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SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY AND
THE CAPABILITY APPROACH
Spiros Gangas
‘A systematic conversation between the capabilities approach, as developed
by Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen, and the grand tradition of sociologi-
cal theory of Marx, Weber, Parsons and Habermas has long been overdue
and this is precisely what Spiros Gangas offers in his original and ambitious
new book. By revisiting the main tenets of the capabilities approach in light
of contemporary sociological debates on normativity and social crises,
Gangas articulates interdisciplinary arguments that handle successfully
insights from philosophy, critical theory, economics and sociology itself in
both their conceptual and normative sophistication. The result not only does
justice to these traditions but also carries them forward.’
– Daniel Chernilo, Professor of Sociology, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez,
Chile, and Visiting Professor of Social and Political Thought,
Loughborough University, UK
e Taylor & Fra is Group
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Sociological Theory and the
Capability Approach

Sociological Theory and the Capability Approach connects normative strands of

sociological theory to the fusion of ethics and economics proposed by Amartya
Sen’s and Martha Nussbaum’s Capability Approach (CA). Spanning classical
(Hegel, Marx, Durkheim, Scheler, Weber) and contemporary debates (Parsons,
Giddens, Luhmann) it identifies areas that bridge the current gap between socio­
logy and CA. It thus builds on explanatory and normative concerns shared by
both traditions.
Engaging readers from sociology and CA, Spiros Gangas suggests that the
proposed dialogue should be layered along the main areas of value-theory,
economy and society, extending this enquiry into the normative meaning
attached to being human. To this end, the book reconstructs the notion of agency
along the tracks of Nussbaum’s central human capabilities, considering also
alienation and the sociology of emotions. It concludes by addressing the CA
through the lens of social institutions before it takes up the challenge of ideo­
logical fundamentalism and how it can be effectively confronted by CA.
This original book provides a fresh perspective on CA as it embeds it in the
rich pool of sociological theory’s accomplishments. As an exercise in theoretical
and normative convergence, it will be required reading for academics and stu­
dents in social theory, cultural theory, philosophy and human development
studies.

Spiros Gangas is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at

Deree – the American College of Greece. His principal areas of research are clas­
sical and contemporary sociological theory, value-theory, capability approach and
film studies.
International Library of Sociology
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Sociological Theory and the
Capability Approach

Spiros Gangas
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 Spiros Gangas
The right of Spiros Gangas to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known
or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Gangas, Spyros, 1967- author.
Title: Sociological theory and the capability approach / Spiros Gangas.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2020. |
Series: International library of sociology | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019028914 (print) | LCCN 2019028915 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781138488694 (hbk) | ISBN 9781351039666 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Educational sociology. |
Capabilities approach (Social sciences)
Classification: LCC LC191 .G257 2020 (print) | LCC LC191 (ebook) |
DDC 306.43--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019028914
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ISBN: 978-1-138-48869-4 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-351-03966-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
For Ioulia and Niki-Heraklia
e Taylor & Fra is Group
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Contents

List of figuresxii
Acknowledgementsxiii
List of abbreviationsxv

Introduction1
Sociological theory and the Capability Approach (CA) 1
A very brief overview of CA 2
Some limitations of sociological theory 5
Plan of the book 8

PART I
Values, economy and society 17

1 Valuing values in sociology and the Capability Approach 19

Methodological preamble 19
Weber, Scheler and the collective validity of values 22
CA in the context of sociological value-theory 29
A Durkheimian rejoinder 37
‘Valuing values’ in CA 42

2 Economy and society: a CA-based synthesis? 57

Entering economic suffering 57
Economy and society (I): from embeddedness to vocabularies
of motives 60
Economy and society (II): a heuristic typology 62
Liberalism and socialism (I): the CA
‘Adam Smith–Karl Marx’ dialogue 80
Liberalism and socialism (II): CA and Hegel 82
Liberalism and socialism (III): contemporary
attempts at synthesis 85
Pragmatic codas 90
Concluding remark 91
x  Contents
PART II
Agency, alienation and emotions 109

3 From agency to capabilities: the capable social self 111

Preliminary remarks: CA and agency 111
Capabilities: a new framework for normative action? 112
Natural law, human agency, and CA 117
Excursus on human rights 121
From capacity to capability (I): Parsons and Sen 124
From capacity to capability (II): Giddens’ wanting normativity 128
Enriching agency 131

4 From alienation to capability deprivation: reconstructing a

sociological concept 145
Why alienation? Some conceptual limitations 145
Why CA? Elements of a new research programme for alienation 147
Decompressing alienation: the essentialist (re)turn in CA 150
Excursus on alienation without essentialism: a critique 151
Alienation from what? Deprivation from what? 158
Reconstructing alienation as capability deprivation: ‘back’
to value-formation! 163

5 The Capability Approach and the sociology of emotions 179

Emotions, suffering and the fragility of the social self 179
‘Capable’ emotions and the good society (I): the politics
of emotions 181
Negative emotions unbound (I): disgust and shame 185
Negative emotions unbound (II): envy and ressentiment189
‘Capable’ emotions and the good society (II): empathy
or sympathy? 192
The social self and cultural problems of identity 198

PART III
Institutions, modernity and fundamentalism 215

6 ‘Capable institutions’? Rebuilding social ethics 217

The shift to ‘capable’ institutions 217
CA, institutions and pluralism 223
Rethinking social ethics: CA and Parsons 229
The challenge of Luhmann’s systems theory 235
Axel Honneth and the sociological theory of justice 241
Deliberative democracy and CA 244
 Contents  xi
7 The crisis of capability? Value-fundamentalism and
solitarist identity 254
Introduction: decline – again? 254
Cultural identity and cultural illusions: how CA responds 255
What is fundamentalism? A sociological explanation 259
Sen’s comparative broadening and the sociological problem of
parallax or of blind spot 266
Values, globalization and Ausgleich269

Epilogue290
Index 294
Figures

1.1 Scheler’s value-hierarchy configured after Parsons’ functional

imperatives25
1.2 Martha Nussbaum’s CCL and Max Scheler’s value-hierarchy
configured after Parsons’ functional imperatives 25
2.1 Basic template of ‘economy and society’ models patterned after
Parsons’ functional imperatives 65
3.1 Well-being and agency 113
3.2 Amartya Sen’s aspects of agency configured after Parsons’
functional imperatives 126
3.3 Reconstructing agency as capability: linkages among Parsons,
Sen and Giddens 132
5.1 Luc Boltanski’s polities of worth and Max Scheler’s ideal
exemplars of Persons configured after Parsons’ functional
imperatives 210
6.1 Amartya Sen’s instrumental freedoms configured after Parsons’
functional imperatives 234
Acknowledgements

