Luxury Arts of the Renaissance

Luxury Arts
of the Renaissance

M A R I N A B E L O Z E R S K AYA

THE J. PAUL GE T T Y M U S E U M
LOS ANGELES
Contents Abbreviations vi
Acknowledgments vii
Prologue 1

I The Demise of Luxury Arts 13

Rank, not Genius 14
Art Academy as Social Strategy 17
Vasari’s Imaginary Lives 21
“Art and Nature Play with One Another” 22
The Eighteenth Century: A Turning Point or Continuity? 30
The Age of Public Museums and Art Education 38
Back to the “Period Eye” 44

II The Powers of Gold and Precious Stones 47

The Spiritual Aura of Gold and Gems 50
The Magical Powers of Metals and Gems 56
Geography and Learning 58
Goldwork and Diplomacy 64
Gold, Automata, and the Culture of Wonder 69
The Royal Table 79
The Language of Personal Adornment 84

III Woven Narratives of Rule 89

Princely Art par Excellence 98
The Language of Allegories 102
Tapestries as Gifts and Competition 115
Tapestries for Social Climbing 117
Making and Marketing 121
IV Armor: The High Art of War 135
The Ubiquity of War, the Practicality of Armor 139
Chivalric Displays 147
Parade Armor: The Theater of Supremacy 157
Garnitures 168
Leading Armorers of the Day 170
Production and Techniques 176
Decorations 179

V Sweet Voices and Fanfares 187

Sacred Polyphony 191
Secular Songs 203
Instrumental Music 208
Dance 214
Court Festivities and Music 222

VI The Seduction of All Senses 227

The Wedding of the Century 229
The Ephemeral War 240
Civic Pride and Private Ostentation 249
The Final Journey and Perpetual Memory 256

Notes 263
Bibliography 267
Index 274
Abbreviations

attr. attributed to
ca. circa
ch. chapter
cm centimeter
diam. diameter
ed./eds. edited by/editors
edn. edition
exh. cat. exhibition catalogue
fl. flourished
ft. foot/feet
h. height
kg kilogram
lbs. pound(s)
m meter
r. ruled
rmn Réunion des Musées Nationaux, France
trans. translated/translator
w. width
wt. weight

vi
 Th e Powe r s o f Go ld a n d Pre c io u s Sto n e s
II
Afterwards the Duke caused his treasure and jewels to be shown to my lord which are beyond meas-
ure precious, so much so that one might say that he far outdid the Venetians’ treasure in precious stones
and pearls. It is said that nowhere in the world were such costly treasures, if only because of the hun-
dred thousand pound weight of beaten gold and silver gilt vessels which we saw in many cabinets, and
which were so abundant that we never thought to see the like.
— T h e T r av e l s o f L e o o f R o z m i t a l t h r o u g h G e r m a n y , F l a n d e r s , E n g l a n d ,
France, Spain, Portugal and Italy 1465 – 1467

Isabella d’Este, Marchioness of Mantua, was passionate about art (fig. ii-1).
She pestered Leonardo for anything by his hand; wrote detailed instructions to Andrea
Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini regarding the pictures she wished them to produce; and
kept abreast of the stocks, prices, and sales of antiquities through her dealers scattered
throughout Italy. Among the treasures they procured for her were a late second-century-
a.d. onyx vase carved for the Roman imperial family with the figures of Triptolemos
accompanied by Ceres and Fortuna and symbolic of Emperor Caracalla’s elevation to co-
regency with Septemius Severus (fig. ii-2), and a cameo depicting Augustus and Livia.
These pieces headed the 1542 inventory of Isabella’s possessions.1 Best known today for
her patronage of painters, Isabella expended far greater energy and resources acquiring
creations in rare stones and gold. Her Grotta, which served as a private retreat in the
Mantua palace, housed hundreds of gold, silver, and bronze medals and coins; dozens
of carved semiprecious vessels mounted in gold settings; numerous engraved gems and
cameos framed in gold; as well as bronze and marble statues.2 Like other Renaissance
worthies, Isabella sought ancient carvings in precious and semiprecious stones that
combined valuable materials, excellent craftsmanship, and ancient pedigree. She aug-
mented her holdings with objects inspired by ancient models. Among other commis-
sions she ordered a gold medal with her portrait in profile and her name spelled in
diamonds and colored enamel (fig. ii-3).3

47
48 chapter ii
 Fig. ii-2. Fig. ii-3.
Roman vase, ca. a.d. 54. Gian Cristoforo Romano
Five-layered sardonyx, (Italian, ca. 1470–1512),
h. 15.3 cm (6 in.). Medal of Isabella d’Este,
Brunswick, Herzog Anton ca. 1505. Gold, diamonds,
Ulrich-Museum – and enamel. Vienna,
Kunstmuseum des Landes Kunsthistorisches Museum,
Niedersachsen, inv. Münzkabinett, inv. 6.272 bß.
gem 300. Photographer:
Bernd-Peter Keiser.

Fig. ii-1. When Isabella came to divide her belongings among her heirs, she distributed
Leonardo da Vinci
(Italian, 1452–1519), Portrait
them in accordance with contemporary notions of their importance. To her daughters,
of Isabella d’Este, 1499. who were nuns, she left ivories from her oratory; to her son Cardinal Ercole, an emer-
Black and red chalk on ald engraved with the head of Christ, which had belonged to her father; to her son
paper, 63 ⫻ 46 cm
(247⁄8 ⫻ 181⁄8 in.). Paris,
Federigo, her most prized articles—the contents of the Grotta “for his delight and pleas-
Musée du Louvre, Cabinet ure.” Her favorite ladies-in-waiting, meanwhile, each received a painting of their choice.4
des Dessins. Photo: Isabella’s collecting practices and enthusiasms were typical of her age.
rmn/Art Resource, NY.
Photographer: Michele Contemporary written and pictorial sources make it clear that objects rendered in gold
Bellot. and precious stones were among the most admired and valued e!ects of the elites
because they communicated the status and refinement of their owners, radiated spiritu-
al authority, and possessed medicinal and magical powers.5

the powers of gold and precious stones 49

 The Spiritual Aura of Gold and Gems

The beauty and intrinsic worth of precious metals and stones constituted part
of their prestige. Their exaltation in the Bible endowed these materials with spiritual
preeminence. Gold and gems gleam in many Biblical passages as substances that reflect
the glory of God. The books of Exodus and Revelation give the most influential texts. In
Exodus 25 God enjoins Moses to fashion a sanctuary worthy of Him: an ark of shittim-
wood overlaid with pure gold, a mercy seat of pure gold flanked by two golden cheru-
bim, an o!ering table overlaid with gold and set with dishes of pure gold, and a meno-
rah of pure gold to hold the seven candles. In Exodus 28, stipulating the attire for his
high priest Aaron, God calls for garments made of gold, blue wool, and purple and scar-
let linen (the costliest dyes) and a Breastplate of Judgment made “with cunning work.”
It is to be foursquare and set with four rows of stones—sard, topaz, and carbuncle in the
first row; emerald, sapphire, and diamond in the second; ligure, agate, and amethyst in
the third; and beryl, onyx, and jasper in the fourth. All of the stones are to be encased
in gold and engraved with the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel.
In the eyes of God, gems and gold were the most fitting o!erings his subjects
could make to Him. Therefore, the materials enumerated in Exodus attained canonical
status. In Revelation (21.11, 18–21) they form the very building blocks of Heavenly
Jerusalem:

And her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal;
. . . and the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear
glass. And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious
stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the
fourth, an emerald; the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolyte; the eighth,
beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an
amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl; and
the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.

By endowing precious stones and metals with spiritual authority, the Bible nur-
tured the perception of these substances as sanctified and gave rise to numerous learned
commentaries on their numinous properties.
Among the most eloquent witnesses to such an understanding of goldwork and
gems was Suger (1081 – 1151), Abbot of the French royal Church of Saint-Denis, which
he rebuilt and adorned with devotion and discernment. Suger recorded his achievement
and justified his use of sumptuous materials in a treatise on the administration of
Saint-Denis. Although he lived and wrote in the twelfth century, his views on the spiri-
tual properties of precious objects were shared by the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century
faithful:

Often we contemplate, out of sheer a!ection for the church our mother, these di!erent orna-
ments both new and old; and when we behold how that wonderful cross of St. Eloy— togeth-
er with the smaller ones — and that incomparable ornament commonly called “the Crest” are
placed upon the golden altar, then I say, sighing deeply in my heart: Every precious stone was
thy covering, the sardus, the topaz, and the jasper, the chrysolite, and the onyx, and the beryl,
the sapphire, and the carbuncle, and the emerald. To those who know the properties of pre-

50 chapter ii
Fig. ii-4.
Etienne-Eloi de Labarre,
Abbot Suger’s Crista, 1794.
Watercolor on paper,
57.3 ⫻ 41.6 cm
(22 1⁄2 ⫻ 16 3⁄8 in.). Paris.
Bibliothèque nationale de
France, Cabinet des
Estampes, Le 38c.

cious stones it becomes evident, to their utter astonishment, that none is absent from the
number of these . . . but that they abound most copiously. Thus, when — out of my delight in
the beauty of the house of God — the loveliness of the many-colored gems has called me away
from the external cares, and worthy meditation has induced me to reflect, transferring that
which is material to that which is immaterial, on the diversity of the sacred virtues; then it
seems to me that I see myself dwelling, as it were in some strange region of the universe
which neither exists entirely in the slime of the earth not entirely in the purity of Heaven;
and that, by the grace of God, I can be transported from this inferior to that higher world in
an anagogical manner.6

the powers of gold and precious stones 51

 For Suger, as well as for Renaissance believers, gold and gems reflected divine
luminosity; their contemplation transported the faithful closer to God and brought
something of divine majesty to the world of men. Beholding the jeweled cross of Saint
Eloy and the Crest, or Crista (fig. ii-4)—the screen reliquary radiant with gold and
ancient gems that decorated the altar of Saint-Denis—Suger recalled biblical texts
(such as the passage from Ezekiel italicized above) and the heavenly visions they sought
to transmit. In this way the Bible transformed sumptuous materials into spiritual
conductors.
Gold and gems, moreover, were, not only most suitable o!erings to God, but
also generous gifts from Him. Detailing the embellishments at Saint-Denis, Suger clari-
fied this exchange: “We have thought it proper to place on record the description of the
ornaments of the church by which the Hand of God, during our administration, has
adorned His church, His Chosen Bride.”7
Magnificence was integral to religious ritual, so God and man had to provide
for it. As historian Richard Goldthwaite has cogently analyzed:

This penchant for luxury arose in part from the structuring of religious practice around a
complex liturgy and a body of objects that required appropriate display. Since the mass was
regarded as a drama performed exclusively by a priest and re-creating the most dramatic
moments in the life of the deity, its performance was a veritable spectacle, involving the
priest in much moving around and requiring that all those things needed for the execution
of the ritual— from the priest isolated on the stage around the altar to the church itself —
contribute to a mystical and dramatic impact on the lay public. All the material objects need-
ed for such a performance, in other words, had a significant and conspicuous presence in
what was in e!ect a theatrical performance, and they had to be endowed with appropriate
physical attributes of religious splendor. Moreover, the building in which this drama was
played out received consecration for this specific purpose; and as sanctified space reflecting
the heavenly city of God, it too demanded appropriate embellishment.8

Suger was emphatic about the necessity of resplendence in divine service:

To me, I confess, one thing has always seemed preeminently fitting: that every costlier or
costliest thing should serve, first and foremost, for the administration of the Holy Eucharist.
If golden pouring vessels, golden vials, golden little mortars used to serve, by the word of God
or command of the Prophet, to collect the blood of goats or calves or the red heifer: how
much more must golden vessels, precious stones, and whatever is most valued among all cre-
ated things, be laid out, with continual reverence and full devotion, for the reception of the
blood of Christ!9

There were, of course, those who saw simplicity as a more fitting expression of
devotion, those for whom splendor tempted the mind and soul away from God.
Answering such critics, particularly his contemporary Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux (the
later Saint Bernard), Suger insisted:

