Nothing in this book mentions that.
Made and composed by Cennino da Colle, in the reverence of God, and of the Virgin Mary, and of St. Eustachius, and of St. Francis, and of St. John the Baptist, and of St. Anthony of Padua, and generally of all the saints of God, and in the reverence of Giotto, of Taddeo, and of Agnolo the master of Cennino, and for the utility and good and advantage of those who would attain perfection in the art.
In the beginning, when the omnipotent God created the heaven and the earth, above all living creatures and plants for food, he created man and woman after his own image, endowing them with all virtues. Afterwards came misfortune, through the envy of Lucifer towards Adam; who with malice and subtlety induced him to sin against the commandment of God, that is, first Eve, and then Eve deceived Adam; and God was angered against Adam, and caused him and his companion to be driven by an angel out of Paradise, saying to them, “Because you have disobeyed the commandment which God gave to you, by your labour and exertions shall you support yourselves.” Then Adam, knowing the sin he had committed, and being nobly endowed by God, as the root and origin and father of us all, discovered by his wisdom that it was necessary to find a way to live by his own manual exertions, and thus he began by digging and Eve by spinning. Afterwards he carried on many necessary arts, different each from the other, and each more scientific than the other; for they could not be all equally so. Now, the most worthy is Science; after which comes an art derived from science and dependent on the operations of the hand, and this is called Painting, for which we must be endowed with both imagination (fantasia) and skill in the hand, to discover unseen things concealed beneath the obscurity of natural objects, and to arrest them with the hand, presenting to the sight that which did not before appear to exist. And well does it deserve to be placed in the rank next to science, and to be crowned by Poetry: and for this reason, that the poet, by the help of science, becomes worthy, and free, and able to compose and bind together, or not, at pleasure. So to the painter liberty is given to compose a figure, either upright or sitting, or half man, half horse, as he pleases, according to his fancy. Therefore, whether through great reverence or love, let all those persons who feel in themselves any kind or manner of knowledge, or power to help and adorn these principal sciences with some jewel, put themselves forward without any bashfulness, offering to the above-named sciences this little knowledge which God has given them.
A humble working member then of the art of painting, I, Cennino, born of Drea Cennino of the Colle de Valdelsa, was instructed in these arts for twelve years by Agnolo, son of Taddeo of Florence, my master, who learned the art from Taddeo his father, who was the godson of Giotto, and was his disciple for twenty-four years. This Giotto changed the art of painting from the Greek to the Latin (manner), and brought it to the modern (style); and he possessed more perfect art than ever any one else had had. In order to assist all those who would approach this art, I shall take note of all that was taught me by my master Agnolo, and of that which I have proved with my own hand; invoking first the high omnipotent God,—that is to say, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; secondly, that most delightful advocate of all sinners the Virgin Mary, and St. Luke the Evangelist, the first Christian painter, and my advocate St. Eustachius, and generally all the saints, male and female, of Paradise.
It is the impulse of a noble mind which moves some towards this art, pleasing to them through their natural love. The intellect delights in invention; and nature alone draws them, without any guidance from a master, through nobleness of mind; and thus delighting themselves, they next wish to find a master, and with him they place themselves in love of obedience, being in servitude that they may carry their art to perfection. There are some who follow the arts from poverty and necessity, also for gain, and for love of the art; but those who pursue them from love of the art and true nobleness of mind are to be commended above all others.
Now then, you of noble mind, who are lovers of this good, come at once to art and adorn yourselves with this vesture,—namely, love, reverence, obedience, and perseverance. And as soon as thou canst, begin to put thyself under the guidance of the master to learn, and delay as long as thou mayest thy parting from the master.
The foundation of the art and the beginning of all these labours of the hand is drawing and colouring. To these two parts these things are necessary; namely, to know how to grind colours; to use glue; to fasten the cloth on the panel; to prime with gesso, to scrape and smooth the gesso; to make relievos in gesso; to put on bole; to gild; to burnish; to temper colours; to lay on ground colours; to trace by dusting powder; to engrave by lines and by stamps (?); to carve; to colour; to adorn and to varnish pictures. To paint on walls it is necessary to wet them; to cover them with mortar; to embellish them; to polish (smooth) them; to design, to colour in fresco and finish in secco; to temper the colours; adorn and retouch. And this is the rule of the above-named grades, as to which, with that little knowledge which I have learned, I will explain step by step.
