Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/86

76 METAL-WORK Some very magnificent bronze screens were produced at this time, especially that in Prato cathedral by Simone, brother of Donatello, in 1444-61, and the screen and bronze ornaments of the tomb of Piero and Giovanni dei Medici in San Lorenzo, Florence, by Verrocchio, in 1472. At the latter part of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th the Pollajuoli, Pticci, and other artists devoted much labour and artistic skill to the production of candle sticks and smaller objects of bronze, such as door-knockers, many of which are works of the greatest beauty. The candlesticks in the Certosa near Pa via, and in the cathedrals of Venice and Padua, are the finest examples of these. Niccolo Grossi, who worked in wrought iron under the patronage of Lorenzo dei Medici, produced some wonderful specimens of metal-work, such as the candlesticks, lanterns, and rings fixed at intervals round the outside of the great palaces (see fig. 5). The Strozzi palace in Florence and Fio. 5. Wrought Iron Candle-Pricket ; late 15th-century. Florentine work. the Palazzo del Magnifico at Siena have fine specimens of these, the former of wrought iron, the latter in cast bronze. At Venice fine work in metal, such as salvers and vases, was being produced, of almost Oriental design, and in some cases the work of resident Arab artificers. In the 16th century Benvenuto Cellini was supreme for skill in the production of enamelled jewellery, plate, and even larger works of sculpture (see Plon s Ben. Cellini, 1882), and John of Bologna in the latter part of the same century inherited to some extent the skill and artistic power of the great 15th-century artists. Since that time Italy, like other countries, has produced little metal-work of real value. Spain. From a very early period the metal-workers of Spain have been distinguished for their skill, especially in the use of the precious metals. A very remarkable set of specimens of goldsmith s work of the 7th century are the eleven votive crowns, two crosses, and other objects found in 1858 at Guarrazar, and now preserved at Madrid and in Paris in the Cluny Museum (see Du Sommerard, Musee de Cluny, 1852). Magnificent works in silver, such as shrines, altar crosses, and church vessels of all kinds, were pro duced in Spain from the 14th to the 16th century, especially a number of sumptuous tabernacles (custodia) for the host, magnificent examples of which still exist in the cathedrals of Toledo and Seville. The bronze and wrought iron screens rejas, mostly of the 15th and 16th centuries to be found in almost every im portant church in Spain are very fine examples of metal- work. They generally have moulded rails or ballusters, and rich friezes of pierced and repousse" work, the whole being often thickly plated with silver. The common use of metal for pulpits is a peculiarity of Spain ; they are sometimes of bronze, as the pairs in Burgos and Toledo cathedrals, or in wrought iron, like those at Zamora and in the church of San Gil, Burgos. The great candelabrum or tenebrarium in Seville cathedral is the finest speci men of 16th-century metal-work in Spain; it was mainly the work of Bart. Morel in 1562. It is of cast bronze enriched with delicate scroll-work foliage, and with num bers of well-modelled statuettes, the general effect being very rich and graceful. Especially in the art of metal- work Spain was much influenced in the 15th and 16th centuries by both Italy and Germany, so that numberless Spanish objects produced at that time owe little or nothing to native designers. At an earlier period Arab and Moor ish influence is no less apparent. England. In Saxon times the English metal-workers, especially of the precious metals, possessed great skill, and appear to have produced shrines, altar-frontals, retables, and other ecclesiastical furniture of considerable size and magnificence. Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury (925-988), like Bernward, bishop of Hildesheim a few years later, and St Eloi of France three centuries earlier, was himself a skilful worker in all kinds of metal. The description of the gold and silver retable given to the high altar of Ely by Abbot Theodwin in the llth century, shows it to have been a large and elaborate piece of work decorated with many reliefs and figures in the round. In 1241 Henry III. gave the order for the great gold shrine to contain the bones of Edward the Confessor (see W. Burgcs in Gleanings from Westminster]. It was the work of members of the Otho family, among whom the goldsmith s and coiner s crafts appear to have been long hereditary. Countless other important works in the precious metals adorned every abbey and cathedral church in the kingdom. In the 13th century the English workers in wrought iron were especially skilful. The grill over the tomb of Queen Eleanor at Westminster, by Thomas de Leghton, made about 1294, is a remarkable example of skill in weld ing and modelling with the hammer (see fig. 6). The rich and graceful iron hinges, made often for small and out-of-the-way country churches, are a large and important class in the list of English wrought iron-work. Those on the refectory door of Merton College, Oxford, are a beautiful and well-preserved example dating from the 14th century. More mechanical in execution, though still very rich in effect, is that sort of iron tracery work produced by cutting out patterns in plate, and superimposing one plate over the other, so as to give richness of effect by the shadows produced by these varying planes. The screen by Henry V. s tomb at Westminster is a good early specimen of this kind of work. The screen to Bishop West s chapel at Ely, and that round Edward IV. s tomb at Windsor, both made towards

the end of the 15th century, are the most magnificent