The detractors also object that a saintly mind, a pure heart, a faithful intention ought to
suffice for this sacred function; and we, too, explicitly and especially affirm that it is these
that principally matter. [But] we profess that we must do homage also through the outward

52 chapter ii
 ornaments of sacred vessels, and to nothing in the world in an equal degree as to the service
of the Holy Sacrifice, with all the inner purity and with all outward splendor. For it behooves
us most becomingly to serve Our Saviour in all things in a universal way— Him Who has not
refused to provide for us in all things in a universal way and without exception.10

Suger inscribed this striving to serve God in the most becoming manner on
the very objects he acquired for His church. One precious ewer, for example, bore the
following verse:

Since we must o!er libations to God with gems and gold,

I, Suger, o!er this vase to the Lord.11

Precious materials, in other words, served to define the majesty of God, his
saints, and his priesthood. Eulogizing Pope Leo x (r. 1513–1521) four centuries later,
Zaccaria Ferrari described papal majesty through the pope’s sumptuous appearance:
“And we see the Medici Pope gleaming with jewels and gold, wearing the tiara shining
with celestial light and seated to universal acclamation on the sublime throne.”12 As
guardian of the most important church in Christendom, Leo was obliged to uphold the
dignity of his office through his dazzling attire, ceremonies, and o!erings. Thus, among
the furnishings he bestowed on Saint Peter’s and the Sistine Chapel were a silver-gilt
liturgical dish set with crystal, rubies, and sapphires, and a set of magnificent tapestries
designed by Raphael (see pp. 110–14).13 It was not the sanctioned pontifical use of such
objects but rather Leo’s personal abuse of the grandeur of his office that spurred
Luther’s attack on the profligate practices of the papacy and led to the Protestant sepa-
ration of spirituality from splendor and the attempt to strip the Church of luxurious
trappings.
Lavish o!erings to the Church reflected not only the glory of God but also the
status of the donor. As vicars of God on earth, secular rulers presented rich gifts to God
and the saints both to express their piety and to proclaim their rank. According to an
anonymous late fourteenth-century chronicler of the reign of Charles vi of France, the
king’s uncle, Jean, Duke de Berry,

was distinguished among the princes of the blood by his munificence, and he endowed sev-
eral churches of the realm with relics and with joyaux enriched with gems. The royal
monastery of St. Denis and the chapter of Notre-Dame-de-Paris must especially acknowledge
this if they are not to incur the reproach of ingratitude. He enjoyed continually import-
ing rubies, sapphires, and emeralds from the Orient. He also liked craftsmen who worked
with pearls and precious stones, and from them he often ordered chasubles, copes, and other
ecclesiastical ornaments enriched by gold fringes and of almost inestimable value. These
were so numerous that he could have clothed with equal splendor the canons of three cathe-
drals. Animated always by an ardent devotion to the service of God, he maintained in his
home many chaplains who day and night sang the praise of God and celebrated mass, and
he took care to compliment them whenever the service lasted longer or was more elaborate
than usual.14

Jean de Berry honored the Lord and His saints, not only with a private musical
choir, but also with a personal collection of holy relics, common for rulers of the day.

the powers of gold and precious stones 53

Fig. ii-5. Fig. ii-6.
Reliquary of the Holy Thorn, Gérard Loyet, Reliquary
made for Jean de Berry, ca. of Charles the Bold,
1405–1410. Gold, enamel, 1467–1471. Gold and
sapphire, gems, pearls, h. enamel, h. ca. 1.3 m (51 in.).
30.5 cm (12 in.). London, Liège, Cathedral Treasury.
The British Museum, The © irpa-kik, Brussels.
Waddesdon Bequest, no. 67.
© Copyright The Trustees
of The British Museum.

54 chapter ii
 Fig. ii-7.
Henri Soete, Reliquary
bust of Saint Lambert,
1505–1512. Liège,
Cathedral Treasury.
© irpa-kik, Brussels.

Sacred remains were typically encased in receptacles of precious metals and stones.
Berry’s gold Reliquary of the Holy Thorn provided a setting for a remnant of the crown
of thorns worn by Christ during the Passion (fig. ii-5). The thorn itself rests behind a
large cabochon sapphire in the central niche, underneath Christ sitting in Judgment and
between the supplicating Virgin Mary and Saint John. At the apex of the reliquary God
the Father, crowned and holding a scepter and an orb, is framed by a golden halo made
more radiant by gems and pearls. Apostles and angels surround the niche with Christ;
the Dead rise from the verdant hillock below, awakened by the trumpeting angels.

the powers of gold and precious stones 55

 Dedications of rich reliquaries were motivated by various concerns: desire
to safeguard precious remains; calculation to attract renown and pilgrimage by aug-
menting the aura of relics through splendid presentation; and demonstration of the
wealth and power of a given institution and of the history that brought it such fortune.15
Some reliquaries came about as votive donations. Many rulers o!ered votives in pre-
cious metals to express their devotion, fulfill a vow, and mark their authority over a city
and its shrines.16
In 1471 Charles the Bold of Burgundy bestowed on the cathedral of Liège a gold
ensemble representing himself in the act of donating a reliquary to Saint Lambert (fig.
ii-6). About 130 cm (51 in.) tall, the group was fashioned by the ducal goldsmith Gérard
Loyet. The faces of Charles and Saint George, his patron saint, are enameled in flesh
tones, with rosy cheeks, dark eyes, lashes, and brows. A cushion under the duke’s knees
imitates a gold design on a blue velvet ground. The dragon vanquished by Saint George
has a green enameled hide and glowing red eyes. Ducal armorial devices, once riveted
to the base, are now only intimated by the holes for their attachment, but Charles’s
motto, Je lay Emprins (“I undertook it”), is still visible. Charles commissioned the group
to fulfill a vow — an o!ering of thanks to Saint Lambert for helping him subjugate
Liège, which had twice risen in revolt against him.17 After the city’s decisive defeat in
1468, as his troops pillaged Liège, Charles assiduously protected Saint Lambert’s bones
and his church. By literally taking hold of the relics and later returning them to the saint
in a resplendent container that perpetuated his homage, the duke asserted his hegemo-
ny over Liège in both political and religious terms. He stipulated, moreover, that this
votive be displayed prominently during the special Mass to be celebrated henceforth
every Friday “for peace and for the lord Duke.” The duke’s gold votive honored his divine
aides and himself in a manner worthy of all three.
Many Renaissance reliquaries were fashioned predominantly of precious met-
als. The early sixteenth-century bishop Erard de la Marck ordered a massive —more
than 1.5 m (5 ft.) tall— reliquary bust for the bones of Saint Lambert preserved in the
Cathedral of Saint Lambert in Liège (fig. ii-7). This reliquary honored the saint through
its materials — gold, silver, and gems; the greater than life-size “portrait”; and, on the
base, sculptural scenes commemorating key events of his life.

The Magical Powers of Metals and Gems

The biblical use of gold and gems on the Breastplate of Judgment and in the
architectural fabric of the Heavenly Jerusalem endowed these materials with spiritual
virtues, but the tradition of ascribing magical and medicinal properties to them went
back to pagan antiquity. Medieval and Renaissance treatises on the healing properties
of stones and metals drew heavily on Theophrastus, Pliny, and other ancient authors
and coexisted with biblical exegeses.18 One of the most influential medieval lapidaries,
De lapidibus (On stones), was written by Marbode, Bishop of Rennes in Brittany,
between 1067 and 1081.19 A practical guide to the therapeutic uses of minerals, it
enjoyed a vast circulation among monks, apothecaries, physicians, goldsmiths, and
rulers across Europe and provided the basis for many subsequent compendia. More
than a hundred manuscripts of this work survive in Latin, French, Provençal, Italian,
Irish, Danish, Hebrew, and Spanish.

56 chapter ii
 Marbode’s lapidary described some sixty stones and their powers. Diamonds,
for example, made their wearer indomitable, drove o! idle dreams and spirits in the
night, warded o! black poison, cured madness, and overcame strife. Sapphires, fit only
for the hands of kings, preserved one from injury and fraud, conquered envy and terror,
liberated one from prison, and promoted concord; they purified the eyes, cooled the
body, made the wearer beloved by God and diligent in prayer; they also fostered chas-
tity, although the last quality apparently failed to work for the duke of Burgundy, Philip
the Good, who owned countless sapphires and fathered scores of bastards. Emeralds,
meanwhile, helped men recover lost objects, aided in divination, made the wearer elo-
quent and persuasive, cured epilepsy, rested the eyes, averted tempests, and held in
check licentious emotions. Amethysts prevented drunkenness, carnelians restrained
anger, agates brought victory, and so forth.
Another major treatise, De mineralibus, composed by Albertus Magnus in the
middle of the thirteenth century, catalogued the properties of stones and metals and
addressed theories of mineral formation. Based on the practical knowledge of lapidaries,
alchemists, and pharmacists, the compendium was recopied countless times and issued
in printed editions in 1495 and 1518.20 Therapeutic applications of precious stones and
metals were widespread in the Renaissance. During Lorenzo de’ Medici’s last illness in
1492 his physicians treated him with a potion composed of ground gems. Lorenzo’s
court philosopher Marsilio Ficino, meanwhile, outlined an entire program of mineralog-
ical and astrological medicines best suited for the health of an intellectual.21 Drawing on
ancient and medieval authorities, Ficino’s De triplici vita (1489; trans. as Three Books on
Life, 1989) prescribed gold and gems as potent curatives. Being incorruptible, gold could
impart such a quality to man; thus Ficino o!ered a recipe for gold or magical pills that
strengthened individual body parts and sharpened and illuminated the spirits.22
Another elixir was to be prepared in the following manner:

Take four ounces of sweet almonds, two ounces of pine-nuts, four ounces of hard sugar which
they call “candy,” and one and one half pounds of the other kind of sugar. Infuse all these
things in rose-, lemon-, and citron-water in which red-hot gold and silver have been extin-
guished; boil it all gently. Finally, add one dram apiece of cinnamon, red ben, red sandal, and
red coral, one-half dram apiece of the brightest pearls, sa!ron, and raw scarlet silk which has
been pounded up very fine, twelve grains apiece of gold and silver, and one-third dram apiece
of jacinth, emerald, sapphire, and carbuncle.23

Ficino further elucidated how to use metals and gems to call down the benefi-
cial influence of the planets, for each celestial body was attracted to and acted through
terrestrial matter:

If you want your body and spirit to receive power from some member of the cosmos, say
from the Sun, seek the things which above all are most Solar among metals and gems, still
more among plants, and more yet among animals, especially human beings. . . . These must
both be brought to bear externally and, so far as possible, taken internally, especially in the
day and the hour of the Sun and while the Sun is dominant in a theme of heavens. Solar
things are: all those gems and flowers which are called heliotrope because they turn towards
the sun, likewise gold, chrysolite, carbuncle, myrrh, frankincense, musk, amber, balsam, yel-
low honey, sweet calamus, sa!ron, spikenard, cinnamon, aloe-wood and the rest of the spices.

the powers of gold and precious stones 57

 In the same way, so that your body may not be deprived of Jupiter, take physical exercise in
Jupiter’s day and hour and when he is reigning; and in the meantime use Jovial things such
as silver, jacinth, topaz, coral, crystal, beryl, spodium, sapphire, green and airy colors, wine,
sugar, white honey.24

We may feel tempted to dismiss these recipes as ignorant superstitions. But the
fact that they were set down in learned treatises by the leading minds of the time and
used by men such as Lorenzo de’ Medici invites us to hold back judgment and reflect on
the very di!erent mindset and world view of the Renaissance.

