January 1, 1896.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



19 



The changes in style which we have described are, as 

 we have said, accompanied and partly caused by a change 

 in technicjuc, which we may now proceed to consider. 

 The early Paduan medals wore struck from dies, like the 

 coins of the period. liut from 1390 onwards for nearly 

 a century very few medals were struck. The workmen 

 who cut the coin-dies of the period could only work La low 

 relief, and it was difficult to make dies which would stand 

 the strain of being struck on large masses of metal. The 

 result was that most of the medals of the fifteenth century 

 were cast by the cire perdue process. It was thus possible 

 to obtain large pieces in high relief, a relief which it would be 

 difficult to obtain even with the hydraulic press of the 

 modern medallist. The use of the casting process left the 

 artist a free hand in design ; he modelled the two sides of 

 the medal in wax, instead of painfully engraving the dies for 

 them on some hard metal. The soft material naturally 

 enabled him to work boldly and in high relief. The wax 

 models were then impressed in some casting material — fine 

 sand or charcoal — and the two sides placed together. The 

 wax having been molted out, the mould was complete. The 

 first proofs were often taken in gold or silver, but extant 

 specimens in these metals are excessively rare ; some of 

 those supposed to be originals are apparently later casts. 

 The ordinary medal was cast in bronze or lead. The 

 latter metal was probably used because of the low tempera- 

 ture at which it melts, as well as because of its softness. 

 This was an important quality when the process of casting 

 was employed, because any roughness and inequalities left 

 by the mould had to be removed with the chasing tool. 

 From one of the original medals moulds could be made, 

 and in this way old medals were reproduced down to a late 

 date. These later pieces are somewhat smaller than the 

 older ones, owing to the shrinkage caused by cooling, and, 

 of course, the later the copy the worse the style. ' 



Early in the latter half of the fifteenth century there was 

 born at Venice, Vittore Gambello, better known as Camelius. 

 He was a goldsmith, a sculptor, and an engraver of coin- 

 dies, as well as a medallist. He was popularly supposed 

 to have been the first to strike medals, but, as Friedliinder | 

 has shown, and as we have seen, medals were struck at a 

 very much earlier period. What he did was to bring the 

 art of striking to a higher degree of perfection, so that 

 deeper relief could be obtained. He is last mentioned in 

 1523. In the sixteenth century almost all the medals were 

 struck from dies. The influence of the struck medals 

 naturally extended itself to those which were cast. Hence 

 a smaller size, lower relief, minuter detail, and, as a rule, 

 less bold design. The work very often resembles that of 

 the jeweller or gem-engraver, and, as we have seen, the 

 influence of painting was not unfelt. The influence of the 

 change in technique may best be seen in such an artist as 

 Pastorino, of 8iena, whose work we have already mentioned 

 as showing great finish. He seems to have devoted himself 

 to obtaining the delicacy and fineness of struck work on a 

 cast medal, and to have done so with success, for it is 

 sometimes hard to believe that his pieces are not struck, 

 so clean and sharp are they in execution. 



By the end of the sixteenth century the best traditions 

 of medallic art had become faint in Italy. A large series 

 of medals continued to be issued, especially by the Popes, 

 but the work is decidedly inferior. The best-known 

 medallists are, perhaps, Antonio Moro and Giovanni Mola, 

 who both worked in the seventeenth century. They were 

 followed later by Otto TIamerani (1091-1768), one of the 



* Of t.lio medals represcutotl in tlie pliite, all are of bi'onze save 

 throe (Nos. 8 and 9 of load, No. 10 of silver). Nos. 1 to 9 and tl are 

 cast, tlio rest struek; Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, and 11 have also been oUased. 



t Die Italieiiisi'hen Sclianmiinzeii, p. 3. 



medallists of the Papal Court, who is well known as an 

 engraver of medals for the exiled Stuart family. But 

 long before this time we have to turn to other countries 

 for medals that have either high artistic or high historical 

 interest. 



Those who wish to follow up the subject, of which only 

 the barest outline has been given above, will find full 

 information and plentiful illustrations in Friedlilnder's I>ie 

 Italienischen Sc/ianmiin^en des loten Jahrhunderts, and 

 Heiss's Li's Medailleurs de la Ixenaksanci'. These are large 

 and costly works ; but the British Museum Guide to the 

 K.rhibitiun of Italian Medals is within the reach of most 

 purses, and its illustrations are among the best of their 

 kind. 



Index to Plate. 



10. 

 11. 

 12. 



13. 



Don Inigo d'Avalos. By Pisano. Bronze. Cast and clia.sed. 

 Alfonso V. hunting the Boar. By Pisano. Bronze. Cast 



and ehased. 

 Leonello d'Este. By Pisano. Bronze. Cast and eliased. 

 Sigismondo Pandolfo di Malatesta, Eev. Castle of Rimini. 



By Pasti. Bronze. Cast and chased. 

 Federigo del Montefeltro. By Sporandio. Bronze. Cast. 

 Unknown Lady. By Pomedello. Bronze. Cast. 

 G-iovanni Tornabuoni. Bronze. Cast and chased. 

 Hercules in the Garden of the Hesperidcs. By Fontana. 



Lead. Cast. 

 Buonarentura di G-ruamonte. By Pastorino. Lead. Cast. 

 Massacre of the Huguenots. By Bonzagna. Silver. Struck. 

 Fame. Bronze. Cast and chased. 

 Eoraan Coin struck in Memory of Agrippini the Elder. 



Bronze. Struck. 

 Imitation of No. 12. By Cavino. Bronze. Struck. 



PARASITIC FLOWERING PLANTS.-THE 

 MISTLETOE AND DODDER. 



By J. Pentland Smith, M.A., B.Sc. 



ALL plants may be grouped into two classes, accord- 

 ing to their possession or non-possession of chloro- 

 phyll, and the latter class is sub-divided into two 

 groups, one of which is composed of those 

 organisms that prey upon other living organisms, 

 and the other of those plants which hve on the dead 

 bodies of once living beings. The name, parasite, has 

 been reserved for the members of the first group, and 

 the plant or animal attacked is called the host ; while the 

 members of the second are characterised as saprophytes. 



Fungi (mushrooms, moulds, etc.) compose by far the 

 great majority of parasites and saprophytes, but the 

 flowering plants are by no means unrepresented in either 

 category. 



The most familiar example of a parasitic flowering plant 

 is one that flourishes in England, and is much used for 

 decorative purposes at Christmastide. The mistletoe 

 grows abundantly in the South and West of England and 

 on the Continent. Its stem is stout, and much branched 

 in a regular manner. The main branch produces a flower, 

 and further apical growth then ceases. l>ut two lateral 

 branches arise at the same level below the flower. These 

 in turn bud and flower, but, before doing so, they pro- 

 duce two lateral branches like the parent stem. As 

 the flowers die away it appears as if each branch had 

 in turn divided into two branches. The evergreen 

 leaves are lance-shapod, and they and the stems have 

 either a dark or yellowish-green hue. Some plants bear 

 male flowers, others bear female. Both kinds of flower 

 are inconspicuous. The fruit is white, with a very viscid 

 juice. It is almost universally believed that the mistletoe 

 occurs on the oak. This tree is rarely its host; it 