I came across Amartya Sen’s work as a postgraduate student when in 1992 I

taught as a tutor a module in sociology at the University of Edinburgh. I then
rediscovered Sen through the work of Kosmas Psychopedis during the late
1990s, whose work on value-theory and normativity exerted considerable influ­
ence on my subsequent research questions. These research questions were
further illuminated and enriched by John Holmwood. He has always been a con­
stant source of inspiration since my postgraduate years. We have started
exchanging views on the Capability Approach (CA) in 2010 and he has gener­
ously offered comments (constructive and critical) on parts of the manuscript. I
am thus grateful to his long-lasting contribution.
Previous sections of the book have been presented at various conferences at
­Cambridge (UK), Athens and Yokohama. I would thus like to thank, respectively,
conference session organizers Leonidas K. Cheliotis, Nate Hinerman and Bruce
Friesen for accepting my papers. In 2014, Masahito Takahashi was kind enough to
invite me at the always very hospitable Kobe College to give a talk on CA. Ronald
Anderson’s work on the sociology of suffering proved a solid bridge to my under­
standing of CA. I am thus grateful to our valuable conversations in Athens and
Yokohama. I am also indebted to my colleague and friend, Masahiro Hamashita,
with whom I have held several discussions on issues of ethics in light of the many
problems that afflict the contemporary world. His gentle, stoic and dispassionate per­
spective on various topics has always set the bar at heights difficult for me to reach.
For the purposes of writing this book I relied on two previously published journal
articles. I thank Sage Publishers for the kind permission to reproduce the following:

Gangas, Spiros. ‘From Alienation to Capability Deprivation: Reconstructing

a Sociological Concept’. (The final, definitive version of this paper has been
published in Social Science Information 53 (1): 54–75, 2014 by SAGE Pub­
lications Ltd, All rights reserved. © Spiros Gangas.)

Gangas, Spiros. ‘From Agency to Capabilities: Sen and Sociological

Theory’. (The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in
Current Sociology 64(1): 22–40, 2016 by SAGE Publications Ltd, All rights
reserved. © Spiros Gangas.)
xiv  Acknowledgements
While the published articles are self-sufficient, for the purpose of this book a revi­
sion was necessary in order to avoid cumbersome duplication and to enrich the
topics with newly discovered material. For example, in Chapter 3 I have added a
few pages on Daniel Bell’s unpublished manuscript on natural law and utopia:

Bell, Daniel. 1996b. ‘The Re-birth of Utopia: The Path to Natural Law.’
Daniel Bell Personal Archive. Collection no. 18559, Box 53, Folder 12.
Harvard University Archives. Accessed on: 5 June 2018.

I would thus like to thank David Bell for giving me permission to quote from
this unpublished manuscript, as well as Jordy Bell for helpful correspondence.
The manuscript was made available to me courtesy of Harvard University
Archives. I thus thank Megan Sniffin-Marinoff (University Archivist), Virginia
Hunt (Associate University Archivist for Collection Development and Records
Management Services) and Juliana Kuipers (Senior Collection Development
Curator/Archivist) who responded swiftly to my request for permission.
I also thank the two anonymous reviewers who commented positively on my
book proposal. Mihaela Ciobotea (Editorial Assistant at Routledge) has been
extremely helpful in answering all my queries. I am indebted to Charlotte
­Parkins who was a superb copy editor; she proved instrumental in correcting my
English and, generally, in improving the final shape of the book. I also thank
Gerhard Boomgaarden (Commissioning Editor and Routledge Senior Publisher)
for supporting the idea of a book in sociological theory and the CA and entrust­
ing its publication in the Routledge International Library of Sociology Series.
This is a major privilege for me since I still recall the educational impetus I
derived from that series as an undergraduate, as a postgraduate student at the
University of Edinburgh and as a professional in the field.
Writing up the book would not have been possible if Deree – the American
College of Greece had not provided me with a sabbatical leave during Fall
Semester 2018. The John S. Bailey Library staff at Deree were always extremely
helpful, yet I need to single out Vicky Tseroni (Associate Dean of Libraries) and
Angeliki Palaiologopoulou (Assistant to the Dean for Subscription Resources)
who processed immediately all my pressing inter-library loan requests. I have
also benefited from students in my sociological theory courses over the years of
teaching at Deree who have enabled me through their sharp questions and com­
ments to clarify my thinking.
Obviously, I need to stress that I am solely responsible for this book’s
limitations.
Finally, I wish to express my gratitude to my wife Ioulia Papazoglou. She
has, in many ways, been a source of support during the arduous process of writ­
ing the book. My daughter Niki-Heraklia has been a constant reminder of why
children prefigure the utopia of what CA is striving to accomplish. It is to both
that I dedicate this book.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Now you must know that when I first was a goldsmith’s apprentice
in the 15th year of the century, which was my 15th year too, the art
of engraving in niello had quite fallen into disuse. It was only
because a few old men still living did nothing else but talk of the
beauty of the art and of the great masters who had wrought in it, &
above all of Finiguerra, that I was seized with a mighty desire to
learn it; so I set to diligently to master it, & with the examples of
Finiguerra before me, made many good pieces.
My difficulty, however, was how to find out after I had engraved the
intaglio how the niello that was to fill it ought to be made. So I went
on trying ever so hard until I not only mastered the difficulties of
making the material, but the whole art became a mere child’s play to
me. Here, then, is the way in which niello work is done.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] Cellini had of course never heard of Theophilus, the monk of

