The treatises of Benvenuto Cellini on goldsmithing and sculpture

Chapter 71: 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 XXXI. HOW TO MAKE YET ANOTHER COLOURING.

Take half an ounce of Roman vitriol, half an ounce of saltpetre, six pennyweights of salts of ammonia, half an ounce of verdigris, and pound them upon a stone, do not use iron. Pound the salts of ammonia first very carefully, then all the others together. Then mix them in a glazed vessel[188] with as much water as shall make them have the consistency of a sauce, stir them over the fire with a piece of wood, & let them boil for such space as you can say two Paternosters. Do not give them a strong fire for that would spoil them. Everything in moderation. Let them cool, and use them as is here written in the manner following.

FOOTNOTES:

[188] Pentolino.