MEDIEVAL GEM ENGRAVING. 15
made
in the interval preceding the date of 1417, hinted at by Vasari as the
space when something continued to be done, although it was of no
account. Yet, had the Italians, before the year 1400, practised gem
engraving even to this limited extent, we should expect to find a class
of intagli existing, of which no examples have yet presented
themselves, namely, the patron saints of the respective cities, just
as the contemporary Byzantines were doing with their St. George,
Demetrius, and Theodore, and their own mint-masters in the types of
their national coinages. We should expect often to find on gems the
well-known figure of St. John of Florence and his old lion Marzocco;
the " Tota Pulchra " of Pisa ; the Santo Volto of Lucca ; St. Martin ;
and above all the Winged Lion of Venice. The last was the especial
device for a merchant's signet, and therefore does it figure on so many
counters or Nuremburg Rechen-pfennings.
Sometimes
indeed a calcedony or cornelian is found bearing a regular "
merchant's mark," but all known to me seem later than 1500, and may
have been engraved as late as Elizabeth's reign, which has left
abundance of signets of this sort in metal.
To
return to the triple face on the jacinth above described: its most
strange magical-looking aspect irresistibly suggests an equally strange
hypothesis to account for it. It strongly resembles the heads of
certain mysterious statuettes bearing Arabic legends of unknown
purport, figured by Von Hammer (Mines de 1'Orient, vol. vi.) as the
very images of Baphomet that the Templars were accused of worshipping.
It certainly would well represent the " ydole avec trois faces"
specified in the articles of accusation. Hence sprung the but too
seductive idea that some dignitary of the Order, stationed in the East,
might have employed a native engraver to execute to his commission this
image on a precious stone, and the same theory would account for the
other female heads similarly on precious stones, whose style is
evidently contemporary with this triplet's. In that case all such
female heads would typify the Female Principle so important in the
Gnostic scheme, their Achamoth, or Wisdom. As on the Roman talismans of
the sect a Venus appears for her to the eyes of the uninitiated, so a
bust that would do duty for a Madonna might have served to baffle the
curiosity of the