the 11th century, and his great treatise ‘Diversarum Artium
Schedula.’
[9] Baccio Bandinelli, the sculptor, one of Cellini’s bitterest
enemies.
[10] Grosseria. Cellini uses this term for all large ware as
distinguished from ‘minuteria’ or small ware.
[11] Di cesello: what we should call repoussé.
[12] Martin Schongauer.
[13] Marcantonio Raimondi.
CHAPTER I. ON THE ART OF
NIELLO.
Take an ounce of the finest silver, two ounces of copper well
purified, and three ounces of lead as pure as you can possibly get it.
Then take a little goldsmiths’ crucible sufficiently big to melt the
three in together. You must first take the one ounce of silver & the
two ounces of copper and put the two together in the crucible, and
the crucible in a goldsmiths’ blast-furnace, and when the silver and
the copper are molten & well mixed together, add the lead to them.
Then quickly draw the crucible out, and with a bit of charcoal held in
your tongs, stir it round till it is well mixed. The lead, according to its
wont, will make a little scum, so with your charcoal try and take this
off as much as possible, until the three metals are fully & cleanly
blended. At the same time have ready a little earthenware flask
about as big as your fist, the neck of which should, however, not be
wider than might hold one of your fingers. Fill this flask about half
full with very finely ground sulphur, & empty into this your molten
mass, while quite fluid & hot. Then quickly stuff it up with moist
earth, and holding it in your hand wrapped up in a stout bit of
canvas, say for instance an old sack, shake it to & fro while it is
cooling. As soon as it is cold, break the flask and take out the stuff,
and you will see that by virtue of the sulphur it will have got the
black colour you want. But mind you take care that the sulphur is
the blackest you can get.[14] As for the flask, you may take one of
those which are generally used for separating gold from silver. Take
then your niello, which will now be in a number of little grains,—for
you must know that the object of all this shaking up and down whilst
cooling in the sulphur is to make it combine,—& put it anew into a
crucible, then melt it in a moderate fire, adding to it a grain of borax.
When you have recast it two or three times, and after each casting
broken up your niello, take it out, for you will see it will now be
splendidly broken up,[15] and that is as it ought to be,—and that will
do.
Now I’ll show you how to apply and make up your niello; but first a
word or two about the plate on which your intaglio is to be
engraved, whether in silver or in gold, for niello is used only on
these metals. If you want to get the plate on which you have cut
your work nice and smooth & without holes,[16] you must boil it in a
solution of clean water mixed with a deal of very clean charcoal, the
best for this purpose being charred oak. When your work has cooked
in the pot for about a quarter of an hour or so, transfer it to a
beaker of clean fresh water, and scrub it for a long time with a clean
brush till every particle of dirt be rubbed off it. Then see that you
have ready a bit of iron long enough to hold the work to the fire: its
length should be about three or four palms, more or less in
accordance with what the nature of your work may seem to you to
need. But mind you look out that the iron to which your work is fixed
be neither too thick nor too thin; for it should be of such sort that
when you put both to the fire they should heat equally; for if either
the iron or the plate become heated first, you’ll make a mess of it,
so pay great attention to this. Next take your niello, & crush it on an
anvil, or on a porphyry stone, & do this with a pair of pliers or a
copper rod, and so that it does not spring aside. Take care, too, that
it is crushed to grains and not to a powder, & these grains should be
as equal as possible, and about the size of a grain of millet or sago,
if not less. After this put the niello grains into some sort of vase or
glass bottle, and with fresh clean water wash it out well till it be
quite purified from any dust or dirt that may have got into it during
the pounding. This done, take a spatula of brass or copper, and
spread the niello evenly over your engraved plate to about the
thickness of the back of a table-knife. Then powder over it a little
well-ground borax, but mind it be not too much. Put a few pieces of
wood or charcoal so that you can blow them into flame with your
bellows, and this done, put your work very slowly to the wood fire &
subject it to the heat very dexterously till you see the niello
beginning to melt. But look out that, when it does begin to melt, you
don’t get it too hot, or into a red heat, for if it gets too hot, it will
lose its natural character and become soft, because, the principal
component of niello being lead, this lead will begin to corrode the
silver, or even the gold of which your work is made; in this way you
might have all your pains for nothing. Have great heed to this,
therefore, which is as important as your good engraving to begin
with.
Now before we follow the work through to the end, we will pause
and consider things a bit. I advise you when you are holding your
work over the fire and see the niello begin to disintegrate, to have at
hand a fairly stout iron rod, with a flatted end: this end hold in the
fire, and when the niello begins to run, rapidly put your hot iron over
it, and, treating it as if it were wax, spread it well, until it has quite
filled all the graven part of your intaglio. After this, when your work
has got cold, take a delicate file, and file off your niello, & after you
have removed a certain quantity, not so as to graze your intaglio, but
sufficient to lay it bare, take your work and put it on the hot ashes
or the live charcoal.
When it is a little hotter than the hand can bear, or even a bit hotter
still, but before it gets too hot, take your steel burnisher, well-
tempered, & with a little oil burnish your niello as firmly as the work
would seem to admit of, and with due discretion in every case. The
only object of this burnishing, is to stop up certain bubble holes[17]
that sometimes come during the process. You’ve only got to have
patience enough, and with a little practice you’ll find this burnishing
stops all the holes up beautifully.
After this, take your knife & touch up the intaglio. Then to finish with
take some Tripoli powder and pounded charcoal, & with a reed
peeled down to the pith, scrub your work till it is smooth and
beautiful.
Oh thou discreetest of readers, marvel not that I have given so
much time in writing about all this, but know that I have not even
said half of what is needed in this same art, the which in very truth
would engage a man’s whole energies, and make him practise no
other art at all. In my youth from my 15th to my 18th year I
wrought a good deal at this art of niello, always from my own
designs, and was much praised for my work.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] This is obscure, as the purest yellow sulphur would answer.