Geography and Learning

Today gems are expensive, but ubiquitous. In the Renaissance they were the
preserve of the lofty and deserving few —and more potent for being exotic. Imported
from faraway lands, gems radiated, not only spiritual authority and talismanic powers,
but also the mystery and enchantment of the East.25 Rubies hailed from India and
Ceylon; sapphires from Ceylon, Arabia, and Persia; emeralds from Egypt; diamonds
from India and Central Africa. In 1437 the Spanish merchant Pero Tafur, while visiting
the monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai, witnessed an Indian caravan with

so many camels . . . that I cannot give an account of them, as I do not wish to appear to speak
extravagantly. This caravan carries all the spices, pearls, precious stones and gold, perfumes,
and linen, and parrots, and cats from India, with many other things, which they distribute
throughout the world. One half goes to Babylonia, and from there to Alexandria, and the rest
to Damascus, and thence to the port of Beirut.26

The bazaar of Cairo was another fabled mart for precious substances of every
sort. The Venetians, with their long-standing trade privileges in the East, acted as the
chief intermediaries in the transport of these goods to the West. When Albrecht Dürer
stayed in Venice in 1506, he spent much of his time hunting for gems and jewels for his
humanist friend and patron Willibald Pirkheimer, a wealthy Nuremberg patrician. In
one letter Dürer reports: “Now, as to what you commissioned me, namely, to buy a few
pearls and precious stones—you must know that I can find nothing good enough or
worth the money; everything is snapped up by the Germans.”27 In another missive he
sends this update:

I send you herewith a ring with a sapphire about which you wrote so urgently. I could not
send it sooner, for the past two days I have been running around to all the German and Italian
goldsmiths that are in all Venice with a good assistant whom I hired . . . so I hope that you
will like it. Everybody says that it is a good stone, and that in Germany it would be worth
about 50 florins; however, you will know whether they tell truth or lies. I understand noth-
ing about it.28

The ownership of rare and precious objects reinforced social hierarchy, not
only because it required great financial resources, but also because it demanded learn-
ing necessary to appreciate and interpret the qualities of these materials.29 Men like

58 chapter ii
 Fig. ii-8.
Interior of the Farnese Cup,
Roman (possibly from
Alexandria), first century
b.c. Cameo of four-layered
sardonyx and agate, diam.
20 cm (77⁄8 in.). Naples,
National Archaeological
Museum, inv. 27611.

Abbot Suger, the duke de Berry, Lorenzo de’ Medici, and Willibald Pirkheimer enjoyed
an education that enabled them to identify the magical properties, moral meanings,
scriptural associations, and other virtues of stones and goldwork and to make fine judg-
ments as to what constituted a proper object of admiration and what did not.
The taste and discernment of Lorenzo de’ Medici is readily traceable today
because he habitually engraved his possessions with his initials: lav. r. med, with r
standing for “Rexque paterque,” Horace’s title for the great Roman art patron Maecenas
(Epistulae 1.7.37). Lorenzo’s collection contained creations in rock crystal, jasper,
amethyst, sardonyx, chalcedony, agate, porphyry, and other numinous materials set in
gold. He owned the Farnese Cup (fig. ii-8)—an ancient bowl of sardonyx valued in his
inventories at ten thousand florins. Among his jewels was a pearl of some thirty-eight
carats, pure and perfect in color and texture, valued at three thousand florins. In com-
parison, his paintings were valued at one to ten florins each.30
Numerous ancient gems and vessels of semiprecious stones survived and circu-
lated in Europe and the East among rulers and ecclesiastical institutions. Many of them
came to Italy through Venetian commercial traffic in Byzantium, Syria, Egypt, and the
Holy Land. Some were booty from the Crusades.31 The Basilica of Saint Mark in Venice
was conspicuously, if not militantly, aglow with such treasures, many of them trophies

the powers of gold and precious stones 59

Fig. ii-9.
Vase in the form of an
eagle, called the “Eagle of
Suger.” Ancient Egyptian or
Roman porphyry vase with
twelfth-century gold-and-
silver mount, h. 43 cm
(167⁄8 in.). Paris, Musée du
Louvre, inv. mr 422. Photo:
rmn/Art Resource, NY.
Photographer:
Daniel Arnaudet.

of the sack of Constantinople in 1204.32 Reset in contemporary mounts, ancient carvings

assumed or were assigned new (often christianized) roles. Abbot Suger documented
such transformations at Saint-Denis:

And further we adapted for the service of the altar, with the aid of gold and silver material,
Fig. ii-10.
a porphyry vase, made admirably by the hand of the sculptor and polisher, after it had lain
Chalice of Abbot Suger,
idly in a chest for many years, converting it from a flagon into the shape of an eagle; and we second–first century b.c.
had the following verses inscribed on this vase: “This stone deserves to be enclosed in gems vase from Alexandria with
twelfth-century French
and gold. It was marble, but in these [settings] it is more precious than marble.”33
mounts. Sardonyx cup, gilt
silver mounts with precious
Suger’s eagle vase survives (fig. ii-9): an Egyptian or Imperial Roman work, it stones, pearls, glass insets,
and white glass pearls,
has been placed in a twelfth-century gold mount.34 Another vessel described by Suger h. 18.4 cm (71⁄4 in.).
as a “precious chalice out of one solid sardonyx” is likewise an ancient work (fig. ii-10). Washington, D.C., National
Likely made in the second century b.c. in Alexandria, it was augmented in Suger’s time Gallery of Art, Widener
Collection, inv. 1942.9.277
with a gem-studded gold mount and further elaborated in the seventeenth century to (da). Photographer:
suit another change in taste. Philip A. Charles.

60 chapter ii
Fig. ii-12. Fig. ii-13.
Cup with the initials of Crystal ewer, Egypt, tenth
Lorenzo de’ Medici, Central century, with sixteenth-
Asia (Timurid), fifteenth century metal mounts.
century. Jade, h. 5.4 cm Venice, Treasury of San
(21⁄8 in.), diam. 12 cm Marco, inv. 80. By permis-
(43⁄4 in.). Florence, Museo sion of the Procuratoria di
di Mineralogia e Litologia, San Marco, Venice.
inv. 13636.

Paris and Venice—one a center of royal patronage, the other the emporium for
luxury arts — were chief production centers of new creations in precious and semi-
precious stones inspired by ancient exemplars. Lorenzo de’ Medici had a jasper vase
manufactured in the Republic of Venice (fig. ii-11); and Duke de Berry’s inventories
refer to objects carved from chalcedony and crystal as “work of Venice.”35 Eastern arti-
facts, meanwhile, were prized for their refinement and exoticism. The Medici owned
a jade cup of Timurid origin with Lorenzo’s initials, lav, prominently carved on it (fig.
ii-12). Fatimid cut crystal from Egypt constituted another valuable mark of distinction.
The inventories of the duke de Berry list “a crystal ewer, worked with animals, with a
Fig. ii-11.
handle of the same mounted in gold,” and “a crystal ewer, worked with foliage and birds,
Medici workshop, Jasper mounted in silver-gilt.”36 A similar object, reset in a sixteenth-century metal frame,
vase, Venice, fourteenth– belongs to the Treasury of Saint Mark’s in Venice (fig. ii-13). Its original owner, accord-
ing to a carved inscription, was the fifth Fatimid caliph al-‘Aziz Bi’lla-h (r. 975–996).37
sixteenth century; Giusto
da Firenze, gilt and enamel
mounts, mid-fifteenth cen- The Medici, too, owned a Fatimid ewer, such artifacts connoting the far-flung power and
tury. Florence, Museo degli cultivation of their owners. The movement of these objects from the East to the West
Argenti, inv. 1921, n. 638.
Photo: Erich Lessing/Art
reflected not only commerce and conquest but an ongoing cultural dialogue and diplo-
Resource, NY. matic exchange, di!erences of faith notwithstanding.

the powers of gold and precious stones 63

 Goldwork and Diplomacy

Elaborate ensembles of gold- and stonework, alongside tapestries and

textiles, armor and rare animals, formed the most suitable gifts among roy-
alty, their layered symbolic capital rendering them appropriate for the lofti-
est recipients. On New Year’s Day, when princes exchanged gifts with their
family and entourage, they habitually presented to their consorts, and
received from their courtiers, pieces of ingeniously crafted goldwork.
The gifts given by Henry viii Tudor, his wives, and familiars are doc-
umented by detailed court records, each o!ering strictly correlated
to the receiver’s rank.38 Thus the New Year Gift Roll for 1534 notes
that the queen— then Anne Boleyn— presented the king with
a table fountain designed by Hans Holbein, while Thomas
Cromwell gave the king a ewer of mother-of-pearl garnished with
gold.39 These pieces have perished, but several designs for com-
parable goldwork drawn up by Holbein—such as a cup that the
king had intended for Jane Seymour (fig. ii-14) — capture the
grandeur of royal exchanges.
The preservation of a few objects together with docu-
ments detailing their histories permits their study at the intersec-
tion of precious materials, fine workmanship, diplomatic relations,
and capital. The Goldenes Rössl (golden pony) was given by Isabella
of Bavaria to her husband, Charles vi, King of France, on 1 January
1404 (fig. ii-15). The royal inventory describes it precisely, enumer-
ating each figurative component and every gem.40 Gems and pearls
formed key parts of princely goldwork and comprised the greatest
value of any given ensemble. Hence they were carefully registered
in inventories and account books in case the precious stones were
removed or replaced, as they often were. All figures in the Goldenes
Rössl—the Madonna with Child, the angels holding a crown over
her head, the infant saints at her feet, the kneeling Charles vi, his
marshal, groom, and pony—are gold forms accented with enamel,
which gives color to the garments and flesh. Enameled goldwork
enjoyed great popularity in princely circles from the late fourteenth through the six-
teenth century (and its appeal endured into more recent times, as Fabergé creations for
the Russian czars indicate). King Charles vi doubtless rejoiced at the receipt of the
Goldenes Rössl. Yet a year later the ensemble, along with other similar works, was
pawned to Queen Isabella’s brother, the duke of Bavaria, in exchange for much-needed
Fig. ii-14. cash.41 Pawning or melting down was the fate of much goldwork, for aside from its spir-
Hans Holbein the
Younger (German,
itual connotations and aesthetic merits, it functioned as a form of deposit banking, read-
1497?–1543), Design for ily convertible into cash should the ruler or his heirs fall short. Millard Meiss has
the Jane Seymour gold cup, described the transience of such artifacts in an apt metaphor: “Quite commonly the
1534. Pen and india ink
with light washes of gray
objects were melted down within a few years of their completion. The life of the gold-
and pink heightened in smiths was thus somewhat like that of cooks: a relatively long period of preparation and
gold on paper, 37.6 ⫻ a relatively short one of enjoyment.”42
15.5 cm (143⁄4 ⫻ 61⁄8 in.).
Oxford, Ashmolean Magnificent metal- and stonework accompanied most royal transactions. In the
Museum, inv. wa 1863.424. early sixteenth century the Medici pope Leo x and the king of France, Francis i, engaged

64 chapter ii
Fig. ii-15.
Goldenes Rössl, Paris, 1403.
Gold, gilt silver, enamel,
pearls, and precious stones,
h. 62 cm (243⁄8 in.).
Altötting, Treasury of
the Collegiate Church
[Stiftskirche].

