such portraits as those of 

 Leonello, Marquis of Este (Fig. 3), or the Spaniard, Don 

 Inigo d'Avalos, Marquis of Pescara (Fig. 1), need no praise. 

 These two have been chosen for illustration because they 

 show the same hand working in two utterly different ways. 

 The Italian ruler's bust is in high relief ; the features are 

 modelled with extraordinary boldness and even severity. 

 There is nothing redundant, only just sufficient ornament 

 about the bust to prevent the total effect being bare. With 

 such a treatment of the head, Pisano has rightly avoided 

 the bare bust. But contrast with this the soft treatment 

 of the other portrait ; the delicate features raised in the 

 shallowest relief from the surface, and shaded by the broad 

 hat, with the drapery sweeping down in bold lines to 

 frame the face. Here nothing could be softer or less severe 

 than the treatment of the flesh, and with it aU there is no 

 lack of decision. 



Pisano seems to have stood alone among his contem- 

 poraries for the beauty of the reverses of his medals no 

 less than for his skill in portraiture. As a specimen we 

 may notice here the reverse of a medal of Alfonso V., 

 King of Aragon and the Two Sicilies (Fig. 2), which 

 represents the king as a boy hunting the boar. Nothing 

 can be finer than the action of the piece. The boar is 

 held by the left ear by a hound ; the king has seized it by 

 its other ear and is about to plunge his sword into its 

 flank. Behind is seen the tail of a second dog, and there 

 is a rocky background. Above is the legend Venator 

 Intrepidvs. The slight figure of the boyish king con- 

 trasts with the huge mass of the boar, and brings out 

 all the meaning of the epithet. Pisano was famous for 

 his delineation of animals ; and the loving care with which 

 he renders details, and the way in which he loses no 

 opportunity of introducing an animal into a scene, remind 

 us of Diirer. Zoologists will perhaps find something to 

 blame in Pisano's, as in Diirer's, animals. But this 

 need not detract from our praise of then* picturesqueness 

 and liveliness. The paintings of Pisano are very rare, but 

 the National Gallery possesses two, one of which, " The 

 Crucified Christ appearing to St. Eustace," should certainly 

 be studied in connection with his medals. 



Pisano's pre-eminence must justify the space here 

 devoted to him at the expense of his successors. Of these, 

 two must be mentioned here ; Matteo Pasti, of Verona, and 

 Speraudio, of Mantua. The former was actually a pupil of 

 Pisano, and it is possible to trace a resemblance in style 

 between the work of master and pupil. The bust of the 

 celebrated condottiere, Sigismondo Pandolfo di Malatesta 

 (Fig. 4), is as fine as anything by Pisano himself. The 

 reverse of Pasti's medal gives a view of Sigismondo's 

 castle at Rimini. The representation of a building is a 

 feat which almost every medallist thinks within his power, 



• " This man," says Symonds, the historian of the "Renaissance in 

 Italy" (Vol. I., p. 157), is " a true type of the princes who uuited s 

 romantic zeal for culture with the vices of barbarians." The last 

 phrase is hardly strong enough for the villauies which Sigismondo 

 committed, and with which his face, as here depicted, is in thorough 

 keeping. His portrait was also made by Fisauo, and the medais 

 should be compared with the splendid relief on the bate of a column 

 in the cathedral at Rimini. 