[15] Perhaps: ‘have a fine fracture.’
[16] Bucolini. Perhaps: ‘specks.’
[17] Spugnuzze.
CHAPTER II. ON FILIGREE
WORK.
Though I don’t work much in filigree myself, I have none the less
done one or two very difficult and very beautiful pieces of work in
this line, and so I’ll say something about it. The art is a charming
one, and when well executed & well understood is as pleasing to the
eye of man as anything done in goldsmithing. Those who did the
best work in filigree were the men who had a good grip of drawing,
especially designing from foliage & pierced spray work, for
everything that you set to work upon requires first of all that you
think it out as a design. And though many have practised the art
without making drawings first because the material in which they
worked was so easily handled and so pliable; still, those who made
their drawings first did the best work. Now give ear to the way the
art is pursued.
Innumerable are the purposes to which you may apply filigree. So
first of all we will begin with some of the ordinary every-day things &
then have a look at such other things as will make a man’s mouth
water. The more ordinary use to which filigree is applied, is for
buckles and pins for belts, such as I told of in the introductory
chapter of my book. Then is it used, too, for making crosses &
earrings, small caskets, buttons, certain kinds of little charms and
divers manner of necklaces; these latter are often worn with fillings
of musk, as is also frequently the case with bracelets; & so an
endless other variety of things. Now it is necessary that for
everything that you want to execute in this line of work, you must to
begin with make a gold or silver plate exactly in the way you want
your work ultimately to be. After this is done, and of course, after
you have made your drawing, have ready all the different kinds of
wire of which you will have need, such for instance as thick and thin
& middling, the usual three sizes, in due sequence, and perhaps a
fourth size likewise. Then have ready some ‘granaglia’—granulated
metal—for so the stuff is called; and in order to make this, you take
your gold or silver, melt it, and when it is well melted, pour it into a
pot of powdered charcoal. In this way every kind of granulated
metal is made.[18] Then, too, you must have your solder prepared
and ready to hand, and the right solder to use is the ‘terzo’ solder, so
called because you make it with two ounces of silver and one of
copper. Now though many are accustomed to make solder with
brass, be advised that it is much better to make it with copper, and
less risky. Take heed that you file your solder very fine, then put to
every three parts of solder one of well ground borax, and, having
well mixed them, put them in a borax crucible[19] such as a goldsmith
uses. Then have handy some gum tragacanth,[20] a sort of gum
which you can buy at any apothecary’s. Dissolve this gum tragacanth
in a little cup or vase, or whatever is convenient. When you have all
these things in order, you will also need by you two pairs of stout
little pliers, and also a small sharp chisel cut angularly,[21] like the
wood-engravers use; but its handle ought to be short, the length &
size of the handle of a graver. For its object is to cut the wires in
accordance as you may wish to twist them either one way or the
other, as your design requires, or your taste determines. You will
also need a copper plate fairly stout, very smooth, and about the
size of the palm of your hand. When you have twisted your wire into
the shapes you want, you must place it bit by bit on the copper
plate, and so bit by bit with a camel’s-hair brush streak it over with
the solution of gum tragacanth, arranging at the same time the little
gold & silver beads tastily. During the time that you are piecing
together your bits of leaves and other particles, the tragacanth water
will hold them together sufficiently to prevent their moving. Then
every time that you have composed a part of your spray-work, and
before the tragacanth water has got dry, throw a little soldering
powder out of your borax upon it, and put just as much as may
suffice to solder your spray work, & not more. The object of putting
just enough on, is that the work when soldered shall be graceful and
slender, for too much solder makes it look fat.
Hereupon, when it is time for soldering, you will need in readiness a
little stove, such as is used for enamelling, but since there is a great
difference between the melting of enamel & the soldering of filigree,
you will need to heat this furnace with a much smaller fire. Then
attach your work to a little iron plate, but so that the work stands
free above it, and put it little by little to the heat of the furnace, until
the borax shall have fumed away, & done as is its wont. Now too
much heat would move the wires you have woven out of place, so it
is essential to take the greatest possible care,—really it’s quite
impossible to tell it properly in writing: I could explain it all right
enough by word of mouth, or better still show you how it’s done—
still, come along—we’ll try and go on as we started!
When you are ready to begin soldering, and want to make your
solder flow, put your work in the furnace, & place beneath it a few
little pieces of well-dried wood, fanning them up a bit with your
bellows. Then it is not a bad thing, too, after this to throw a few
coarse cinders upon the fire, & this done at the right moment does a
deal of good. But it is practice and experience, together with a man’s
own discretion, that are the only real ways of teaching one how to
bring about good results in this or in anything. When your work is
soldered, that is to say if it be silver-work, you must to begin with,
cook it in tartar[22] mixed with some salt or other, and cook it so long
till all the borax is off it. This ought to last about a quarter of an
hour, by which time it will be quite clean, & free from borax. If on
the other hand it be made of gold, you must put it in strong vinegar
for about 24 hours, until you see a little salt forming upon it. And so,
after this manner can you fashion all sorts of rosettes that may be
needed in your work, such as I have not only seen, but myself
made, and that give much variety to the work, when you have
ordered them each in their place, and in accordance with your
design.
But now I’ll tell you yet something further about the cunning of this
charming art; I’ll tell you of a wonderful and priceless work that was
shown me in France, in Paris, their most beautiful & richest city—
which the French, according to their language, call ‘Paris simpari,’
that is to say ‘sans peer,’ or without equal. It was in the service of
King Francis in the year 1541. This most royal and splendid of Kings
retained me in Paris, and gave me of his liberality a castle, standing
in the city itself, and called by the name of the ‘little Nello.’ Here I
worked for four years, the which will be recounted all in its place
when I come to tell of the great works which I made for this most
worthy King. Here I will continue my talk as to the way of working in
filigree, and as I promised, tell of a work most rare—a work such as
may perchance never again be executed—which I saw in this city.
One day—a solemn fête day—the King went at Vespers to his ‘Sainte
Chapelle’ in Paris. He sent word to me that I was to be at Vespers
too, as he had something nice to show me. When Vespers were over
the King called me to him through the Constable, who sometimes
represents the King himself. This gentleman came, took me by the
hand, & led me before the King, who with great kindness and
affability began to show me the most beautiful trinkets and jewels,
and briefly asked me my opinion on them. After these he showed
me a variety of ancient camei about as big as the palm of a large
hand, and asked me many things about them, on which I gave him
my opinion. They had stood me in the middle of all of them;—there
was the King, and the King of Navarre his brother-in-law, and the
Queen of Navarre, and all the first flower of the nobility, & of those
that came nearest to the crown; & before all of them his Majesty
showed me many beautiful & priceless things, about which we talked
for a long time to his great delight. Thereupon he showed me a
drinking bowl without a foot & of a middling size, wrought in filigree
with the choicest spray-work, upon which much other ornamental
detail was admirably applied. Now list to my description of it! In
among the spray-work and interstices of filigree were settings of the
most beautiful enamel of various colours; and when you held it to
the light these enamel fillings almost looked as if they were
transparent—indeed it seemed impossible that such a piece of work
should ever have been made. Thus at least thought the King, &
asked me very pleasantly, since I had thus highly praised the bowl,
could I possibly imagine how the work was done. I thereupon
answered his question thus: ‘Sacred Majesty,’ quoth I, ‘I can tell you
exactly how it is done, even so much so that you, being the man of
rare ability that you are, shall know how just as well as the master
himself that made it, knew, but the explanation of the methods that
underlie its making will take rather a long time.’ At these words of
mine all the noble assembly that waited on his Majesty thronged
around me, the King declared he had never seen work of so
wondrous a kind, and since it was so easy of explanation, bade me
tell as I had promised. Then spake I: ‘If you want to make a bowl
like this, you must begin by making one of thin sheet iron, about the
thickness of a knife back larger than the one you want ultimately to
produce in filigree. Then with a brush you paint it inside with a
solution of fine clay, cloth shearings & Tripoli clay[23] finely ground;
then you take finely drawn gold wire of such a thickness as your
wise-minded master may wish that of his bowl to be. This thread
should be so thick that if you beat it out flat with a hammer on your
clean little cup, it bends more readily in the width than otherwise, in
such a way that it may then be flattened out to a ribbon shape, two
knife-blades broad, & as thin as a sheet of paper. You must be
careful to stretch your thread out very evenly, & have it tempered
soft, because it will then be easier to twist with your pliers. Then
with your fine design before you, you commence to compose your
stretched thread inside the iron bowl, first the principal members,
according to their way of arrangement, piece by piece painting them
over with solution of gum tragacanth, so that they adhere to the
clay-solution with which you pasted the inside. Then when your
craftsman has set all his principal members and larger outlines, he
must put in the spray work, each piece in its place, just as the
design guides him, setting it spray by spray, bit by bit in the way I
have told you. And then when all this is in proper order, he must
have ready his enamels of all colours, well ground and well washed.
It is true you might do the soldering first before you put in the
enamel, & you would do it in the way that I explained above when I
considered the soldering of filigree work, but it’s as good one way as
the other, soldered or not soldered. And when all the preliminary
work is carefully done, and all the interstices nicely filled with the
coloured enamels, you put the whole thing in the furnace, in order
to make the enamel flow. To begin with you must only subject it to a
slight heat, after which, when you have filled up any little openings
with a second coat of enamel you may put it in again under a rather
bigger fire, & if it appear after this that there are still crannies to be
filled up, you put it to as strong a fire as the craft allows and as your
enamels will bear. When all this is done you remove it from the iron
bowl, which will be easy by reason of the paste of clay to which the
actual work and the enamels are attached. Then with a particular
kind of stones called “frasinelle,” and with fresh water you begin the
process of smoothing it down, and you must go on with this so long
till the enamel is polished down to an equal thickness throughout
and as may seem good to you. And when you have got as far as the
“frasinelle” can take you, you may continue your polishing with still
finer stones, and lastly with a piece of reed and tripoli clay (as I
explained it in niello work), then the surface of your enamel will be
very smooth and beautiful.’ When the admirable King Francis heard
all this description of mine, he declared that they who knew so well
how to explain, doubtless knew still better how to perform, & that I
had so well pointed out to him the whole process of a work that he
had erst thought impossible, that now, owing to my description, he
really thought he could do it himself. And therewith he heaped great
favours upon me, such as you can’t possibly imagine.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] Fine granules of gold are made by cutting gold wire into
short lengths, mixing the cut pieces with charcoal, placing the
mixture in a crucible and then heating the whole up to the
melting point of the metal. Afterwards the charcoal is washed
away, and the gold granules (which have been fused into a round
form) sorted according to size by sifting.
[19] Borraciere: perhaps a borax pan.
[20] Dragante.
[21] Uno scarpelletto augnato.
[22] ‘Gomma di botte,’ i.e., tartrate of potash.
[23] Tripolo.
CHAPTER III. CONCERNING THE
ART OF ENAMELLING.
Now let us have a talk about the beautiful art of enamelling, and
therewith consider those excellent craftsmen who wrought best
therein; and with the knowledge of their lovely creations before us
see what is beautiful and what is difficult in this art, and get to
understand the difference between what is really good and what is
indifferent. As I said in the first chapter of my book, this art was well
practised in Florence, and I think too that in all those countries
where they used it, and pre-eminently the French and the Flemings,
and certainly those who practised it in the proper manner, got it
originally from us Florentines. And because they knew how difficult
the real way was, & that they would never be able to get to it, they
set about devising another way that was less difficult. In this they
made such progress, that they soon got according to popular opinion
the name of good enamellers. It is certainly true that if a man only
works at a thing long enough, all his practising makes his hand very
sure in his art: & that was the way with the folk who lived beyond
the Alps.
As for the right and proper way about which I intend to talk, it is
done in this wise. First you make a plate either of gold or silver & of
the size and shape that your work is to be. Then you prepare a
composition of ‘pece greca,’[24] and brick ground very fine, and a
little wax; according to the season; as for the latter you must add
rather more in cold than in hot weather. This composition you put
upon a board great or small in accordance with the size of your
work, & on this you put your plate when you have heated it. Then
you draw an outline with your compasses in depth rather less than a
knife back, and, this done, ground your plate anywhere within this
outline and with the aid of a four-cornered chisel to the depth which
the enamel is to be, and this you must do very carefully. After this
you can grave in intaglio on your plate anything that your heart
delights in, figure, animals, legend with many figures, or anything
else you like to cut with your graver and your chisels, and with all
the cleanness that you possibly can. A bas-relief has to be made
