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36 THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT S JOURNAL. [F SBEUABT, It is but fair to mention that this practice is forced upon the Italian engraver, as he can neither transport gallery pictures nor frescoes to his studt'. The landscape engravings of Italy are not successful. Frigid imi tators offVVoollet in general, their works are far inferior to those of that admirable master. Sculpture is certainly the art which stands highest in Italy. Canova rescued it from the infamy into which it had sunk, and his genius at once raised it to excellence. If I say that that immortal artist has worthy successors amongst his countrymen, I express, as strongly as possible, a favourable opinion of the state of the art. If we are to term that the Roman school of sculpture which reckons amongst its professors all the great sculptors of various nations who make the Eternal City their fixed place of residence, then we must, I think, hold that it is the first school existing. England is worthily represented in that united school. I shall not venture upon any comparison be tween it and our present British school; but it is an important fact, and to its honour, that, before Canova resuscitated sculpture in Italy, England could boast a succession of very eminent sculptors. I may mention the estimation in which our great Flaxman is held in Italy. “ Flaxman,” said a distinguished artist to me on oue occasion, “ was the greatest sculptor the world has known since the time of the Greeksand this opinion is very general in Italy. I touched shortly on the state of painting in the different Italian capitals. I shall pursue the same course with sculpture, but more briefly still, merely remark ing that, with one or two exceptions, there are no Italian sculptors of eminence out of Rome. In connection with the arts of painting and sculpture, we may now consider mosaic work and cameo-cutting as practised in Rome. The art of mosaic work has been known in Rome since the days of the re public. The severe rulers of that period forbade the introduction of foreign marbles, and the republican mosaics are all in black and white. Under the empire the art was greatly improved, and not merely by the introduction of marbles of various colours, but by the invention of artificial stones, termed by the Italians smalti, which can be made of every variety of tint. This art was never entirely lost. On the introduction of pictures into Christian temples, they were first made of mosaic; remaining specimens of these are rude, but profoundly interesting in a historical point of view. When art was restored in Italy, mosaic also was im proved, but it attained its greatest perfection in the last and present century. Roman mosaic, as now practised, maybe described as being the production of pictures by connecting together numerous minute pieces of coloured marble or artificial stones; these are attached to a ground of copper by means of a strong cement of gum mastic, and other materials, and are afterwards ground and polished as a stone would be to a perfectly level surface; by this art not only are ornaments made on a small scale, but pictures of the largest size are copied. Informer times the largest cupolas of churches, and not unfrequently the entire walls, were encrusted with mosaic. The most remarkable modern works are the copies which have been executed of some of the most important works of the great masters for the altars in St. Peter’s. These are in every respect perfect imitations of the originals; and when the originals, in spite of every care, must change and perish, these mosaics will still convey to distant ages a perfect idea of the triumphs of art achieved in the fifteenth century. The government manufactory in Rome occupies the apartments in the Vatican which were used as offices of the inquisition. No copies are now made, but cases of smalti are shown, containing, it is said, 18,U00 different tints. Twenty years were employed in making one of the copies 1 have men tioned. The pieces of mosaic vary in size from an eighth to a six teenth of an inch, and eleven men were employed for that time on each picture. A great improvement was introduced into the art in 1775 by the Signor Raffaelli, who thought of preparing the smalti in what may be termed fine threads. The pastes or smalti are manufactured at Venice in the shape of crayons, or like sticks of sealing-wax, and are after wards drawn out by the workman at a blow-pipe, into the thickness he requires, often almost to a hair, and now seldom thicker than the finest grass stalk. For tables and large articles, of course, the pieces are thicker; but the beauty of the workmanship, the soft gradation of the tints, and the cost, depend upon the minuteness of the pieces, and the skill displayed by the artist. A ruin, a group of flowers or figures, will employ a good artist about two months when only two inches square, and a specimen of such a description costs from 51. to 20/., according to the execution ; a landscape, six inches by four, would re quire eighteen months, and would cost from forty to fifty pounds. This will strike you as no adequate remuneration for the time bestowed. The finest ornaments for a lady, consisting of necklace, ear-rings, and brooch, cost forty pounds. For a picture of Paestum, eight feet long, and