the powers of gold and precious stones 65

 in a delicate dance of political courtship. Francis sought papal alliance in his struggle for
European supremacy against his rival, Emperor Charles v Habsburg; Leo wanted the
Fig. ii-16.
French king’s help in safeguarding Medici rule in Florence. As one step in this rap-
Raphael (Italian,
1483–1520), Design for an prochement, in February 1515 the pope’s cousin, Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, was con-
incense burner, sixteenth firmed as archbishop of Narbonne. With Francis’s invasion of Italy and victory at the
century. Engraving by
Battle of Marignano on 14 September 1515, his presence on the peninsula threatened
Marcantonio Raimondi
(Italian, 1480–1527/1534). the pope both politically and geographically. To assure royal goodwill over the next few
Paris, Musée du Louvre, years, Leo regularly dispatched gifts to the French court. In 1518 he sent several pro-
Département des Arts
grammatic paintings by Raphael to augment Francis’s collection of Italian pictures,
Graphiques, Collection
Rothschild, inv. 4234 lr. which the latter used as adornment of his baths, in the manner of the ancient Romans.
Photo: rmn/Art Resource, Around 1520 the pope planned to o!er Francis a metal incense burner, also conceived
NY. Photographer:
Coursaget.
by Raphael and personalized for the French monarch by the addition of his heraldic
devices: the salamander and the fleur-de-lis. The fate of this project is unclear, but its
Fig. ii-17. potential appearance is recorded in an engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi, who
Valerio Belli Vicentino
(Italian, 1468–1546), Casket,
turned many of Raphael’s designs into prints (fig. ii-16). In 1533 the French royal fam-
1532. Rock crystal and gilt ily and the Medici intermarried. By this time Leo x was dead, and his cousin occupied
silver. Florence, Palazzo the papal throne as Clement vii. Clement had consolidated Medici power in Florence,
Pitti, Museo degli Argenti,
inv. 505. Photo: Alinari/
installed Alessandro as the city’s duke, obtained recognition of the Medici dynasty from
Art Resource, NY. Emperor Charles v, and was now ready to cement the French alliance by marrying his

66 chapter ii
Fig. ii-18.
Antoine Caron (French,
1521–1599), The Gifts
Exchanged between Pope
Clement vii and King
Francis i, ca. 1560–1574.
Brown ink and brown wash
on paper. From Histoire
française de nostre temps.
Paris, Musée du Louvre,
Département des Arts
Graphiques, inv. rf
29752-12. Photo: rmn/
Art Resource, NY.
Photographer: J. G. Berizzi.

kinswoman, Catherine de Medici, to Francis’s son, Henry ii. In preparation for the
arrival of the bridal fleet at Marseilles, Francis spent 4,623 livres moving plate, tapes-
tries, and furniture that would adorn and solemnize the wedding. Clement brought
along royal gifts, among them a silver-gilt casket with rock-crystal panels engraved with
episodes from the life of Christ (fig. ii-17). The casket bore the enameled name, arms,
and motto of the pope, emphatically proclaiming its origin.
The writer and courtier Nicolas Houel composed a poem in which he praised
the wedding as one of the great events witnessed at court between the reign of Francis i
and Charles ix— a eulogy augmented by twenty-seven drawings executed by Antoine
Caron. Both men turned a keen eye to the gift exchange:

The tournament having ended, the Holy Father

made a gift to the King of a unicorn’s horn,
likewise the King gives him a beautiful tapestry,
Showing him thus his great generosity.
And to gratify in kind the other side
To Ippolito, the nephew of the triple crown,
Likewise a lion he o!ers him,
Full of grandeur and courage.43

the powers of gold and precious stones 67

 Caron’s drawing shows, in the center, the pro!ering of the tapestry and the
lion, while servants bear massive metal vases on the right, and the unicorn horn is on
the left (fig. ii-18). According to Benvenuto Cellini, Clement vii had staged a competi-
tion for the design of the gold mount in which the horn, valued at seventeen thousand
ducats, was to be set. Recounting the contest, Cellini, typically, extolled his own design,
Fig. ii-19. decrying that of the Milanese goldsmith Tobia —“so crudely unimaginative that when I
Portrait of Francis i on bulla saw such a thing I could not help snickering to myself.” Cellini’s venom was all the more
used to seal the Treaty of
Amiens in 1527. Gold,
bitter because he lost; Caron’s drawing shows Tobia’s mount. The unicorn horn (in fact,
diam. ca. 10.2 cm (4 in.). a narwhal tusk) was prized as the best antidote to poison and was therefore set up to
London, The National guard the royal plate whenever a great banquet was held. The political significance of
Archives, inv. tna pro
30/26/82/1.
the gift is clarified by a seventeenth-century commentator on a medal of Francis i, the
reverse of which depicts a unicorn dipping its horn into a pond to render it pure: “Pope
Clement vii made a gift of a unicorn horn, which expels poisons, to make him under-
stand that he should keep his kingdom safe from heresy.”
According to the Physiologus, an immensely popular collection
of stories about real and imaginary beasts compiled in
Alexandria in the second century a.d., the unicorn could
purify lakes poisoned by snakes by dipping his horn
into the water and making the sign of the cross
over it. All other animals could then be Fig. ii-20.
refreshed, cleansed, and purified. The behav- Portrait of Henry viii on
ior of the unicorn paralleled that of Christ bulla used to seal the Treaty
of Amiens in 1527. Gold.
saving mankind from the sins brought Paris, Archives Nationales
into the world by Satan. Clement’s horn (CARAN), inv. d 10055.

68 chapter ii
was meant to remind Francis of his commitment to serve the Church —part of the
Franco-papal alliance.44 As for the other gifts, the tapestry depicted Leonardo’s Last
Supper with the French royal arms displayed prominently above the head of Christ. The
lion, previously shipped to the king from Algiers, was, of course, a princely beast; but
it was also one of the emblems of Florence. The Medici had kept lions for generations,
and, as true heirs of the ancient Romans, they staged animal combats to entertain visit-
ing dignitaries. The gift of this animal to a papal nephew was thus doubly astute.
Back to diplomacy and goldwork, let us note in conclusion that it could literal-
ly seal political accords, as did richly wrought bullae authenticating major pacts. Two
gold bullae secured the two copies of the Treaty of Amiens, signed on 30 April 1527
as an agreement to perpetual peace between England and France.45 The bulla on the
parchment kept by Henry showed the enthroned king of France (fig. ii-19), his arms on
the reverse; the bulla retained by Francis bore the analogous portrait and insignia of
the English king (fig. ii-20). Part of the complex political game played by Henry viii,
Francis i, Charles v, and the pope, the treaty proved as ine!ectual as the Field of Cloth
of Gold summit (see fig. vi-10). But at the time of the signing of the Treaty of Amiens,
the weightiness and incorruptibility of the gold and the carefully detailed imagery of the
bullae manifested the gravity of the pact they sealed.

Gold, Automata, and the Culture of Wonder

Goldwork could make still greater impact when, combined with feats of engi-
neering, it was shaped into automata —devices that seemed to move on their own
accord and perform intricate actions. The conjunction of precious materials and ingen-
ious mechanics bespoke the owner’s ability to command the most impressive resources.
Treatises of ancient engineers, be it Philo of Byzantium (second century b.c.) or Hero of
Alexandria (first century a.d.); tales of travelers to the courts of Byzantine and Chinese
emperors, where fabulous automata entertained guests; and extant European examples
stimulated the imagination and desire of European writers and rulers for such awe-
inspiring machines.46 While not all automata consisted of costly substances, gold, silver,
and gems enhanced their princely aura and magical power.47
Elaborate machines frequently featured in French romances, which were wide-
ly read by European elites. Although not reliable guides to contemporary realities, these
romances do reflect the attitudes and preoccupations of their day. Literary accounts of
automata drew on existing contrivances and, by embellishing them, fostered the
appetite for these wonders in life. One of the most popular romances, and hence influ-
ential texts, was Benoît de Sainte-Maure’s Roman de Troie, a version of the Trojan War
story overlaid with courtly and chivalric ideals. The Roman presented an array of arti-
facts that defined the royal realm. Notable among them was a collection of articles
adorning the room in Priam’s palace, the alabaster “Chamber of Beauties,”48

which glistens with Arabian gold and the twelve [sic] twin stones which God decided were
the loveliest of all when he gave them the name “precious stones”— sapphire and sard, topaz,
chrysoprase, chrysolite, emerald, beryl, amethyst, jasper, ruby, precious sardonyx, bright car-
buncle and chalcedony— these were to be found in great abundance the length and breadth
of the Chamber. No other source of light was needed, for the Chamber on a dark night far

the powers of gold and precious stones 69

 outshines the very brightest summer day. The windows are made of green chrysoprase and
sard and fine almandite and the frames are moulded in Arabian gold. I do not intend to
recount or to speak of the many sculptures and statues, the images and paintings, the mar-
vels and the tricks there were in various places, for it would be tiresome to listen to.49

The author does, however, describe at length the most impressive objects in
the room:50

In the four corners of the Chamber there were four tall handsome pillars: one was of precious
yellow amber, another of powerful jasper; the third was of onyx and the fourth of jet: the
least of them was worth more than two hundred marks of pure gold, I believe. There is
no-one alive today powerful enough to acquire the two least valuable ones with either money
or influence.

Each column was surmounted by a golden automaton. The first, shaped like a
girl, held a mirror that reflected any shortcoming of the viewer and permitted him or
her to adjust clothing or behavior so as to conform to courtly decorum. The second girl

performed and entertained and danced and capered and gambolled and leapt all day long on
top of the pillar. . . . Seven or eight times a day it would perform a hundred rich and splendid
tricks. In front of it was a great broad table of pure gold, on which it worked such wonders
that everything it could possibly imagine — combats between bears and wild boars, griffons,
tigers and lions; goshawks and falcons and sparrow-hawks and other birds in flight; the
games that ladies and young girls play; councils and ambushes, battles, treasons, and armed
assaults; ships sailing on the high seas; all the various fishes of the sea; single combats
between champions; men with horns and grotesques; hideous flying serpents, demons and
fearsome monsters— it has all these perform and reveal their nature every day.

...

[The third figure, representing a youth, sat] on top of the pillar in a magnificent chair. This
was made out of a single piece of obsidian, which is a very valuable stone. If you see it at all
frequently— so says the Book, which does not lie — you are refreshed and revitalized by it,
your colour improves, and you will not suffer any great distress on a day when you see it even
once. The figure’s head was crowned with a golden chaplet, finely wrought with emeralds and
rubies which shed great light on its face.

and it played twelve instruments more skillfully than King David. Those hearing the
music felt not sorrow nor pain, not evil thoughts nor foolish desires. The automaton fur-
ther scattered sweet-smelling flowers in the room.
The fourth statue watched people in the chamber and signaled to them what
they ought to do and what was most important to them, but these signs were invisible
to everyone else. It also indicated to visitors when it was time for them to depart; and
“it kept those who came into the Chamber . . . from being disagreeable, uncourtly, or
importunate.” In its hand the figure held a censer “made from a single large, brilliant,
and valuable topaz, with finely-engraved chains tightly interlaced with gold wire” and
filled with sweet and salubrious gums that dispelled foolish ideas and could cure any
sickness or pain.