As has been said, it is necessary that you should have the habit of beginning to draw correctly.
First, have a small panel of boxwood a hand length wide each way, well smoothed and clean,—that is to say, washed with clean water, rubbed and polished with sepia (bone of the cuttle-fish), which the goldsmith uses for marking. When this panel is quite dry, take a sufficient quantity of bones well ground for two hours, and the finer they are ground, the better they will be. Then collect the powder, and put it into dry paper; and when you want to prime the panel, take less than half the size of a bean of this bone-dust or less, mix it up with saliva, and before it is dry spread it with the finger over the surface of the panel, and before it dries, hold the panel in the left hand, and with the tip of the forefinger of the right hand, beat upon the panel until you see that it is quite dry, and that the bone-dust is spread all over it equally.
A tablet of old figwood is suitable; also certain tablets used by merchants which are made of parchment prepared with gesso coated with white lead and oil, using the bone-dust as I have said.
You must now know what bones are proper. For this purpose take the bones of the thighs and wings of fowls or capons; and the older they are the better. When you find them under the table, put them in the fire, and when you see they are become whiter than ashes, take them out, and grind them well on a porphyry slab, and use it as I say above.
The bones also of the leg and shoulder of mutton are good, burnt as before directed. Then take a style of silver or brass, or anything else provided the point is silver, sufficiently fine (sharp) and polished and good. Then, to acquire command of hand in using the style, begin to draw with it from a copy as freely as you can, and so lightly that you can scarcely see what you have begun to do, deepening your strokes little by little, and going over them repeatedly to make the shadows. Where you would make it darkest go over it many times; and, on the contrary, make but few touches on the lights. And you must be guided by the light of the sun, and the light of your eye, and your hand; and without these three things you can do nothing properly. Contrive always when you draw that the light is softened, and that the sun strikes on your left hand; and in this manner you should begin to practise drawing only a short time every day, that you may not become vexed or weary.
If by accident it should happen, that when drawing or copying in chapels, or colouring in other unfavourable places, you cannot have the light on your left hand, or in your usual manner, be sure to give relief to your figures or design according to the arrangement of the windows which you find in these places, which have to give you light, and thus accommodating yourself to the light on which side soever it may be, give the proper lights and shadows. Or if it were to happen that the light should enter or shine right opposite or full in your face, make your lights and shades accordingly; or if the light should be favourable at a window larger than the others in the above-mentioned places, adopt always the best light, and try to understand and follow it carefully, because, wanting this, your work would be without relief, a foolish thing, without mastery.
Let us return to our subject. You may also draw upon parchment, and paper made of cotton. On parchment you may draw or sketch with the above-named style, first rubbing and spreading some of the powdered bone-dust over the parchment, scattered thinly and brushed off with a hare’s foot, and powdered like writing-powder or resin.
If you like, when you have completed your drawing with the style, in order to make it clearer, you may fix the outlines and necessary touches with ink, then shade the folds with water-colour made of ink, that is, water about as much as a nutshell will hold, into which are put two drops of ink, and shade with a brush made of tails of the minever, blunt and nearly always dry.
And then, according to the shades required, you must blacken the water with a few drops of ink. In the same manner you may shade with colours and clothlet tints (pezzuole), such as miniature painters use; mix your colours with gum, or with the clear or albumen of an egg well beaten and liquefied.
It is possible also to draw on parchment without bone-dust with a style of lead; that is, with two parts of lead, and one of tin, well beaten with a hammer.
You may draw on paper also with the above-mentioned leaden style, either with or without bone-dust; and if at any time you make an error, or you wish to remove any marks made by the leaden style, take a little crumb of bread, rub it over the paper, and efface whatever you please. And on this kind of paper, in the same manner, you may shade with ink, or colours, or clothlet tints (pezzuole), with the before-mentioned vehicle.
