The treatises of Benvenuto Cellini on goldsmithing and sculpture

Chapter 46: FOOTNOTES:

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About This Book

A combined manual of goldsmithing and sculpture lays out practical, workshop-focused instructions and recipes for metalworking processes, including niello, filigree, enamelling, gem setting, diamond cutting and tinting, gilding, etching, medal making, various casting methods for vessels and large bronze figures, and furnace construction. Chapters present step-by-step procedures, material preparations, tool use, and formulas for chemical treatments and colours. Technical anecdotes and illustrative examples appear throughout, conveying common workshop problems and their solutions in an informal, spoken-register voice. The work functions as both a craftsman's handbook and a record of traditional techniques and workshop practice.

CHAPTER XVIII. HOW TO WORK IN LARGE WARE, IN GOLD AND SILVER AND SUCH LIKE.[116]

First will I speak of the methods I learnt in Rome and then of those that are used in Paris. Indeed I believe this city of Paris to be the most wonderful city in the world, and there they practise every branch of every art. I spent four years of my life there in the service of the great King Francis, who gave me opportunities of working out not only in all the arts of which I have been telling you, but also in the art of sculpture, and of that too I shall speak in its proper place.

Diagram illustrating the process of casting silver
C. CLAMPS
P. PLATE
B. BRICK

FOOTNOTES:

[116] Cellini applies the term ‘grosserie’ to all large ware of whatever process & as distinguished from ‘minuterie.’