about the depth of two ordinary sheets of paper, and this bas-relief
has to be sharply cut with finely-pointed steel tools, especially in the
outlines, and if your figures are clothed with drapery, know that
these folds, if sharply drawn and well projecting, will well express
the drapery. It is all a question of how deeply your work is engraved,
and the little folds & flowerets that you figure on the larger folds
may go to represent damask. The more care you put into this part of
your work, the less liable your enamel will be to crack & peel off
hereafter, and the more carefully you execute the intaglio the more
beautiful your work will be in the end. But don’t imagine that by
touching up the surface of your work with punches and hammer, it
will gain anything in the relief, for the enamels will either not stick at
all, or the surface that you are enamelling will still appear rough.
And just as when a man cuts an intaglio he often rubs it with a little
charcoal, such as willow or walnut wood, which he rubs on with a
little saliva or water, the same you may do here when you cut your
intaglio in order to see it stand out better, because the shine made
by the metal tools on the plate will make it difficult for you to see
your work. But, as owing to this the work gets a bit untidy and
greasy, it is necessary, when you have finished it, to boil it out in a
concoction of ashes[25] such as was described above for niello work.
Now let us say you want to begin enamelling your work, and that it
is in gold. I propose telling you first of how to enamel on gold, and
then how to do it on silver. For both gold and silver the same
cleanness is necessary, and in either case the same method, but
there is a little difference in applying the enamel and also in the
actual enamels applied, for the red enamel cannot be put on silver
because the silver does not take it. The reasons of this I would
explain, were it not too long a business, so I’ll say nothing about it,
especially as to do so would take us beyond the scope of our inquiry.
Furthermore I have no intention of talking about how enamels are
made, because that in itself is a great art, also practised by the
ancients, & discovered by wise men, but as far as we are aware the
ancients did not know of the transparent red enamel, which it is
said, was discovered by an alchemist who was a goldsmith as well.
But all I need tell of it is that this alchemist, while engaged in the
search of how to make gold, had mixed together a certain
composition, and when his work was done, there appeared among
the stuff in the metal rest of his crucible a sediment of the loveliest
red glass, just as we see it to this day. After much time and trouble,
& by many mixings of it with other enamels the goldsmith finally
discovered the process of making it. This enamel is far the most
beautiful of all, and is termed in the goldsmiths’ art ‘smalto roggio,’
red enamel, or in French ‘rogia chlero’ (rouge claire) that is to say,
and which means in other words, red and clear or transparent. A
further sort of red enamel we have also, which is not transparent
and has not the splendid colour, and this is used on silver because
that metal will not take the other. And though I have not had much
practical experience of it, I have tried it often enough to be able to
talk about it. As for the other, it lends itself more aptly to gold by
reason of its being produced from the minerals and compositions
that have been used in the search how to make gold. Now let us
return to the process of enamelling.
The method of enamelling is much the same as painting, for you can
have as many colours as come within human ken. And just as in
painting so in enamelling you have them all ranged in order and all
well ground to begin with. We have a proverb in the craft which
says: ‘Smalto sottilé e niello grosse.’ ‘Enamel should be fine, niello
should be coarse,’ and that’s just what it is. You put your enamel in a
little round mortar of well-hardened steel, and about the size of your
palm, & then you pound it up with very clean water and with a little
steel pestle specially made for the purpose of the necessary size.
Some, to be sure, have pounded their enamels on porphyry or
serpentine stone, which are very hard, & moreover have done this
dry, but I now think that the steel mortar is much better because
you can pound it so much cleaner. The reasons of this we may
consider later, but because we want here to be as brief as possible &
to avoid any unnecessary difficulties and useless confusion, all we
need know is that the particular mortars in question are made in
Milan. Many excellent men of this craft came from Milan and its
adjacent territory, and I knew one of the best of them. His nick-
name was Master Caradosso,[26] and he never wanted to be called by
any other, and this nick-name was given him once by a Spaniard
who was in a great rage because he was kept waiting by the Master
for a piece of work which he had promised to get finished by a
particular day. When the Spaniard saw that he could not have it in
time, he got so fearfully angry that he looked as if he would like to
do him an injury, at which Caradosso to appease his wrath, began
excusing himself as best he could, and in such a plaintive tone of
voice, and such an uncouth Milanese lingo, that the irate nobleman
burst out laughing, and looking him straight in the face, cried out in
his high & mighty manner: ‘Hai cara d’osso,’ that is to say, ‘You bum
face.’ The sound of this appellation pleased Caradosso so much that
he never would answer to any other. When later on one fine day he
found out what it really meant, he would gladly have got rid of it,
but he couldn’t, it was too late. I knew him as an old man of 80 in
Rome, where he was never called by any other name than
Caradosso. He was a splendid goldsmith, especially at enamelling,
and I shall have more to say of him later on.
Now let us proceed with the beautiful art of enamelling. As I said
above the best way of pounding the enamels is in a little steel
mortar with water. I found out from personal experience that the
best plan as soon as the enamels are ground is to pour off the water
in which you grind them and put the powder in a little glass, pouring
upon it just so much aqua fortis as may suffice to cover it; & so let it
stand for about one-eighth of an hour. This done, take out your
enamel and wash it well in a glass bottle with very clear, clean water
until no residue of impurity be left. You must know that the object of
the aqua fortis is to clean it of any fatty, just as fresh water is to
clean it of any earthy impurities. When your enamels are all well
washed in this way, you should put each in its little jar of glass ware
or majolica, but take great care that your water is so contained that
it does not dry up, because if you put fresh water to them your
enamels will spoil at once. Now pay great attention to what I’m next
going to tell you. If you want your enamels to come out properly you
must take a nice clean piece of paper, and chew well between your
teeth, that’s to say if you’ve got any,—I couldn’t do it because I’ve
none left,—so should have to soften it and beat it up with a little
hammer of iron or wood, whichever might be best; this done you
must wash out your paper putty, and squeeze it till there is no water
left in it, because you will have to use it as a sponge and apply it
from time to time upon your enamels. The more your colours dry up
during the process the better they will look afterwards. Then, too, I
mustn’t forget to tell you another important thing which will also
affect the good or bad enamelling of your work, and this
necessitates your trying a piece of experimental work first.
To this end you take a plate of gold or silver, whichever material you
elect to cut your intaglio upon, and on this experimental piece,—let
us suppose it is gold,—put all the different colours with which you
intend to work, having made as many little hollows with your graver
as there are enamels. Thus you take a little bit of each, and the only
object of this is to make the necessary preliminary trial, for by this
trial you find out which run easy and which run hard, because it is
very necessary that they should all run alike; for if some run too
slowly and others too fast they would spoil each other, and you
would make a mess of your work. All those preliminaries done, you
may set to work at your enamelling; lay the nice clean colours over
your engraved bas-relief just as if you were painting, always keeping
your colours well covered up, and take no more out of one bottle
than you can conveniently use at a time. It is usual, too, to fashion
an instrument called a ‘palettiere’ (palette holder), this is made out
of thin copper plate, & in imitation of fingers, it should not be bigger
than your fingers, and there should be five or six of them. Then you
take a lump of lead in the shape of a pear, with an iron stem to it,
which would correspond to the stalk of the pear, and then you put all
your bits of copper which you have hollowed out somewhat, one
over the other on your pear stem. And this little finger-shaped
palette you stand beside your work, and you put your enamels upon
it, one by one, using due care. How careful you have to be with this
cannot be told in words alone—you’ll have to learn that by
experience!
As I said above, enamelling is similar to painting; though the
mediums in the two sorts of painting in colours are oil & water, while
that of painting in enamels is by dissolving them with heat. To begin
with then, take your enamels with a little copper palette knife, &
spread them out little by little very carefully over your bas-relief,
putting on any colour you like, be it flesh colour, red, peacock blue,
tawny, azure, grey or capucin colour, for that is what one of the
colours is called. I don’t mention yellow, white & turquoise blue,
because those colours are not suitable to gold. But one colour I
forgot, and that was ‘Aqua Marina,’ a most beautiful colour, which
may be used for gold as well as for silver. Then when you have all
your enamels of all colours placed in the best of orders, you have to
be careful in the first coat, as it is called, to apply them very thin and
neatly, and just as if you were painting in miniature you put each in
its place, exactly where it is to be. This done, have your furnace in
order, & well heated with charcoal. Later on I will tell you further of
furnaces and point out which are the best of the many different ones
in use; but now let us assume that you have in it a fire sufficient for
the purpose of the work you have before you. Then having your
furnace as I say, in its place, you must put your gold work on an iron
plate a trifle larger than the work itself, so that it can be handled
with the tongs. And you must so ply it with the tongs and hold it to
the mouth of the furnace, that it gets warm gradually, then, little by
little, put it into the middle of the furnace, but you must take the
greatest possible care that as soon as the enamel begins to move,
you do not let it run, but draw it away from the fire quickly, so,
however, that you do not subject it to any sudden cooling. Then,
when it is quite cool, apply, just as carefully as before, the second
coat of enamel, put it in the furnace in the same way, this time to a
rather stronger fire, and draw it forth in the same manner as before.
After this if you see your work need further touching up with enamel
in any of its corners, as is often necessary, judgment and care will
show you how to do it. For this I advise you to make a stronger and
clearer fire, adding fresh charcoal, and so put your work in again,
subjecting it to as strong a heat as enamel and gold can stand. Then
rapidly take it out, and let your ’prentice be ready, bellows in hand,
to blow upon it as quickly as possible and so cool it. This you have
to do for the sake of the red enamel, the ‘smalto roggio’ of which we
spoke above, because in the last firing it is wont to fuse with the
others, and so to make new colour effects, the red, for instance,
going so yellow that you can scarce distinguish it from gold. This
fusing is technically called ‘aprire.’ When it has once more cooled you
put it in again, but this time with a much weaker fire, until you see it
little by little reddening, but take great heed that when it has got the
good colour you want, you draw it rapidly from the fire & cool it with
the bellows, because too much firing will give it so strong a colour as
to make it almost black.
When you have duly carried out all these processes to your
satisfaction, take some of your ‘frassinelle’—these were the bits of
stones or sand that I described before when I told you about King
Francis’ filigree bowl—and with them smooth your work over until
you get the proper effect. Then finish by polishing it with tripoli as I
showed you above, also in the filigree bowl. This method of
finishing, which is by far the best and safest, is called hand-
polishing, in contradistinction to a second method by which, after
you have your work smoothed with the ‘frasinella’ and then well
washed with fresh water so as to remove from it all dirt, you put it
again on to the iron plate and into a clear fire and thus slowly heat
it. In this method, by which you get the effect of polish much
quicker than with the other, you leave the work in the fire till it is
hot, and the enamels begin to run; but its disadvantage is that, as
the enamels always shrink a bit, and shrink unequally in the firing,
you cannot get so even a surface as by the hand-polishing. You have
to take the same precautions, too, as you took when firing your
‘roggio clero,’ or red enamel. In the event of your not employing the
latter—as would be the case on silver—you must take great care to
observe the same precautions in putting your work in, but do just
the opposite in taking it out of the fire, that is to say draw it very
gradually from the furnace, so that it cools very slowly instead of
very rapidly as was the case with the red enamel. Of course you may
have to enamel a lot of pieces, such for instance as little pendants,
and bits of jewellery, and other such things, where you are not able
to use the ‘frasinella’ at all. Things of this kind, fruit, leaves, little
animals, tiny masks and such like, are applied in the same way with
well-ground and washed enamels, but cannot be similarly polished
because of their relief.
And if by reason of the great time and labour and patience you
spend upon the doing of all this your enamels begin to dry up, and
thus fall off in turning your work, this you may remedy in this wise:
take a few quince seeds, which you get by cutting the fruit through
the middle, choose such as are not empty, and let them soak in a
vase with a little water; this you should do over night if you want to
enamel the next morning, and you should be careful to do it very
clean. Then when you want to apply your enamels, having put a
morsel of each colour on your palette (the finger palette I described
to you above fixed on to the stem of your leaden pear) you mix with
every bit of enamel you lay on your work, a tiny drop of this quince-
seed-water, the effect of which is to produce a kind of gum which
holds the enamels together so that they don’t fall, & no other gum
has a like effect. For the rest, all you have to do is to carefully carry
out the methods I have so far explained to you, and whether your
enamel be on gold or silver, except in so far as I have told, those
methods are the same.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] Probably powdered resin; in Hendrie’s ‘Theophilus’ it is given