70 chapter ii
 The Chamber of Beauties presented to its guests—both within the novel and
to its readers — a mirror of courtly society, reflecting what was considered exalted and
civilizing at this time. Through their actions and instructions the ingenious automata
were instrumental in creating the stately ambiance. And the substances from which
they were crafted enhanced their power, authority, and impact.
While fictional automata were too complex to render in mere metal and stone,
actual contrivances, often inspired by romances, formed vital parts of sovereign realm
and court display. At the wedding of Charles the Bold and Margaret of York, held in
Bruges in 1468, ancient history came to life in theatrical enactments of the Deeds of
Hercules; and mythological and biblical characters delivered political messages and
moral lessons from textiles lining the walls. Meanwhile, from the ceiling hung two mas-
sive chandeliers — large enough to conceal men operating their machinery. Repre-
senting Palaces of Glory and Fame, they o!ered mechanized spectacles comparable to
those of romances. The chandeliers consisted of branches with candles illuminating
three-dimensional castles perched atop mountains whose slopes were covered with lush
trees, flowers, and grass. Along the mountain paths moved diverse personages both on
foot and on horseback, men and women, and di!erent beasts, while dragons issued
forth from among the rocks and blew fire. All these were automata. The bases of the
chandeliers and the branches with candles stood still, but the mountains with castles
rotated. Seven large mirrors affixed to the bases reflected all that happened above, mag-
nifying the spectacle many times.51
The creator of these devices, Jehan Scalkin, also produced a table fountain
placed near the duke on the last day of the celebrations. Shaped like a tall and ornate
palace with crystal columns, it had an attached mirror that revealed a view of the char-
acters within — automata dancing the moresca in a garden setting. In front of the palace
a statuette of John the Baptist poured rose water from his finger. The water cascaded
into a lake full of fish at the fountain’s base and reflected in a mirror set on the palace
roof. A little man on top of the palace held a banner with ducal arms.52
Marvels —things “worth looking at,” according to ancient concepts—were the
aristocracy of phenomena. In De partibus animalium (On the parts of animals) Aristotle
had suggested that wonder nurtured habits of concentration and expanded and sharp-
ened the mind. Wonders played fundamental roles in fostering courtly ideals: They
refined sensibilities and connoted the ruler’s mastery over nature and man.53 Displays
of automata, furthermore, transferred the admiration from the objects to their owner,
enhancing his charisma. They were, in a sense, secular analogues to exhibitions of relics,
which, according to Guillaume Durand (ca. 1230–1296), “prompt wonder and are rarely
seen, so that by them the people are drawn into church and are more a!ected.”54
The large-scale automata described above required a variety of materials for
their construction. Smaller pieces could be rendered primarily in gold and gilt silver (at
least their elaborate external casings). Such work became the specialty of Nuremberg
and Augsburg, which also manufactured superbly engineered and richly ornamented
armor for European elites.55 Albrecht Dürer —a Nuremberger, son of a goldsmith,
trained as one himself, and son-in-law of an engineer —designed several table fountains
for water or wine, to be operated by pressure tubing (fig. ii-21). Their internal mecha-
nisms were likely devised by his father-in-law, Hans Frey, known for his ability “to raise
water by use of air.”56 Dürer’s models recall the mountains teeming with figures that
graced the wedding banquet of Charles the Bold. Given the awe inspired by the

the powers of gold and precious stones 71

Fig. ii-21.
Albrecht Dürer (German,
1471–1528), Model for a
Gothic table fountain,
1495–1500. Pen and brown
ink with watercolor and red
chalk, 56 ⫻ 35.8 cm (22 ⫻
141⁄8 in.). London, The
British Museum, Sloane
bequest, 1753, inv. 5218-83.
© Copyright The Trustees
of The British Museum.

Fig. ii-22.
Table fountain, France,
Paris(?), fourteenth century.
Gilt silver and translucent
enamel, 31.1 ⫻ 24.15 cm
(121⁄4 ⫻ 91⁄2 in.). The
Cleveland Museum of Art,
gift from J. H. Wade, inv.
1924.859. © The Cleveland
Museum of Art, 2003. See
also detail on p. 46.

72 chapter ii
Burgundian court and its enduring fame, it would not be surprising if Dürer’s visions,
or the desires of his patrons, were in fact influenced by that source.
Few actual Renaissance automata survive, and one such —the late fourteenth-
century silver-gilt and enameled table fountain from Burgundy or France, now in
Cleveland —is not complete (fig. ii-22).57 Its thirty-two spouts, shaped as gargoyles,
lions, and dragons, once poured perfumed water. The flowing liquid caused metal
wheels to turn and bells to ring, entertaining the diners. Said to have been found in a
garden in Constantinople, the fountain may have been part of a diplomatic exchange
between Europe and Byzantium, or just a fanciful story.
The silver and silver-gilt Schlüsselfelder Ship, weighing almost six kg (13 lbs.),
was made in Nuremberg ca. 1502–1503 (figs. ii-23 and 24).58 Not merely a table orna-
ment, it was also a drinking vessel: The top portion of the ship is a lid, the bottom a con-
tainer that can hold more than three liters. Seventy-four small cast figures populate the
boat: Sailors climb up and down the rope ladder on the mainmast and man cannons; a
group of people eat and drink around a table on the poop; other miniature travelers
include a cook, a washerwoman, a fool, two monks—one reading, the other meditat-
ing— musicians playing instruments, two men playing cards, and a pair of embracing
lovers. A specially manufactured case in which the ship was stored assured its preserva-
tion, as did the fact that it remained in one family for generations.
Eastern potentates were likewise eager patrons of European mechanical inge-
nuity and expert goldworking. In the sixteenth century Augsburg craftsmen became
preeminent clockmakers and goldsmiths, and their works played a crucial role in the
annual Habsburg tribute sent to the Turkish sultan. After the fall of Constantinople to
the Ottomans in 1453, European powers strove to maintain profitable commercial rela-
tions with the infidels. Treaties with the Turks also helped to forestall further military
conflicts. In the course of the sixteenth century the Habsburgs repeatedly renegotiated
the terms of armistices with the Ottomans and delivered money and opulent gifts to the
sultan, including Augsburg metalwork.59 Not only the sultan, but his high dignitaries,
such as the grand vizier and pashas, expected splendid gifts. Habsburg diplomatic needs
nurtured domestic luxury industries. In crafting articles for the Ottoman court, German
craftsmen heeded the Islamic prohibition against images of humans, but wild beasts
and birds were acceptable and featured frequently in their works. Thus, Melchior
Walther is recorded to have manufactured a gilded ostrich with built-in mechanisms
that set the bird’s eyes, beak, and wings in motion. A slightly later parrot clock (fig.
ii-25) whistled on the hour, moved its bill, wings, and eyes, and dropped eggs from
under its tail. Meanwhile, European fascination with the Ottomans is apparent in
automata that depicted them. On one clock a turbaned Turk with two attendants rode
forth on a boat (fig. ii-26). At the stroke of the hour he raised his sword, while the oars-
men paddled and moved their heads. Fifteenth- and sixteenth-century clocks still served
less as timekeepers than as elite objects of curiosity and delight. Exquisite, inventive,
and costly, they made perfect royal gifts.60

74 chapter ii
Figs. ii-23 and 24.
Schlüsselfelder Ship,
Nuremberg, ca. 1502–1503.
Silver and silver gilt,
h. 79 cm (311⁄8 in.).
To protect the delicate
mechanisms, the ship has
a custom-made case, seen
to the right. Nuremberg,
Germanisches National-
museum, inv. hg 2146.

the powers of gold and precious stones 75

 Fig. ii-25.
Parrot clock, South
Germany, ca. 1600. Fire-gilt
copper on blackened pear-
wood base, h. 40.1 cm
(15 3⁄4 in.). Munich,
Bayerisches National-
museum, inv. r 2721.

76 chapter ii
Fig. ii-26.
Clock with Turks in a boat,
Augsburg, ca. 1580 – 1590.
Gold-plated copper,
h. 42 cm (161⁄2 in.).
Innsbruck-Ambras,
Kunsthistorisches Museum,
Sammlungen Schloss
Ambras, inv. kk 6873.

t h e d e m i s e o f l u x u ry a r t s 77
 Goldwork imported from the New World—such as a statuette of an Aztec
warrior (fig. ii-27) — also provoked wonder and admiration. In 1520–1521, when Dürer
encountered gold objects from the Americas in the palace of Margaret of Austria at
Mechelen, he was, literally, dazzled:

I saw the things which have been brought to the King from the new land of gold, a sun all of
gold a whole fathom broad, and a moon all of silver of the same size, also two rooms full of
armour of the people there, and all manner of wondrous weapons of theirs, harness and
darts, very strange clothing, beds, and all kinds of wonderful objects of human use, much
more worth seeing than prodigies. These things were all so precious that they are valued at
100,000 florins. All the days of my life I have seen nothing that rejoiced my heart so much as
these things, for I saw among them wonderful works of art, and I marveled at the subtle
Ingenia of men in foreign lands. Indeed I cannot express all that I thought there.61

Dürer was not always readily impressed, and he had traveled widely enough to
bring a cosmopolitan outlook to the sights he encountered. His response to the
American gold recaptures the role of wonder in this age in expanding the mind and
delighting the soul of the most intellectual men.

Fig. ii-27.
Figure of a warrior, Central
Mexico, Aztec, from
Tetzcoco?, after 1325–1521(?).
Cast gold-silver-copper alloy,
h. 11.2 cm (43⁄8 in.).
The Cleveland Museum of
Art, Leonard C. Hanna, Jr.,
Fund, inv. 1984.37. © The
Cleveland Museum of Art.

78 chapter ii
 The Royal Table

Plate and finely wrought vessels, both used at table and exhibited on specially
arranged sideboards, were another set of indispensable tools in domestic and interna-
tional diplomacy. No princely banquet took place without extensive display of gold, sil-
ver, and gem-studded plate, and countless contemporary depictions attest to its necessi-
ty as a sign of sovereignty. A portion of the tapestry narrating the story of Esther and
Ahasuerus represents Ahasuerus’s banquet (see fig. vi-4). A whole pheasant (cooked and
stu!ed back into its skin) occupies a golden platter at the center of the royal table. It is
flanked by two gold nefs—ship-shaped vessels for the personal utensils of the ruler.
Saltcellars, sweetmeat dishes, covered goblets, and knives are close at hand. Servants
hurry in with more dishes and pour the wine. Behind Ahasuerus, on the right, a three-
tiered array of gold and silver vessels denotes his lofty rank. That plate is purely for
show: It demonstrates the abundance of the royal treasury and the ruler’s resources for
peace and war. Its visual magnificence is mirrored by the auditory splendor of music
performed by the wind players on the left.62
Precious plate was habitually augmented by luxurious accessories. Duke de
Berry’s table service of silver and gold, depicted in the January miniature of his famous
Book of Hours (fig. ii-28), was enhanced by crystal forks, serpentine and carnelian
spoons, and (for his strawberries) crystal bowls mounted in gold and silver. Even his
toothpicks were refulgent.63 A late sixteenth-century Danish toothpick (fig. ii-29), made
in gold in the shape of a dragon and adorned with enamel and gems, is very similar to
an object once owned by Queen Elizabeth i.64
Plate could also serve as a weapon. In 1461 Philip the Good of Burgundy accom-
panied Louis xi on the latter’s triumphal entry into Paris as the new king of France. But
Philip upstaged his kinsman Louis at every turn. He draped the facade of his Hôtel
d’Artois with the History of Alexander the Great tapestries, thus declaring himself, rather
than the new monarch, a modern-day Alexander. He sported such quantities of jewels
on his dress and his horse’s trappings that Louis and his retinue looked shabby in com-
parison.65 At Louis’s coronation banquet in Rheims, moreover, Philip had presented the
king with a gift of two large nefs rendered in pure gold and decorated with precious
stones; two drageoirs, or sweetmeat dishes, one of them of pure gold, embellished with
gems and a golden statue of a maiden representing Love; as well as jugs, cups, flagons,
and large bowls of precious materials. The observers were amazed by the scale of the
gift, and by the wealth, and hence power of the duke compared to the king. Nor did they
fail to notice that at a subsequent banquet held by Louis in Paris, the gold dishes “all
bore the arms of Burgundy, and, just imagine, they were the same vessels which the
duke had given to the king at his coronation in Rheims.”66 It was all too clear that the
king did not have any plate of his own — a must for a ruler — other than what had been
presented to him by the duke, which the latter had shrewdly marked with his own
rather than the royal arms.
In another purposeful show of largess, the fabulously rich Sienese banker
Agostino Chigi (1465 – 1520) deployed plate to extend his influence and fame. Chigi’s
financial empire — his bank at one point had a hundred offices in Italy and branches as
far away as Cairo and London—supported and was being nourished by extensive indus-
trial and trading ventures. He enjoyed the lucrative contract of farming alum deposits
at Tolfa; and he financed the Borgias and popes Julius ii (who granted him the right to

the powers of gold and precious stones 79

 Fig. ii-29.
Possibly Corvinianus Sauer
(German, apprenticed in
Denmark 1590s), Toothpick
in the form of a dragon,
late sixteenth century. Gold,
enamel, and precious stones.
h. 6.8 cm (25⁄8 in.).
Copenhagen, National
Museum of Denmark,
Department of Danish
Middle Ages and
Renaissance, inv. d436/1972.