When you have practised drawing in this manner one year, either more or less, according to the pleasure you take in it, you may sometimes draw on paper with a fine-pointed pen. Draw lightly, working up your lights and your half-lights and your shades gradually, retouching many lines with your pen. And if you would have your drawing more highly finished use a little water-colour, as before directed, with a blunt-pointed minever brush. Do you know what will be the consequence of this practice of drawing with the pen? It will make you expert, skilful, and capable of making original designs.
If you would know how to make a pen of a goose-quill, take a firm quill, place it on the two fingers of the left hand, the under side of the quill upwards; take a good sharp penknife, and cut away about the width of a finger along the length of the quill, and cut it drawing the penknife towards you, taking care that the cut should be even and in the middle of the pen. Then replace the penknife on one of the edges of this pen, that is, on the left side which is opposite to you, and pare downwards, making it thinner towards the point, and cut round the other edge of the pen and bring it to the same point. Turn the pen over, put it on the thumb-nail of the left hand, and gently scrape and nib the point, and make it either broad or fine as you require for drawing or writing.
In order to proceed gradually and begin at the very beginning, and as it were at the foundation and threshold of colouring, you must learn another method of drawing besides those of which we have previously been speaking; and this is called, drawing on tinted paper—either on parchment or paper. They are called tinted because the whole surface of either is coloured with the same tint. The tints may be either red, purple, green, azure, grey, flesh-colour, or any colour you please; they all require the same tempering and grinding, and may all be drawn upon in the same manner. It is true that green tints are the most beautiful and most frequently used, both for drawing on with shade-colours, and with white. Although I shall hereafter treat of grinding the colours, of their several natures and of the medium (tempera) they require, I must give you in short a quick method for your use in drawing and for tinting the paper.
When you wish to tint goat-parchment or sheets of paper green, take about the size of half a walnut of verde-terra, and half the quantity of ochre; of stiff white lead half the quantity of the ochre, and about the size of a bean of bone-dust which I have taught you previously to prepare, and half the size of a bean of vermilion, and grind all these well together on a porphyry slab, with water from a well, or spring, or river: grind them as long as you can bear grinding—you cannot grind them too much; and the more you grind them, the more perfect the tint will be. Then temper these ingredients with glue (colla) of the following kind and strength: Take a piece of glue as sold by the apothecaries (not fish-glue), and put it in a pipkin to soak, in as much clean water as can be contained in two common drinking-glasses, for the space of six hours; then put the pipkin on a moderate fire, and skim it when it boils. When it has boiled a short time, and the glue is perfectly dissolved, strain it twice; then take a painter’s vase, large enough to contain the colours you have ground, and add the glue to them till the colours flow well from the brush; then take the paper which you wish to tint, and with a hog’s-bristle brush, rather large and soft, spread the colour immediately all over, with a light touch, and the brush almost half-dry, first in one direction and then in the other, and so go over it four or five times until you see that the paper is tinted equally, with a space of time between each coat, that each one may dry, and if it gets dry or leathery with your tinting, it is a proof that the tempera is too strong; therefore when you have gone over it the first time you must remedy this. How? Add clean tepid water to it. When finished and quite dry, take a knife and rub it lightly over the paper, to remove any little grain of roughness.
To draw on parchment, you must first soak it in spring or well water till it become soft. Fasten it tight with small nails over a plank, as you would stretch the parchment over a drum, and tint it as before directed. Should it happen that the parchment or paper is not smooth enough for the purpose, put it on a plank of walnut-wood, or on an even and well-polished stone. Then put a very clean sheet of paper upon that which you have tinted; and with the stone with which you burnish gold, burnish it with good strength of hand, and by this means it will become very soft and smooth. True it is that some persons like to burnish on the tinted parchment itself, so that the burnishing stone should touch its surface and give it a little lustre: do which you please, but the first mode is the best. The reason is, that the lustre given to the tinted paper, by rubbing it with the burnishing stone, takes away the lustre of the style in drawing: and besides, the water-colour, when applied, does not look so soft and clear as when the first process is used. Sit nihil hominibus (sed nihil ominus in the MS.); do as you please.