twenty inches broad, on which four men were occupied for three years, 1,000/. sterling was asked. I shall now notice the mosaic work of Florence, before touching on cameo-cutting. It differs entirely from Roman mosaic, being composed of stones inserted in comparatively large masses; it is called work in pietra dura. The stones used are all more or less of a rare and pre cious nature. In old specimens the most beautiful works are those in which the designs are of an arabesque character. The most remark able specimen of this description of pietra dura is an octagonal table in the Gubinetlo di Baroccio, in the Florence Gallery. It is valued at 20,000/. sterling, and was commenced in 1G23 by Jacopo Datelli, from designs by Ligozzi. Twenty-tw o artists worked upon it without in terruption till it was terminated in the year 1649. Attempts at land scapes, and the imitation of natural objects, were usually failures in former times,—mere works of labour, which did not attain their ob ject; but of late works have been produced in this art, in which are represented groups of flowers and fruit, vases, musical instruments, and other compatible objects, with a truth and beauty which excite the utmost admiration and surprise. These pictures in stone are, however, enormously expensive, and can only be seen in the palaces of the great. Two tables in the Palazzo Pitti are valued at 7,000/., and this price is by no means excessive. These are of modern design, on a ground of porphyry, and ten men were employed for four years on one of them, and a spot is pointed out, not more than three inches square, on which a man had worked for ten months. But Florentine mosaic, like that of Rome, is not merely used for cabinets, tables, or other ornamental articles ; the walls of the spacious chape! which is used as the burial-place of the reigning family at Florence are lined with pietra dura, realizing the gem-encrusted halls of the Arabian tales. Roman mosaic, as we have seen, is of great value as an ally to art; but Florentine mosaic can have no such pretensions, and time and money might be better bestowed. The effect is far from pleasing in the cha pel I have alluded to, and I think that the art might be advantageously confined to the production of small ornaments, for which it is eminently adapted. An imitation of the pietra dura is now made to a great extent in Derbyshire, where the Duke of Devonshire’s black marble, said to be quite equal to the famous Nero Antico, is inlaid with malachite, Der byshire spars, and other stones ; but the inlaying is only by veneers, and not done in the solid as at Florence. This, with the softness of the materials, makes the Derbyshire work much cheaper, and yet for a table, twenty to twenty-four inches in diameter, thirty guineas is asked. Were a little more taste in design and skill in execution shewn, the Derbyshire work might deserve to be more valued, as the mate rials, especially the black marble, are beautiful. I shall now return to cameo-cutting. This art is also of great anti quity, and is pursued with most success in Rome, where there are several very eminent artists now living. Cameos are of two descrip tions, those cut in stone, or pietra dura, and those cut in shell. Of the first, the value depends on the stone, as well as in the excellence of the work. The stones most prized now are the oriental onyx and the sardonyx, the former black and white in parallel layers, the latter cor nelian, brown and white; and when stones of four or five layers of dis tinct shades or colours can be procured, the value is proportionably raised, provided always that the layers be so thin as to be manageable in cutting the cameo so as to make the various parts harmonize. For example, in a head of Minerva, if well wrought out of a stone of four shades, the ground should be dark grey, the face light, the bust and helmet black, and the crest over the helmet brownish or grey. Next to such varieties of shades and layers, those stones are valuable in which two layers occur of black and white of regular breadth. Except on such oriental stones no good artist will now bestow his time ; but, till the beginning of this century, less attention was bestowed on mate rials, so that beautiful middle-age and modern cameos may be found on German agates, whose, colours are generally only two shades of grey, or a cream and a milk-white, and these not unfrequently cloudy. The best artist in Rome in pnelra dura is the Signor Girometti, who has executed eight cameos of various sizes, from li to 3£ inches in diameter, on picked stones of several layers, the subjects being from the antique. These form a set of specimens, for which he asks 3,000/. sterling. A single cameo of good brooch size, and of two colours, costs 22/. Portraits in stone by those excellent artists Diez and Saulini may be had for 10/. These cameos are all wrought by a lathe with pointed instruments of steel, and by means of diamond dust. Shell cameos are cut from large shells found on the African and Brazilian coasts, and generally show only two layers, the ground being either a pale coffee-colour or a deep reddish-orange; the latter is most prized. The subject is cut with little steel chisels out of the white portion of the shell. A fine shell is worth a guinea in Rome. Copies from the antique, original designs, and portraits, are executed in the