as common white pine resin from which the oil has been
evaporated over hot water.
[25] Bollirlo in una cenerata.
[26] His real name was Ambrogio Foppa.
CHAPTER IV. JEWELLERY.
Now let us discuss jewellery, and of what pertains to precious
stones. Of such there are four only, and those four are made by the
four elements, the ruby is made by fire, the sapphire most obviously
by the air, the emerald by the earth, and the diamond by water. In
its due place I shall have something to say of the virtue of each. But
what we have before us here is to talk about what pertains to the
setting, in pendants, bracelets, rings, tiaras and crowns. We will
leave diamonds till the last, because they are the most difficult of all
stones to treat, and the reason of this is that while of other stones
set in gold each one has its foil, of which more anon, the diamond of
certain varieties has a tint which has to be specially prepared at the
back of the stone, according to the peculiarities of each; and in their
place will I tell you the loveliest things about them.
We will begin with rubies, of which there are various sorts. The first
is the oriental ruby, which is found in our side of the Levant and near
home; this part of the Levant, indeed, produces rarer and more
beautiful jewels than any other lands. These Levant rubies have a
mature colour, they are deep and very fiery. The rubies of the West
on the other hand, though still red, lean towards peacock colour and
are somewhat sharp and crude. Northern rubies are sharper and
cruder still, while those of the South are quite different from the
others, but so rare that they are very seldom to be met with, so I
will mention one of their peculiarities only, they have not the same
grand colour as the Levant ruby, but verge somewhat upon that of
the ballas,[27] and though this has not the beautiful suffused colour it
is none the less fiery, and so grand is it that they seem perpetually
to scintillate by day, and by night throw out a gleam akin to that of a
glow-worm, or other little creatures that shine in the dark. True it is
that these southern rubies do not always possess this wonderful
quality, but so delightful are they to the eye, that your good jeweller
easily tells them from the others, the name carbuncle is, however,
only applied to the very rare ones, and those that shine in the dark.
As soon as we have considered, from personal experience, and from
the experience of others, what are the best ways of setting jewels,
we will talk of the qualities of the stones themselves. But I have a
thing or two to say in order not to scandalize a certain class of men
who call themselves jewellers, but may be better likened to
hucksters or linen-drapers, pawn-brokers, and grocers; I have seen
more than enough of wondrous samples in plenty of them in Rome,
and there you may still see them to this day, with a maximum of
credit and a minimum of brains. So what I say is out of respect to
these dunderheads lest they should be shocked at my affirming that
the real stones are of four sorts only, and thus wag their arrogant
tongues at me & cry, ‘How about the chrysoprase or the jacynth,
how about the spinell, how about the aqua marine; nay, more, how
about the garnet, the vermeil, the chrysolite, the plasma, the
amethyst, ain’t these all stones and all different?’ Yes, and why the
Devil won’t you add pearls, too, among the jewels, ain’t they fish
bones? I really don’t think it worth while to try and cope with
veritable empty-headed ignoramuses, but I will say that there are
many, very many, like them, and that your great princes are mainly
to blame for encouraging them, since they quite put themselves in
the hands of such men, and so not only do injury to themselves, but
undervalue men that walk in the right way and do excellent work.
But let us pass from this little digression & consider what is most
beautiful and most rare in jewellery; a digression merely entered
into because I don’t want ignorant men to jeer at me for having said
nothing of the ballas and the topaz. The ballas is a ruby with but
little colour, as if it were a kind of feminine form of the stone, called
in the West the ballas ruby, but it is of the same hardness, and so a
gem of the nature of the ruby, and differing from it only as to cost.
The like holds good with the topaz, in its relationship to the
sapphire, it is of the same hardness as the sapphire, and though of a
different colour must be classified with the sapphire, just as the
ballas must be with the ruby—what better classification do you
want? hasn’t the air got its sun?
 A page of reputed Cellini Jewellery
Of these four sorts of stones, the ruby, the sapphire, the emerald,
and the diamond, you must know that the first is far the most costly.
A ruby, for instance, of five grains of wheat, & of as fine a fire as you
could wish, would be worth about 800 golden scudi, and an emerald
of the same size and beauty would run to about 400, similarly a
diamond would be worth 100, & no more, while a sapphire would
fetch about 10. These few facts I thought might be worth having to
all those many youths always springing up and eager to learn the
beautiful art of the goldsmith. To be sure, they ought to begin
learning as soon as they can toddle, & use that greatest of all
opportunities which is afforded by apprenticeship to some Master of
renown, whether in Rome, in Venice, or in Paris. In all of them did I
sojourn for a long while, and in all of them did I see and handle
many and invaluable pieces of jewellery.
FOOTNOTES:

[27] Balaschio.
CHAPTER V. HOW TO SET A
RUBY.
We will now continue our talk & consider the way of setting a ruby,
and the box of gold in which it has to be fitted. This box, whether in
a pendant, a ring, or what not, is always called the bezel. What you
have first of all to observe in the setting of the stone in this bezel, is
that the former must not be set too deep, so as to deprive it of its
full value, nor too high, so as to isolate it from its surrounding detail.
I mention this because I have seen mistakes made in both ways,
and I am certain that practising jewellers who have a right
knowledge of drawing and design would not go wrong in either the
one direction or the other.
So let us place our fine ruby into its bezel. In order to what is
technically called ‘set’[28] it, we must provide ourselves with four or
five ruby foils[29] of which some should be of so deep a glow that
they seem quite dark, and others differing in intensity till they have
scarce any red in them at all. With all these different specimens of
foils before us, we take hold of the ruby with a piece of hard black
wax well pointed, pressing the wax upon one of the projections of
the stone. Then your good jeweller tries his ruby now upon this foil,
now upon that, till his own good taste determines him which foil will
give most value to his stone. Sometimes the jeweller will find it may
help him to move the stone to and from the foil, but he has to
recollect that the air between the foil & the stone will always give an
effect different to that afterwards given when the stone is set in the
bezel where no air passes behind. Therefore your capable man
places the cut foil in the setting, at one time bringing it close, at
another interposing a space. Thereupon let him set his jewel with all
the care, taste & delicacy of which an able man is master.
FOOTNOTES:

