cess is similar to that used at present for gilding with amalgam, by means of heat, especially as amalgamation was known to the ancients. But, to speak the truth, Pliny says nothing of heating the metal after the gold is applied, or of evaporating the quicksilver, but of drying the cleaned metal before the gold is laid on. Had he not mentioned quicksilver, his gilding might have been considered as that with gold-leaf by means of heat, dorure en feuille a feu, in which the gold is laid upon the metal after it has been cleaned and heated, and strongly rubbed with blood-stone, or polished steel. Felibien was undoubtedly right when he regretted that the process of the ancients, the excellence of which is proved by remains of antiquity, has been lost. False gilding, that is, where thin leaves of white metal, such as tin or silver, are applied to the article to be gilded, and then rubbed over with this could be prevented by the white of an egg-Did Pliny himself completely understand gilding? The French translator, Poinsinet de Sivry, seems not to have suspected any difficulty." Lorsque la feuille est trop mince, le mercure la perce, et trahit, par la pâleur qu'il lui communique, la fraude des ouvriers; c'est pourquoi, pour mieux couvrir leur larcin, ils rendent le mercure plus tenace et plus siccatif au moyen d'un blanc d'oeuf." Perhaps Pliny only meant to say, that many artists gave out the cold-gilding, where the gold-leaf was laid on with the white of an egg, as gilding by means of heat.-I shall here remark, that the reader may spare himself the trouble of turning over Durand's Histoire naturelle d' l'or et d'argent, Londres 1729, fol. This Frenchman undertood still less what he translated. • Principes de l'architecture. Paris 1676, 4to. p. 280. VOL. IV. N a yellow transparent colour, through which the metallic splendor appears, is much older than I believed it to be in the year 1780. The process for this purpose is given by the monk Theophilus, al ready mentioned, whose fragments were first printed in 1781.* According to his directions, tin beat into thin leaves was to be rendered of a golden yellow colour by a vinous tincture of saffron, so that other pigments could be applied over it.. The varnish or solution of resin in spirit of wine or oil, used for this purpose at present, appears not then to have been known. But in the sixteenth century this art was very common; and instructions respecting it were given by Garzoni †, Cardan, Caneparius § and others in their writings. About the same period a pewterer at Nuremberg, named Melchior Koch, was acquainted with the art of communicating a golden colour, in the like manner, to tin goblets and dishes. He died in 1567; and with him, as Doppelmayr says, the art was lost. A method of applying a white metal to paper, and then drawing over it a gold-varnish, has been known in China since the earliest periods. At present this method of gilding is T * Lessing zur Geschichte und Litteratur, vi. p. 311. + Piazza universale. Venetia 1610, 4to. p. 281; and in the German translation, Franckfort on the Mayn, 1659, 4to. p. 741. De rerum varietate, xiii. сар. 56. § De atramentis. Roterod. 1718, 4to. p. 333. || Nachricht von Nurnberg Künstlern, p. 290. Memoirs concernant les Chinois, par les missionaires, xi. p. 351. practised more in Sicily than in any other country. It appears also to have been used, at an early period, for gilding leather and leather tapestry; and this perhaps was first attempted at Messina, as we are told by John Matthæus,† who, however, in another place ascribes the invention to a saint of Lucca, named Cita. But gilt leather was made so early as the time of Lucian, who conjectures that Alexander the impostor had a piece of it bound round his thigh. The dress of the priests, on the festival of Bacchus, was perhaps of the same kind. § FUR DRESSES. As long as mankind lived under palm-trees in their original country, between the tropics, they had no • Lettres écrites de Suisse, d'Italie, de Sicile, et de Malthe, par M. Amst. 1780, 12mo. iii. p. 349. + Cita Lulensis mulier et sancta, auripellem, id est, aurum in pelle reperit. Quam ob rem hujus rei artifices ejus diem festum singulis annis maximo honore colunt et observant.-Pag. 41. Pelles bractea argentea obducere, dein eas fuco tingere in aureum colorem, quas auripelles vocant, Messanenses suum, ut ferunt, inventum fuit, magis novum quam vetus. De rerum inventoribus, Hamburgi 1613, 8. p. 37. Luciani Opera, edit. Bipont. v. p. 100. 8 μnpos autoυ xpucous dreparn, δερματος, ώς εικός, επιχρυσου περιπέθεντος. Femur ejus aureum apparuit, circumposita, ut probabile est, pelle inaurata. § Plutarchi Sympos. iv. in fine. αρχιερευς νεβριδα χρυσοσπαστον ενημμενος. 67%, Francof. 1620, fol. ii. P. - occasion to provide either food or clothing. The former was spontaneously supplied by the earth, that is, without care or labour; and the latter in that warm climate was superfluous. The art of cultivating plants, and that of preparing clothes, were not innate, but first taught by necessity; and this did not exist till men, in consequence of their increase, were obliged to spread towards both the poles. In proportion as they removed from their former abode, provisions became scarcer, and the climate colder. Hence arose the breeding of cattle, as well as agriculture; and men then first ventured on the cruelty of killing animals, in order that they might devour them as food, and use their skins to shelter them against the severity of the weather. At first these skins were used raw, without any preparation; and many nations did not till a late period fall upon the art of rendering them softer, and making them more pliable, durable, and convenient. As long as mankind traded only for necessaries, and paid no attention to ornaments, they turned the hairy side towards the body; but as the art of dressing skins was not then understood, the flesh side must have given to this kind of clothing, when the manners of people began to be more refined, an appearance which could not fail of exciting disgust. To prevent this the Ozola incontectam indutus. Compare with Plutarch's account, Braun de ves--titu sucerdotum Hebræorum. Amst. 1701, 4to. i. p. 52 and 77. 4 verted the skins, and wore the hair outwards; and in this manner some account for the bad smell which exhaled from their bodies. This custom, however, was so general, that Juvenal, where he describes a miserly person, says: "to guard himself against the cold he does not wear the costly woollen clothing of the luxurious Romans, but the skins of animals, and these even inverted, that is to say, with the hairy side turned inwards, without caring whether the appearance be agreeable or not." In what manner the art of tanning was afterwards found out, Goguet‡ has endeavoured to conjecture from the accounts given by travellers, in regard to the savages in the northern parts of America and Asia, but particularly in regard to the Greenlanders. The far more ingenious method of manufacturing wool, first into felt and then into cloth, seems to have been discovered by the inhabitants of temperate districts, where the mildness of the winter rendered fur dresses unnecessary, The sheep came from Africa; but in that country it has hair and not wool; and it is only in Pausap. x. 38, p, 895: Accepimus, Ozolas, cum vestem texere nondum didicissent, velare corpora solitos ad frigus propulsandum. ferarum recentibus coriis, pilo extrorsum conversa, quo vestitus plus decoris haberet. το δασυ των δερματων ες το εκτος ύπερ ευπρέπειας τρεποντες. + Nil vetitum fecisse volet, quem non pudet alto Per glaciem perone tegi, qui summovet Euros Sat. xiv. 185 Von Ursprung der Gesetze und Künste, i. p. 129. |