60 Ancient and Modern Finger-rings. 



the annulus aurei, or privilege to wear a gold ring ; and this 

 license was much coveted, as it was a sort of patent of 

 nobility, the letter of the law requiring that the fathers and 

 grandfathers of those licentiates should have possessed a property 

 of 400,000 sesterces. At a later period, when the army he- 

 came the real power in the state, and the Prastorian Guard 

 frequently elected the emperor, the privilege of wearing the 

 gold ring was granted to all soldiers. The keeping of the 

 imperial ring (cura annuli) was confided to a state keeper ; as 

 the great seal, with us, is placed in custody of the Lord Chan- 

 cellor. The devices on Roman signet-rings were generally 

 subjects connected with the worship of the gods, or portraits 

 of friends or ancestors; and in many instances persons had 

 engraved upon their seal-rings symbolical allusions to the sup- 

 posed origin and history of their families. The seal-ring of the 

 dictator Sulla bore for device the figure of Jugurtha at the 

 moment of his being made prisoner. Pompey used a seal-ring 

 which bore three trophies in allusion to his three greatest 

 victories. Augustus first sealed with a sphinx, then with a 

 portrait of Alexander the Great, and lastly with his own por- 

 trait. This last custom became very usual ; a portrait on the 

 exterior of a letter at once making known its author ; just as 

 on the carte de visite of a modern exquisite, the photographed 

 perfections of his person identify him at once with his card, 

 without the necessity of a name. Many of the Roman rings 

 were wrought with the greatest skill, both in the designs of the 

 mounting, and the careful engraving of the device; as we 

 learn from numberless exquisite examples still in existence in 

 the great museums of Europe. 



It was in the Middle Ages, however, after a period of com- 

 parative barbarism in art, that the greatest degree of intricacy 

 in goldsmith's work, and especially in rings, began to display 

 itself. Rich enamel, in curious devices, usurped the place of 

 gems for a time, and designs in niello still further heightened 

 the artistic effects of small jewelry towards the close of the 15th 

 century. Benvenuto Cellini, the celebrated Italian sculptor, 

 jeweller, architect, and painter, brought the devices of the ring, 

 the brooch, and the ear-ring to a degree of elaboration and per- 

 fection never attained in the whole range of classical art, as far 

 as we know of it, and for a century afterwards it continued to 

 flourish. The quaint conceits of the devices, the effects pro- 

 duced, and sentiments conveyed, by the juxtaposition of various 

 gems, and the introduction of mottoes exquisitely written on 

 waving scrolls, produced a pleasing intricacy of design full of 

 meaning and often epigrammatic point, such as the jewellers of 

 more recent periods never dream of — jewel-making having fallen 

 from all the glory of art into all tho meanness of trade. 