[28] Legare.
[29] Literally leaves that are of themselves red.
Another page of reputed Cellini Jewellery
CHAPTER VI. HOW TO SET AN
EMERALD AND A SAPPHIRE.
Now, as to the emerald and the sapphire, the same skill must be
used with the foils adaptable to them as with those of the ruby. And
because I consider that practice always has come before theory in
every craft, and that the rules of theory, in which your skillful
craftsman is accomplished, are always grafted on to practice
afterwards, I will give you a case in point of what once happened to
me when I was setting a ruby of about 3000 scudi in value. This
ruby had, when it came into my hands, been very well set at
different times by some of the best known jewellers of the day. So I
was incited to work at it with all possible care. Seeing that I could in
no way satisfy myself with the result of my efforts, I locked myself
up somewhere where no one could see me; not so much because I
did not wish my secret to go further, but because I did not want to
be caught trying so mean an experiment upon so goodly and
wonderful a gem. I took a little skein of silk stained with Kermes,
and with a pair of scissors cut it carefully, having previously spread a
little wax in the bezel. Then I took the tiny bit of silk and pressed[30]
it firmly on to the wax with the point of a small punch. Then did I
put my ruby upon it, and so well did it make, and such virtue did it
gain, that all the jeweller folk who had seen it first, suspected me of
having tinted it, a thing forbidden in jewellery except in the case of
diamonds, of which more anon. But for this ruby, some of the
jewellers asked me to say what kind of a foil I had put behind it,
upon which I answered that I had put no foil behind it. At this reply
of mine, a jeweller who was with the gentleman to whom the ruby
belonged, said, ‘If the ruby has no foil, you can’t have done anything
else but tint it in some way or other, and that you know is forbidden.’
To which I replied again that I had neither given it a foil, nor done
anything forbidden to it. At this the jeweller got a little nasty and
used strong language, at which the gentleman who owned the ruby
said, ‘Benvenuto, I pray you, be so good, provided I pay you for it,
to open your setting and show it to me only, I promise you I’ll not
tell anyone your secret.’ Then said I to him that I had worked several
days on the job, and that I had my living to earn, but that I would
willingly do it if he paid me the price of the setting, and, moreover,
do it in the presence of all of them, because I should be much
honoured in thus being able to teach my teachers. When I had said
this, I opened the bezel and took out the stone in their presence.
They were very much obliged, we parted very good friends, and I
got very well paid. The ruby in question was a thick one, & so limpid
and luminous that all the foils you put beneath it gave it a sort of
uncertain flash, like that which shimmers from the girasol opal, or
the cat’s-eye, two kinds of stones to which the dunderheads, of
whom I told before, would also give the name of gems.
Now a word about the emerald and the sapphire, in both which
gems one meets with the same peculiarities and difficulties as with
the ruby, so I know of but little to say about them than that they are
stones that are often falsified, which should be a warning to those
who delight in gems or buy them, whether to set or to keep. There
is a kind of Indian ruby with as little colour as you can possibly
imagine, and I once saw a ruby of this nature falsified ever so
cleverly by one of these cheats. He had done it by smearing its base
with dragon’s blood, which is a kind of composition made of a gum
that will melt in the fire, and that you can buy at any apothecary’s in
Florence or Rome. Well, the cheat had smeared the base of the
stone with dragon’s blood, & then set it in such a way that it showed
so well, you would gladly have given 100 golden scudi for it; but
without this colour it wouldn’t have fetched 10, and have been much
more likely to come out of the setting. But the colour looked so fine,
and the stone seemed so cunningly set, that no one unless very
careful, would have spotted it.
It happened one day that I was with three old jewellers to whom I
had expressed my doubts as to the genuineness of the stone, so
they made me unset the ruby and they stood round me greedily