ients. Lorenzo and his son Piero collected a great
quantity of these, particularly chalcedonies, cornelians, and other
kinds of the choicest engraved stones, which contained various fanciful
designs; and in consequence of this, wishing to establish the art in
their own city, they summoned thither masters from various countries,
who, besides restoring those stones, brought to them other works which
were at that time rare.

By these masters, at the instance of the Magnificent Lorenzo, this art
of engraving in intaglio was taught to a young Florentine called
Giovanni delle Corniole,[12] who received that surname because he
engraved them excellently well, of which we have testimony in the great
numbers of them by his hand that are to be seen, both great and small,
but particularly in a large one, which was a very choice intaglio,
wherein he made the portrait of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who was adored
in Florence in his day on account of his preaching. A rival of Giovanni
was Domenico de' Cammei,[13] a Milanese, who, living at the same time as
Duke Lodovico, Il Moro, made a portrait of him in intaglio on a
balas-ruby greater than a giulio, which was an exquisite thing and one
of the best works in intaglio that had been seen executed by a modern
master. This art afterwards rose to even greater excellence in the
pontificate of Pope Leo X, through the talents and labours of Pier Maria
da Pescia, who was a most faithful imitator of the works of the
ancients; and he had a rival in Michelino, who was no less able than
Pier Maria in works both great and small, and was held to be a graceful
master.

These men opened the way in this art, which is so difficult, for
engraving in intaglio is truly working in the dark, since the craftsman
can use nothing but impressions of wax, as spectacles, as it were,
wherewith to see from time to time what he is doing. And finally they
brought it to such a condition that Giovanni da Castel Bolognese,
Valerio Vicentino, Matteo dal Nassaro, and others, were able to execute
the many beautiful works of which we are about to make mention.

Let me begin, then, by saying that Giovanni Bernardi of Castel
Bolognese, who worked in his youth in the service of Duke Alfonso of
Ferrara, made for him, in the three years of honourable service that he
gave him, many little works, of which there is no need to give any
description. Of his larger works the first was an intaglio on a piece of
crystal, in which he repr