Fig. ii-28. quarter the Della Rovere arms with his own) and Leo x. To entertain his guests on a scale
Limbourg brothers
(Herman, Jannequin, and
commensurate with his stature and ambitions, Chigi built a Roman-style villa on the
Paul; Netherlandish, all died right bank of the Tiber, near the Vatican, with a dining loggia in a grotto overlooking the
1416), Feast of Jean de river. Raphael, who executed a number of decorative projects in the villa, designed some
Berry. From Les Très Riches
Heures du Duc de Berry of Chigi’s plate (fig. ii-30). At one of the banker’s famed parties it was rumored that
(1416), January page. eleven cardinals had walked out with silver vessels tucked under their skirts. At anoth-
Chantilly, Musée Conde,
er banquet, it was reported, Chigi served the assembled cardinals and dignitaries their
ms. 65/1284, fol. 1v. Photo:
rmn/Art Resource, NY. own regional specialties arranged on golden plates embossed with their individual coats
Photographer: R. G. Ojeda. of arms. After each course the plates were tossed into the Tiber, demonstrating the host’s

80 chapter ii
Fig. ii-30.
Probably Raphael (Italian,
1483–1520), Design for the
border of a salver, ca. 1516.
Pen and brown ink on off-
white paper, 23.2 ⫻ 36.9 cm
(91⁄8 ⫻ 141⁄2 in.). Oxford,
Ashmolean Museum,
inv. wa 1846.211.

boundless wealth. But Chigi was no fool: Nets strung beneath the surface of the water
safeguarded his fortune.67
King Francis i, meanwhile, used his gold dinnerware to proclaim his economic
policies and aspirations. His intricate gold saltcellar, with sculpted figures of the Earth
and the Sea reclining over an ebony base with Michelangelesque reliefs of the winds,
was fashioned in Paris by Benvenuto Cellini between 1540 and 1543 (fig. ii-31). While
it is best known today as an example of Florentine Mannerist style and the Italophile
tastes of Francis i, the vessel bore more complex meanings for the king and his
entourage. The magnificent container reflected the monarch’s territorial and mercantile
endeavors: his schemes regarding pepper and salt.68
Salt and pepper, used to preserve and flavor food in an era before refrigeration,
were crucial commodities in domestic and international commerce.69 Salt had furnished
a steady income to the crown of France since the fourteenth century. Intent on obtain-
ing still greater returns, Francis implemented a series of salt-tax reforms, the most ambi-
tious in 1541. At the same time, the king sought to enter the lucrative spice market dom-
inated by the Portuguese, and particularly the race for pepper. To this end he financed
the westward voyage of Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524 in search of a northern passage
to Cathay, as well as a series of subsequent expeditions in 1534, 1535, and 1541.
Verrazzano and those who followed him from France sought a new route to the riches
of the East; instead they found the coast of North America.70

the powers of gold and precious stones 81

82 chapter ii
 Saltcellars had graced princely tables for two cen-
turies, and Francis’s salt-and-pepper enterprises spanned two
decades. But his intensification of these e!orts coincided
with the years of Cellini’s work on the saltcellar and, presum-
ably, its first display at the royal table. No contemporary
source comments on the use of the vessel at Francis’s ban- Fig. ii-32.
quets, but it is reasonable to suppose, given its resplendent Possibly Benvenuto Cellini
(Italian, 1500–1571),
and programmatic aspect and the one thousand scudi ex-
Hercules raising the pillars
pended on its manufacture, that Francis would readily have of the Strait of Gibraltar,
deployed it for its layered meanings, particularly as an adver- France (Paris), about 1540.
Gold, enamel, and a baroque
tisement of his economic schemes that enabled him to under-
pearl, 6 ⫻ 5.4 cm
write such lavish artifacts. (23⁄8 ⫻ 21⁄8 in.). Los Angeles,
Cellini, in fact, fashioned the pepper container in the The J. Paul Getty Museum,
inv. 85.se.237.
form of a triumphal arch, as if wishing into existence the Photographer: Jack Ross.
fruition of the royal spice ventures. The arch is flanked by a
female bearer of the horn of plenty facing the Earth, and
by Hercules facing the Sea. Hercules holds the apples of
Hesperides. Their acquisition was the Greek hero’s final labor,
buying him immortality: They could be obtained only by his
traveling to the ends of the earth —west, the same direction
in which Francis’s explorers sailed—and returning with its spoils. Cellini may also have
designed for Francis a gold pendant depicting the Greek hero raising the “Pillars of
Hercules,” the Straits of Gibraltar, through which Mediterranean-based ships reached
the Atlantic. The strongman’s muscular torso is made of a baroque pearl (fig. ii-32).
Francis termed himself the Gallic Hercules—as opposed to the Habsburg
Hercules, Charles v, who used the twin columns as his personal device and declaration
of his expansionist policies. The image of the Greek hero honored both rulers when
Charles visited Paris in 1540: A more than 2 m (7 ft.) tall statue holding the two columns
(used as candelabras) was designed for this occasion by Rosso Fiorentino and cast in sil-
ver and gilded by the goldsmith Pierre de Brimbal.71 The statue, alas, has perished, but
Cellini’s saltcellar continued its service as a tool of royal diplomacy and propaganda. In
1570 King Charles ix, grandson of Francis i, presented it to Archduke Ferdinand ii of
Tirol in gratitude for his service as a proxy at Charles’s wedding to Elizabeth Habsburg.
Ferdinand displayed it and other diplomatic o!erings in his museum at Ambras as tes-
timonies to the Habsburgs’ central role in European politics. His collection of luxury
arts, like those of his peers, chronicled his and his dynasty’s accomplishments in the
visual language vital to many Renaissance political and social transactions.

Fig. ii-31.
Benvenuto Cellini
(Italian, 1500–1571),
Saltcellar, 1540–1543.
Gold, niello work, and
ebony base, h. 26 cm
(101⁄4 in.). Vienna,
Kunsthistorisches Museum,
inv. 881.

the powers of gold and precious stones 83

 Fig. ii-34.
Hat badge representing
Prudence, France,
1550–1560. Gold, enamel,
chalcedony, and glass in
the form of a table-cut
diamond, h. 5.7 cm (21⁄4 in.).
Los Angeles, The J. Paul
Getty Museum, inv.
85.se.238. Photographer:
Jack Ross.

The Language of Personal Adornment

In the majestic manuscript known as the Grandes Heures of Jean de Berry, a

richly decorated Book of Hours from the extensive art collection of this cultivated duke,
the illustration of Sext in the Hours of the Holy Ghost depicts Jean before Saint Peter at
the Gates of Heaven (fig. ii-33). The duke gestures to a large pendant of sapphire sur-
rounded by pearls that hangs on a massive gold collar around his neck. It is misleading
to see this simply as a bribe. Given the religious resonances of jewels—pearls often
referred to Christ, and sapphires, which have the color of the sky, to the celestial
Fig. ii-33.
sphere — Berry’s o!er speaks of both his dazzling persona and a suitable o!ering to the
Bedford Master and radiant city of God.
associate, Jean de Berry Renaissance jewelry often blurred the lines between piety and personal pride.
and companions before
Saint Peter. From the
Elites wore crosses and rosaries rendered in precious materials, medallions and rings
Grandes Heures of Jean with images of saints under whose protection they placed themselves, and hat badges
de Berry, early fifteenth showing the Virgin, a biblical scene, or an allegory of virtue. One such badge represents
century. Paris, Bibliothèque
nationale de France, ms. Prudence in an enameled gold relief; the woman’s face and arm are carved of chal-
Lat. 919, fol. 96. cedony (fig. ii-34). She gazes into a hand-held mirror made of a table-cut diamond. The

84 chapter ii
 mirror indicates her ability to see herself truthfully. A fashionable lady who would have
worn this ornament could truthfully admit to her love of luxury.
In other circumstances personal jewels connoted secular bonds.72 An enameled
gold hat badge with a portrait of Charles v (fig. ii-35), made in either France or Spain
early in his reign, was likely used as a sign of alliance or loyalty, a common purpose
of jewelry at the time. It shows the young ruler wearing the chain of the
Order of the Golden Fleece, while the inscription on the reverse
reads “Charles R(oi) de Castille, Leon, Grenade, Arragon, Cecilles
1520.” The medallion’s worn aspect attests to its life of service.
Other jewels revealed their owner’s learning, or
admiration for antiquity. While in Rome as a papal hostage
in 1512, Isabella d’Este’s young son Federigo sought to make
a present to his cultured mother. It was to be inspired by
a celebrated ancient sculptural group unearthed six years
earlier. In a letter to Isabella, Federigo wrote:

Theobaldo told me that Caradosso would be pleased to execute for your

Excellence or for me a Laocoon with his sons and the serpent, made of
gold relief, like the one of marble, raised with a hammer and not cast. . . .
Furthermore, if it would please you he would render this Laocoon in the form
of a medallion of half relief, to wear on a hat, and he would produce a first rate work,
for he had already made one for Theobaldo for wear on his beret, with the representation of
Hercules overcoming Antaeus.

Fig. ii-35. Strapped for funds, Isabella, alas, had to “postpone for the moment this appetite
Hat badge with a portrait
of ours, to a more comfortable time when to satisfy such excellent work and workman.”73
of Charles v, French or
Spanish, 1520. Gold and Garments of lofty persons provided another site for statements in goldwork
enamel. Vienna, Kunst- and gem stones. In 1414 Charles d’Orléans, the brother of the king of France, bought
historisches Museum
hundreds of pearls for the embroidery of the sleeves of his tunic with the words of the
inv. 1610.
song Madame, je suis plus joyeux and its musical notes.74 In a portrait of Anna of
Hungary and Bohemia (fig. ii-36), sister-in-law of Emperor Charles v, the queen’s hat and
dress, richly decorated with pearls, speak of her exalted stature. So does the attire of
King Henry viii in a portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, who rendered with great
care the rich textures of royal clothes and the affixed gems set in finely worked gold
mounts (see fig. 7). The Burgundian dukes appeared at important diplomatic gatherings
in clothes so thickly covered with gold embroidery and gems that observers could not
discern the color of the cloth underneath and walked away all the more awed by the
power of these rulers. In our modern, more democratic societies our clothes may be
distinguished by costlier or cheaper fabrics, fancier or plainer tailoring, but these dis-
tinctions are fairly subtle, and many of us pay little attention to them. In the
Renaissance, fabrics and cuts of dress, colors and embellishments proclaimed far more
emphatically the wearer’s social standing and corresponding privileges and rights.
Hence the alertness of contemporary diplomats and chroniclers to costume and jewelry
and to the messages they purposefully conveyed. Hence, too, the meticulous replication
of these particulars in contemporary portraits and the attempts of sumptuary laws to
check social transgressions perpetrated through clothes and jewels inappropriate to the
wearer’s rank.

the powers of gold and precious stones 85

Fig. ii-36.
Hans Maler (German,
d. 1529), Portrait of Queen
Anna of Hungary and
Bohemia, 1519. Oil on oak
panel, 44 ⫻ 33.3 cm (173⁄8 ⫻
131⁄8 in.). Madrid, Thyssen-
Bornemisza Museum, inv.
1937.2. © Museo Thyssen-
Bornemisza.

Among the more extravagant items of personal ornament were zibellini, sable
or marten pelts with the animal’s head rendered in precious materials—gold or crystal
shapes with eyes of sapphires, mouth of rubies, and a tongue made to move.75 Such furs
o!ered luxury of both appearance and warmth. The inventory of Mary Queen of Scots
listed numerous “martens.” Titian’s portrait of Eleanora Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino (fig.
ii-37), shows a zibellino with a wrought gold head. A surviving crystal version (fig. ii-38)
was likely produced in Venice, famous for its lapidaries and jewelers.

86 chapter ii
 Fig. ii-38.
Unknown artist, Marten’s
head, French or Italian?,
ca. 1560 – 1570. Crystal
mounted in enamelled gold
set with rubies, 6.6 ⫻ 3.0 cm
(25⁄8 ⫻ 11⁄8 in.). Zurich,
Thyssen-Bornemisza
Collections, inv. dec 0731.

