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86
GEMS.
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praise
in this difficult work. Clement Birago, also a Milanese, cut on the
diamond the likeness and coat of arms of Prince Charles, son of Philip
II. ; and this is asserted by Clusio, Lomazzo, and Giulianelli. It is
said that the celebrated Caradosso delighted in similar work. A lion's
head, a Leda, and a head of Antinous, were, according to Caire,
engraved in diamond by Giovanni and Carlo Costanzi, who were Romans.
Whilst
Venice, London and Amsterdam with treaties of commerce provided for the
necessity of procuring sets of rough diamonds, France, after Colbert,
did not foresee that the diamond mines of India would be nearly
exhausted ; and meanwhile fettered the art of diamond-cutting, by
making regulations even to the number of tools to be retained by each,
artist. Thus the industry of which we speak continually declined, and
although, under the great minister of Louis XIV., there had been
seventy-five engravers, the greater part of them were dispersed at the
revocation of the Edict of is antes : some withdrew to Holland, others
to England, and the few who remained lost their work for want of the
rough material.
Under
Louis XVI., near the close of the ministry of Calonne, a stranger,
named Schrabsacq, wished, with the help of the State, to revive this
art in Paris ; he therefore opened a workshop with twenty-seven mills
for cutting diamonds, but in a short time he disappeared from Paris,
and went no one knew whither.
One of the engravers of the ancient Venetian school, Vincenzo Peruzzi, near the close of the seventeenth
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