embedded in the solid; in others, the divisions are narrow strips of metal set on edge, and slightly attached to the plate at the back, so as to form a kind of filagree in which the enamel is laid.[1] It is to the examples of the latter chiss, to those embedded in filagree, that the following observations relate, in which I shall endeavour to explain the manner of their execution, and briefly notice the few examples that have survived destruction.
Theophilus the monk, humilis presbyter, as he calls himself, and with respect to whose country and the age in which he lived, so many different opinions have been entertained,[2] has left us, in his Diversarum artium schedula, an elaborate and detailed treatise on most of the arts practised in his time. He has given instructions of considerable extent for making church plate, devoting no less than six chapters of his work to the construction of the chalice alone. His chalice was to be of a large size, with a wide bowl and two handles; the material, gold, ornamented with jewels, pearls, and electra.[3] He gives directions for making these electra, from which it appears, undoubtedly, that they are enamels of the kind we are examining, that is to say, enamels embedded in filagree. Having made the vase and its handles, he proceeds to say,[4] "take a thin piece of gold and join it to the upper rim of the vase, and measure it out from one handle to the other, which piece of gold must be as broad as the stones which you wish to place upon it; and in arranging them, dispose them in this way,—first, let there be a stone with four pearls, one at each angle, then an electrum, next to which a stone with pearls, and again an electrum, and you will so arrange them that the stones may always be next to the handles; the settings and grounds of the stones, and the
- ↑ The French terms for these two subdivisions are champlevé and cloisonné, or rather à cloisons mobiles. The first word does not seem to convey a good idea of the process. The latter is good, but it is difficult to find an English equivalent. I have used "embedded in filagree," for want of a better.
- ↑ The most probable theory seems to be, that Theophilus, or Rugerus, as he is called in some MSS., was a Lombard, and lived in the twelfth century at the latest; vide, the Introduction to Escalopier's edition of his works, Paris, 1848. A more complete text, with an English translation, has been published by Hendrie, Lond. 1847.
- ↑ The chalice when made must greatly have resembled that of S. Gozlin, engraved in De Caumont's Abécédaire d'Archéologie, Paris, 1850.
- ↑ Book iii., Chap, liv., De Electro. In the following translation I have left the word electrum untranslated; it evidently means enamel, or rather the enamelled object. Escalopier has translated the word very erroneously cabuchon; this is a tallow cut stone, and cannot apply to these electra. Hendrie has called them sometimes glass gems, at others enamels.
