cuted, and he passed to a better life in the year 1555.
Nor was Domenico, the brother of that Giuliano, inferior to him in
judgment, seeing that, besides carving much better in wood, he was also
very ingenious in matters of architecture, as may be seen from the house
that was built for Bastiano da Montaguto in the Via de' Servi after his
design, wherein there are also many works in wood by Domenico's own
hand. The same master executed for Agostino del Nero, in the Piazza de'
Mozzi, the buildings that form the street-corner and a very beautiful
terrace for that house of the Nasi formerly begun by his father Baccio.
And it is the common belief that, if he had not died so young, he would
have surpassed by a great measure both his father and his brother
Giuliano.
VALERIO VICENTINO, GIOVANNI DA CASTEL BOLOGNESE, MATTEO DAL NASSARO OF
VERONA, AND OTHER EXCELLENT ENGRAVERS OF CAMEOS AND GEMS
LIVES OF VALERIO VICENTINO, GIOVANNI DA CASTEL BOLOGNESE, MATTEO DAL
NASSARO OF VERONA, AND OTHER EXCELLENT ENGRAVERS OF CAMEOS AND GEMS
Since the Greeks were such divine masters in the engraving of Oriental
stones and so perfect in the cutting of cameos, it seems to me certain
that I should commit no slight error were I to pass over in silence
those of our own age who have imitated those marvellous intellects;
although among our moderns, so it is said, there have been none who in
this present and happy age have surpassed the ancients in delicacy and
design, save perchance those of whom we are about to give an account.
But before making a beginning, it is proper for me to discourse briefly
on this art of engraving hard stones and gems, which was lost, together
with the other arts of design, after the ruin of Greece and Rome. Of
this work, whether engraved in intaglio or in relief, we have seen
examples discovered daily among the ruins of Rome, such as cameos,
cornelians, sardonyxes, and other most excellent intagli; but for many
and many a year the art remained lost, there being no one who gave
attention to it, and even if any work was done, it was not in such a
manner as to be worthy to be taken into account. So far as is known, it
is not found that anyone began to do good work or to attain to
excellence until the time of Pope Martin V and Pope Paul II; after which
the art continued to grow little by little down to the time of Lorenzo
de' Medici, the Magnificent, who greatly delighted in the engraved
cameos of the anc
|