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NATURAL HISTORY OF GEMS.
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sea-weeds,
which the issuing gore turned to stone, attributes to the Coral a long
list of the most transcendental virtues bestowed upon it by Minerva. It
baffled all witchcraft, counteracted poisons, protected from danger of
tempests in sea-voyages, and from robbers in land-journeys, and, mixed
in powder with the seed-corn, secured the growing crops from damage of
thunderstorms, blight, caterpillars, or locusts. These notions were
embraced to their fullest extent by the mediaeval philosophers, as the
section on " Coral" in Marbodus proves.
On
this account, Coral beads are often to be found in the jewels of the
Middle Ages in the same manner as the most precious gems, and evidently
equally valued. The small pointed branches, mounted with a ring at one
end for suspension, so extensively manufactured at Naples, as every
tourist must have noticed, are still in request there as amulets.
Ferdinand I. devoutly believed in their virtue, and frequently pointed
this minute defender against the person whose malignant influence (malocchio) he
suspected. Phalli carved in Coral (the Neapolitan branch being merely
their modern and decorous representative) are worn yet round the necks
of the Roman females as a cure for sterility.
It
is not anywhere mentioned that the ancients ever employed Coral for
glyptic purposes, either in relief or intaglio ; although a " Head of
Chrysippus, in high relief," is quoted as antique in the Catalogue of
the Orleans Cabinet. The subject, however, as well as the material,
makes me suspect that this was rather a work of the Eenaissance, the
engravers of which period frequently cut the thicker pieces into Camei,
but more especially into statuettes, skilfully availing themselves of
the natural disposition of the stem and its branches to form the body
and limbs in the attitudes required by the design.
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