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96 NATURAL HISTORY OF PRECIOUS STONES, &c.
iewelry
are fully employed at Paris and, more especially, at
Frankfort-sur-Maine. It is obvious that one certain criterion for
detecting such fabrications would be the discovery in them of stones
cut after a pattern not yet invented at the period from which they
claim their descent. Ordinary forgers do not possess sufficient
historical knowledge to put them on their guard against this test, and
consequently many elaborate, pretentious antiques are betrayed
at first sight by the appearance in them of cut Diamonds that had no
business there. But the workers of the Frankfort fabrique are grown
wise by long practice, and keep (as I am credibly informed) an agent in
London, and doubtless in other capitals, with standing orders to buy up
at a certain price all the old Tables and Roses that may come into the
market.
ENGRAVED DIAMONDS.
The
capricious and misdirected ingenuity of the Cinque-cento artists, ever
seeking glory in the overcoming of difficulties before held
insuperable, speedily distinguished itself by producing intagli upon
the Diamond. If, indeed, any credit is to be given to the express
statement of Garzoni (Piazza Universale, p. 550), the very
first efforts ot the newly· resuscitated Glyptic Art had essayed the
conquest of the most invincible of gems ; for, according to his
account, Caradosso the Milanese, engraver to the Mint to Julius II.,
had executed upon a Diamond the figure of a Father of the church for
that pontiff as early as the year 1500.
Although
many of the works celebrated under this name may in reality have been
done in the White Sapphire or in the blanched oriental Topaz, yet
Clusius, a most competent judge, speaks to the fact that Clement Birago
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