MEDIAEVAL GEM ENGRAVIXG. 7
formance, and to show the hand of an accomplished artist, affording the hest confirmation of Vasari's statement.
But to go back to the very earliest times in which any traces of the art appeal-,
Scipio Ammirato (Hist. Flor. p. 741) mentions a certain Peruzzi, "il
quale era singolare in-tagliatore di pietre," as forging the seal of
Carlo da Durazzo. This was in the year 1379.4 Here then is
an instance, not to be looked for at so early a period, of a prince
having for his seal an engraved gem, and that apparently not an
antique, else the Florentine artist had not been competent to imitate
it so exactly. Again, Giulianelli (p. 76) quotes Gori's Adversaria to
the effect that(before the year 1300 the Florentine Republic used two
seals—both engraved stones. The first, large, for sealing public
documents, was a plasma engraved with a Hercules (one of the supporters
of the city arms), with the legend running round it—sigillvm florentinorvm. The other, small, for letters,jbore the Florentine lily ; legend —sigillvm priorvm.' The
mention of the large size of the former seal, as well as the subject in
such a stone, suffice to show that this plasma was not an antique
intaglio fitted into the seal with the legend added upon the metal,
wdiilst the engraving upon the second must necessarily have been done
expressly, as no such device could have been supplied by the relics of
antiquity.5 Giulianelli also remarks, with some
plausibility, that, in the same way (as the art of mosaic-working was
kept up at Rome during the ages following the fall of the Western
Empire, there is reason to believe that the art of gem-engraving may in
like manner have been maintained there. That the Italian lapidaries
could at all times shape, facet, and polish the softer stones, such as