To us such objects may appear tasteless and such luxury o!ensive. For Renais-
sance men and women, skillfully wrought goldworks and finely carved stones, as well
as other arts of magnificence, which we shall explore below, were not frivolous expres-
Fig. ii-37.
Titian (Italian, 1488 or
sions of hedonism but vitally functional objects that structured social, political, and reli-
1490–1576), Portrait of gious relations through the resonances of their materials, imagery, and contexts of use.
Eleanora Gonzaga della Since contemporary visual and verbal sources place a great emphasis on these arts,
Rovere, Duchess of Urbino,
about 1537–1538.
we should take a closer look at them so as to gain a better understanding of their seem-
Oil on canvas, 1.14 ⫻ 1.02 m ingly familiar, yet very di!erent world.
(447⁄8 ⫻ 401⁄8 in.). Florence,
Galleria degli Uffizi, inv.
919. Photo: Erich
Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

the powers of gold and precious stones 87

 Notes

Prologue 29. Ovid Metamorphoses 4.742 – 60, trans. A. D. Melville

(Oxford and New York, 1986).
1. Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 1122, trans. W. D. 30. Olmi 1985.
Ross (Oxford, 1925). 31. Distelberger 1985.
2. For Renaissance political theory, see Jenkins 1970; 32. Montagu 1989, 188 – 90.
Harris 1965, 58 – 69; Kipling 1977, 28 – 30; and 33. Montagu 1989, 116. Frames, too, could be extremely
Skinner 1978, vol. 1: 84 – 101, 118 –28. valuable, with painting produced to fill them.
3. Scott 1995, 81. Among the gifts distributed by the pope to distin-
guished visitors in seventeenth-century Rome were
copper devotional paintings set into silver frames.
I The Demise of Luxury Arts The frames were made first, and cost from sixty to
a hundred scudi, not including their engraved and
1. Kristeller 1990, 164. gilded backs, whereas the paintings produced to fit
2. Aristotle Politics 3.5.10, 1278a. inside them cost thirty scudi (Montagu 1989, 119).
3. Plutarch Life of Perikles 2.1. 34. Crow 1985, 21 – 27; Lux 1982.
4. Stewart 1990, 69 – 72, discusses the status of various 35. Scott 1995.
artisans in antiquity. 36. Strümer 1979, 506.
5. Cast 1988, 414; Burke 1986, 74 – 82, on the status 37. Cited by Strümer 1979, 507.
of the arts in Italy; Campbell 1998, 21, 31 – 32, on 38. Charles Le Brun 1963, nos. 119 – 22.
Northerners’ views. 39. Goldstein 1996, 253 – 54.
6. Alberti 1972/1991; Cennini 1960; Kemp and 40. Dunkerton et al. 1991, 110. The chests were pro-
Walker 1989; Blunt 1962, ch. 4; Kemp 1992. duced for the marriage of Matteo di Morello to
7. Bull 1987, 123. Donna Vaggia di Tanai di Francesco de Nerli.
8. Goldthwaite 1993, 248. 41. Scott 1995, 31.
9. Wohl 1999. 42. Scott 1995, 75.
10. Kristeller 1990, 166 – 67. 43. Scott 1989; Pevsner 1940, 105 – 6.
11. Wohl 1999, 67. 44. Crow 1985, 107.
12. Hatfield 1970, 233. 45. Scott 1989, 59.
13. Montagu 1989, 115. 46. Goldstein 1996, 52; Crow 1985.
14. Barzman 2000. 47. Bazin 1967, 115.
15. Goldstein 1996, 28. 48. Kristeller 1990, 199 – 202.
16. A. Hughes 1986, pt. 2, 57. 49. Labriolle-Rutherford 1963; Morize 1909/1970;
17. A. Hughes 1986, pt. 2, 50, 51. Saisselin 1981.
18. A. Hughes 1986, pt. 2, 53. 50. Sargenton 1996.
19. A. Hughes 1986, pt. 2, 59, 61. 51. Sta!ord 1994, 248.
20. Rubin 1995 provides an extensive analysis and 52. McClellan 1994, 80.
bibliography of this subject. 53. Sta!ord 1994, 266. Printed explanatory guides
21. Vasari, “Life of Brunelleschi,” 1996, vol. 1: 326. became a mandatory part of a visitor’s experience
22. Collareta 1995. of an art museum or a cabinet of natural history.
23. Vasari, “Life of Marc’ Antonio,” 1996, vol. 2: 77. Duncan and Wallach 1980 discuss the didactic
24. Pilliod 1998, 30 – 52. dimensions of new art museums.
25. Rubin 1995, 142, notes that “with this form of edit- 54. Crystal Palace Exhibition 1851.
ing Vasari both extracted the artist from a depend- 55. Leben 1993, 99 – 118.
ent position and exalted his production by putting 56. Baker and Richardson 1997, 40.
it in his name.” She further observes (407) that 57. G. Semper, Der Stil in den technischen und tektoni-
“As a historian Vasari was an opportunist. . . . He schen Künsten (1860 – 1862); trans. H. F. Mallgrave
was also a careerist. The hope for personal success and M. Robinson, Style in the Technical and
as well as professional glory permeates the text.” Tectonic Arts (Los Angeles, 2004).
26. Rubin 1995. 58. Baker and Richardson 1997, 34.
27. Scheicher 1985. 59. Goldstein 1996, 256 – 59; Naylor 1971.
28. Muccini 1997, 150. 60. Haskell 1993, 236 – 52.

263
61. A. Loos, “Ornament und Verbrechen,” written in 37. Treasury of San Marco 1984, 216 – 21.
1908; first published in German in 1929; English 38. Starkey 1991, 126 – 35, esp. 130; Cocks 1977, 183,
trans. by M. Mitchell in Ornament and Crime: on the standardization of gifts.
Selected Essays (Riverside, CA, 1998). 39. Starkey 1991, 127.
62. Goldstein 1996, 261 – 62; Whitford 1986; 40. Das goldene Rössl 1995.
Franciscono 1971, 13–25. 41. Das goldene Rössl 1995, 52 – 57.
63. Goldstein 1996, 202. 42. Meiss 1967, I, 45.
64. Price 1989, 77 – 79, 100 – 107; Shiner 1994, 226 – 34. 43. Cox-Rearick 1995, 79.
65. Montagu 1989, 197. 44. Cox-Rearick 1995, 79.
66. Kristeller 1990, 226 – 27. 45. Starkey 1991, 84 – 85.
46. Chapuis and Droz 1958; Drachmann 1948; Eamon
1983; Maurice and Mayr 1980.
II The Powers of Gold and Precious Stones 47. Bedini 1964, 32.
48. Sullivan 1985; on automata in medieval literature,
1. Brown and Lorenzoni 1972; C. M. Brown 1997, 87; see also Sherwood 1947; Eamon 1983.
Fletcher 1981. 49. Sullivan 1985, 13.
2. Luzio 1908. 50. Sullivan 1985, 13 – 16.
3. The medal was cast by Gian Cristoforo Romano, 51. Marche 1883 – 1888, vol. 3: 118 – 19; Laborde
sculptor, architect, and musician to Isabella’s sister 1849 – 1852, vol. 2: 4437, 4881; Kipling 1977, 107.
Beatrice, Duchess of Milan, upon whose death he 52. Laborde 1849 – 1852, vol. 2: 4437, 4481.
moved to Mantua. 53. Daston and Park 1998, 91; on the courtly associa-
4. Fletcher 1981, 62. tions of magic, see Kieckhefer 1989, 95 – 115;
5. Massinelli and Tuena 1992; Princely Magnificence Eamon 1994, ch. 2.
1980. 54. Daston and Park 1998, 107.
6. Panofsky 1979, 20 – 21, 63 – 65 (Abbot Suger, Liber 55. Bedini 1964, 32 – 33.
de rebus in administratione sua gestis, 1144 – 1148/ 56. Gothic and Renaissance Art in Nuremberg 1986,
1149). Anagogical understanding refers to the inter- 282 – 83; Rowlands 1988, 72 – 74.
pretation of texts that finds beyond the literal, alle- 57. Bedini 1964, 33; Lightbown 1978, 45 – 46; Fliegel
gorical, and moral senses the ultimate spiritual or 2002.
mystical sense. 58. Wilhelm Schlüsselfelder (1483 – 1549) was the
7. Panofsky 1979, 53; Gerson 1986. first documented owner of the ship. Gothic and
8. Goldthwaite 1993, 74 – 75. Renaissance Art in Nuremberg 1986, 224 – 27.
9. Panofsky 1979, 65. 59. Groiss 1980, 75.
10. Panofsky 1979, 67. 60. Bedini 1980, 20.
11. Panofsky 1979, 79. 61. Dürer 1913/1995, 64.
12. Shearman 1972, 2. 62. Delmarcel 1999, 60 – 62. The tapestry was presented
13. Shearman 1972, 11. to the Zaragoza cathedral in 1520 by Archbishop
14. Meiss 1967, 39. Don Alonso de Aragón, the natural son of the
15. The legendary treasures of Saint Marks Basilica in Catholic King Ferdinand of Aragon.
Venice, for example, proclaimed the republic’s com- 63. Meiss 1967, 45. The duke played chess with pieces
mercial reach and crusading exploits. made of gilded silver or jasper and crystal.
16. Lightbown 1979 discusses votives in precious met- 64. Lindahl 1962.
als. 65. Guenée and Lehoux 1968, 86 – 95; Chastellain
17. Laborde 1849 – 1852, vol. 1: 1929; Velden 2000. 1863 – 1866, vol. 4: ch. 39, and vol. 6: ch. 37; Clercq
18. Pliny Historia Naturalis, Book 37; Theophrastus 1823, ch. 32; Smith 1979, 95 – 96.
1956. On diverse powers of precious stones, see 66. Chastellain 1863 – 1866, vol. 4: 61 – 62, 85 –86.
Meiss 1967, 50 – 54, 69 – 70; Panofsky 1979, 188; 67. Rowland 1998, 242.
Evans 1922, 72 – 80. 68. Belozerskaya 2004.
19. Marbode 1977; Evans 1922. 69. Henisch 1976, esp. 104 – 9.
20. Albertus Magnus 1967; Riddle and Mulholland 70. Les Français en Amérique 1946, 79 – 112; Quinn
1980. 1975, 169 – 90; Wroth 1970.
21. Ficino 1989; Walker 1958, 3 – 53, 75 – 84. 71. Hackenbroch 1979, 64.
22. Ficino 1989, 1.20. 72. Hackenbroch 1996.
23. Ficino 1989, 1.23. 73. Cited in Hackenbroch 1979, 17 – 18.
24. Ficino 1989, 3.1. 74. Lightbown 1992, 371; Masson 1926.
25. On the import of gold, gems, and pearls, see Cherry 75. Hackenbroch 1979, 29 – 31.
1992, 19 – 32; Lightbown 1992, 27 – 32.
26. Tafur 1926, 83 – 84.
27. Dürer 1913/1995, 3. III Woven Narratives of Rule
28. Dürer 1913/1995, 9 – 10.
29. Daston and Park 1998, 88. 1. Horn 1989, 111!.
30. Luchinat 1997, 37; Spallanzani 1992. 2. Horn 1989, 177 – 78.
31. Heikamp 1974. 3. Horn 1989, 189.
32. Treasury of San Marco 1984. 4. Finch 1989, 68 – 69.
33. Panofsky 1979, 79; Heckscher 1938. 5. Horn 1989, vol. 2: Appendix.
34. Le trésor de Saint-Denis 1991, 183 – 85. 6. Horn 1989, doc. 4, 348 – 51, doc. 12, 360.
35. Meiss 1967, 42. 7. Horn 1989, docs. 49, 50, 397 – 98; Duverger 1972;
36. Gui!rey 1894 – 1896, vol. 1: 209 – 10, no. 806, and Maria van Hongarije 1993.
214, no. 826. 8. Horn 1989, 126.

264 notes
9. Horn 1989, doc. 38, 386, doc. 41, 389. 6. Marche 1883 – 1888, vol. 2: 11.
10. Vaughan 1970, 141 – 42, 56. 7. Gaier-Lhoest 1973, 81.
11. Deuchler 1963, 75 – 91. 8. Pfa!enbichler 1992, 37 – 38.
12. Saintenoy 1921, 17 – 19. 9. Fanfani 1864; Gori 1930, 88 – 93; Rochon 1963,
13. Brassat 1992; Brown and Delmarcel 1996; 97 – 99; Ricciardi 1992, 166 – 74; Carew-Reid 1995,
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14. Laborde 1849 – 1850, vol. 1: 1605; Lestocquoy 1938; 10. Machiavelli 1909, 359.
Saintenoy 1934, 54 – 56; Smith 1979, 151 !. 11. Kurz 1969; Sanuto 1879 – 1903, vol. 55: 634–36;
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16. Müntz 1890, 56 – 67; Starkey 1998. 12. Sanuto 1879 – 1903, vol. 55: 635; vol. 56: 6–7.
17. Delmarcel 2000. 13. Necipoglu 1989, 401 – 27.
18. Asselberghs 1967, no. 7; Crick-Kuntziger 1938; 14. Mitchell 1979, 19 – 25; Sanuto 1879 – 1903, vol. 52:
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20. Haynin 1905 – 1906, vol. 2: 156 – 60; Quicke 1943, 16. Necipoglu 1989, 407 – 9; Sanuto 1879 – 1903, vol.
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21. Lestoquoy 1978, 78, 82, 100; Martens 1952, 17. Castiglione 1959, 15.
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22. Adelson 1985, 148. 19. Cennini 1960, 108 – 9.
23. Meoni 1998, vol. 1: 35 – 61. 20. Lannoy 1878, 456 – 57, trans. Vale 1981, 15.
24. Adelson 1983, 909 – 12. 21. Scheicher 1983, 43 – 92.
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121 – 41. 23. Pyhrr and Godoy 1998, 136 – 46.
27. Small 1982, 189 – 90, 193. 24. Resplendence of the Spanish Monarchy 1991,
28. Adelson 1985, 173 – 74. 155 – 64.
29. Vasari 1996, vol. 2, 367. 25. Pyhrr and Godoy 1998, 272 – 77
30. Adelson 1985, 151 – 53. 26. Grancsay 1986c.
31. Shearman 1972, 14. 27. Blair 1965; Borg 1974.
32. Vasari 1996, vol. 1, 731. 28. Pyhrr and Godoy 1998, 160 – 70.
33. Albèri 1846, 96!. 29. Pyhrr and Godoy 1998, 42.
34. Shearman 1972, 9. 30. Pfa!enbichler 1992, 48 – 50.
35. Shearman 1972, 10, 12, 13. 31. Pyhrr and Godoy 1998, 4.
36. Antonio de Beatis 1979, 95. 32. Gaier-Lhoest 1973, 167, n. 165; Martens 1952,
37. Froissart 1867 – 1877, vol. 15: 339; Vaughan 1962, 226 – 27.
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38. Van Mander 1994 – 1999, vol. 3: 76. 34. Pyhrr and Godoy 1998, 4 – 5.
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40. Kellenblenz 1965, 363 – 65, 371 – 74. 36. Pyhrr and Godoy 1998, 75.
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42. Asselberghs 1970; McKendrick 1991; Smith 1979, 38. Pfa!enbichler 1992, 14.
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43. Brown and Delmarcel 1996, 215 and n. 2. 155 – 64.
44. Crick-Kuntziger 1942; Le Maire 1956; Masterpieces 40. Grancsay 1986a.
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46. T. Campbell 1995 – 1996. 44. Pfa!enbichler 1992, 66.
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48. Masterpieces of Tapestry 1973, 121 – 23. 46. Cited by Karcheski 1995, 77.
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50. Masterpieces of Tapestry 1973, 19 – 20. 48. Mann 1942, 24.
51. Schneebalg-Perelman 1969. 49. Cellini 1927.
52. Grunzweig 1931, 26 – 38, 98 – 99. 50. Pyhrr and Godoy 1998, 15.
53. Schneebalg-Perelman 1969, 29. 51. Pyhrr and Godoy 1998, 186.
54. Roover 1948, 89, 91.
55. Tafur 1926, 203 – 4.
56. Delmarcel 1999, 95, 117. V Sweet Voices and Fanfares
57. Saulnier-Pernuit 1993.
58. Masterpieces of Tapestry 1973, 163 – 68. 1. Perkins 1999, 208.
2. M. H. Brown 1981.
3. Perkins 1999, 149 – 74; Strohm 1990.
IV Armor: The High Art of War 4. Kellman and Jas 1999; Meconi 1999, 29 – 30.
5. Shearman 1972, 13.
1. Scheicher 1990. 6. Bodleian, ms. Hatton 13; Fallows 1983, 110,
2. Notzing 1981. 145 – 59; Marix 1939, 128 – 31.
3. Conde Valencia de Don Juan 1889. 7. Woodley 1982, 312 – 13.
4. Blair 1965. 8. Vitruvius De architectura 3, pref. 2.
5. Laborde 1849 – 1852, vol. 2: no. 3131.

notes 265
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10. Atlas 1985, 73; Woodley 1981, 245, Doc. 6. 1. Geo!rey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, trans.
11. Fallows 1983, 116. N. Coghill (Harmondsworth, 1951), 438.
12. Seebass 1983, 30 – 33. 2. Loomis 1958.
13. Pirro 1935, 8. 3. Haynin 1905 – 1906, vol. 2: 17 – 62; Marche
14. Merkley and Merkley 1999, esp. 77 – 80 and ch. 2; 1883 – 1888, vol. 3: 101 – 201, and vol. 4: 95–144;
Prizer 1989; Welch 1993. S. Bentley 1831, 223 – 39; Vaughan 1973, 48–53.
15. Merkley and Merkley 1999, 42. 4. Laborde 1849 – 1852, vol. 2: 4443 –4899.
16. Strohm 1990, 37 – 38. 5. Ibid., 4757.
17. Prizer 1989, 147; Walsh 1978; Welch 1995, 197, 6. Ibid., 293 – 381, 322!.
247. 7. Ibid., 4441.
18. Merkley and Merkley 1999, 148. 8. Haynin 1905 – 1906, adapted from translation by
19. Starr 1992, 228 – 34. Vaughan 1973, 50 – 51.
20. Starr 1987, 211. 9. Laborde 1849 – 1852, vol. 2: 4420.
21. Perkins 1982, 524 – 26. 10. Marche 1883 – 1888, vol. 3: 133 – 34.
22. Atlas 1985, 38 – 39; Bentley 1987, 75; Woodley 1981 11. Ibid., 134 – 35.
and 1988. 12. Laborde 1849 – 1852, vol. 2: 4423.
23. Thomas and Thornley 1938, 251 – 52; Anglo 1959. 13. Marche 1883 – 1888, vol. 3: 136 – 37; Laborde
24. Doorslaer 1934, 21 – 57, 139 – 61; Higgins 1986, 44. 1849 – 1852, vol. 2: 4426.
25. Marix 1939, 64; Wright 1979, 102. 14. Marche 1883 – 1888, vol. 3: 143 – 47.
26. Higgins 1986, 60; Vaughan 1973, 162. 15. Laborde 1849 – 1852, vol. 2: 4422.
27. Miller 1972, 413. 16. Marche 1883 – 1888, vol. 3: 151 – 54; Laborde
28. Lewis 1999. 1849 – 1852, vol. 2: 4428.
29. Masson 1926, 140 – 41. See here p. 85. 17. Marche 1883 – 1888, vol. 3: 123 – 33; Cartellieri
30. Fernández de Oviedo 1870, 182 – 83; Knighton 1970, 124 – 34.
1989, 343 – 44. 18. Marche 1883 – 1888, vol. 3: 122 – 23; S. Bentley
31. Castiglione 1959, 74. 1831, 235 – 36.
32. Prizer 1980, 12. 19. Carew-Reid 1995, 31 – 35; Pulci 1527; Ricciardi
33. For this and following, see Prizer 1980. 1992, 166 – 74.
34. Translation adapted from Prizer 1980, 11. 20. Anglo 1968, 34 – 40.
35. Prizer 1980, 3 – 4. 21. Russell 1969; Anglo 1960 and 1966; Hall 1904.
36. Prizer 1980, 13, 51. 22. Anglo 1960, 113.
37. Prizer 1980, 105. 23. Hall 1904, 1, 210.
38. Castiglione 1959, 60. 24. Mason 1966; Montagu 1989, 192 – 97; Root 1979,
39. Prizer 1980, 43. 39; Watson 1978; Wilson 1991.
40. Westfall 1990, 63 – 107. 25. Montagu 1989, 192.
41. Westfall 1990, 68. 26. Montagu 1989; Watson 1978.
42. Downey 1981. 27. Wilson 1991, 19.
43. Downey 1981. 28. Montagu 1989, 195; Landucci 1883, 272.
44. Lasocki 1985, 121. 29. Anglo 1960, 127 – 32.
45. Prior 1983. 30. Russell 1969, 171 – 76.
46. Lasocki 1985. 31. P. F. Brown 1990.
47. Blackburn 1992, 20. 32. Choques 1861, 177.
48. Kenyon de Pascual 1987, 74 – 75. 33. Newton 1988.
49. Lasocki 1985, 120 – 21. 34. Hughes 1983; Newett 1907.
50. Prior 1995. 35. Cited by P. F. Brown 1990, 147.
51. Brainard 1979, 21. 36. P. F. Brown 1990, 147.
52. Plato Republic 2.376e; Kristeller 1990, 169. 37. Weil-Garris and d’Amico 1980, 73.
53. Gombosi 1941, 293. 38. Cited by Newett 1907, 247 – 48.
54. Sparti 1986. 39. Hunt 1996; Killerby 1994.
55. McGee 1988, 205. 40. Newett 1907, 273; Redon 1992.
56. A. W. Smith 1995, 5 – 67. 41. Laurioux 1992.
57. Baxandall 1972, 77 – 81. 42. Newett 1907, 256.
58. Sparti 1993. 43. Newett 1907, 259 – 60.
59. Brainard 1981. 44. Ady 1937, 56 – 57.
60. Halm 1928. 45. D. O. Hughes 1983, 86 –87.
61. Froissart 1867, vol. 1: 63 – 64, 122!., 323 – 25; 46. Ady 1937, 50.
Pintoin 1839 – 1852, vol. 2: 65 – 71. 47. Choques 1861, 178.
62. Marche 1883 – 1888, vol. 2: 348!.; Escouchy 48. Choques 1861, 179.
1863 – 1864, vol. 2: 116!. 49. P. F. Brown 1990, 145.
63. Blackburn 1992. 50. Cited by P. F. Brown 1990, 142.
64. Blackburn 1992, 5. 51. Cited by P. F. Brown 1990, 147.
65. Blackburn 1992, 17 – 18. 52. Magnifique et sumptueuse pompe funebre 1559;
66. Blackburn 1992, 24. Voet and Voet-Grisolle 1980 – 1983, vol. 2: 603–11;
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68. Blackburn 1992, 25 – 26. 53. Jacquot 1960, 467 – 73.

266 notes
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Benedicte Gilman, Manuscript Editor Page 88: Detail of fig. iii-24.

Kurt Hauser, Designer
Amita Molloy, Production Coordinator Page 134: Detail of fig. iv-34.
Carol Roberts, Indexer
Page 186: Detail of fig. v-8.
Typography by Diane Franco
Page 226: Detail of fig. vi-1.
Color separations by Professional Graphics Inc.,
Rockford, Illinois Page 262: Detail of fig. 8.

Printed and bound by CS Graphics Pte. Ltd., Singapore

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Unless otherwise specified, photographs are provided
and reproduced by courtesy of the owners of the Belozerskaya, Marina
objects. Luxury arts of the Renaissance / Marina Belozerskaya.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-89236-785-6 (hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-89236-785-7 (hardcover)
1. Decorative arts, Renaissance. 2. Decorative arts—
Europe. 3. Luxuries--Europe. I. Title.
NK925.B44 2005
745'094'09024--dc22
2005005151