Now learn how to make these tints. To tint paper morella or purple colour, take, for the number of sheets I have mentioned above, half an ounce of white lead and the size of a bean of lapis amatisto, and grind them as well together as you can; they cannot be spoilt by too much grinding, but on the contrary will be improved. Temper the colour in the usual manner.
For the above mentioned number of sheets take half an ounce of white lead (biacca), and the size of two beans of indigo and grind them well together; much grinding will not spoil the tint. Temper and use in the same manner as before.
If you would tint paper of a reddish colour for the same number of sheets, take half an ounce of verde-terra, the size of two beans of stiff white lead, and the size of a bean of light sinopia (red earth), grind them in the usual manner, and temper with your size or tempera.
To make a good flesh-coloured tint, take for the same number of sheets of paper, half an ounce of white lead, and less than the size of a bean of vermilion. These must be all ground together. Temper in the usual manner as above.
Grey tints are made in this manner. Take a quarter (? of an ounce) of coarse white lead, the size of a bean of light ochre, less than half the size of a bean of black; grind these well together in the usual manner. Temper as I have before directed, putting always to each the size of a bean at least of burnt bones, and these directions are sufficient for the different sorts of tinted paper.
You must be told that there is still another kind of paper, called transparent, which may be very useful to you in copying a head, or a figure, or a half-length figure, from the work of a great master. If you wish to take a correct outline from paper or panel or wall for yourself, put the transparent paper over the figure or design, fastening it lightly at the four corners with a piece of red or green wax. The figure or design will be immediately visible through the transparent paper, so that you can see it clearly. Then take either a pen with a fine nib, or a small minever brush, and with ink trace the outlines and extremities of the design under it. Then taking away the paper, you may touch the lights and relievos as you please.
If you need this transparent paper, and cannot find it ready made, make it in the following manner. Take a skin of parchment, give it to a parchment-maker and make him scrape it till it scarcely holds together, and let him take care to scrape it evenly. It is of itself transparent. If you would have it more clear, take linseed oil, very clear and fine, and rub it over with a piece of cotton dipped in this oil; let it dry for the space of several days, and it will be perfect and good.
If you would prepare this transparent paper in another manner, provide a slab of marble or porphyry well polished. Then take fish-glue and pieces of glue (colla di spicchi) sold by the apothecaries, put them to soften in clean water; and to six pieces put a porringer full of clean water. Then make it boil; and when boiled, strain it two or three times. Then take some of this dissolved and strained glue, and when cool, with a brush, as in tinting paper, pass all over the slab, which must be clean. The stone should be first greased with olive oil; and when the glue upon the slab is dry, take the point of a knife and begin somewhere to loosen the glue from the slab, so that you can with your hand take off this skin or paper you have made in this way. With great care you may detach this glue safely from the stone like a sheet of paper. Or, before you detach this skin of glue from the stone, take linseed oil boiled in the manner I shall direct when speaking of mordants, and with a soft brush go once over it; let it dry for two or three days, and it will be very transparent.
This same carta lucida of which we have spoken, may also be made of cotton paper. The paper must be thin, even, and very white; oil it with linseed oil as before directed. It will be transparent and is good.
It is now needful that you should advance further in order to follow the path of this science. You have made tinted paper. It is necessary for you to keep to this method. Having practised drawing a sufficient time on tablets as I have before directed, always take pains in drawing the best subjects which you can find, done by the hand of great masters. If you live in a place where there are many good masters, so much the better for you. But I counsel you always to choose the best and most famous; and daily following him, it will be against nature if you do not come close to his manner and style; for if you copy to-day from this master and to-morrow from the other, you will not acquire the manner of either; and you will necessarily become fantastic, for each manner will distract your mind. You will study this manner to-day and that to-morrow, and you will get neither perfectly; but if you continually follow the method of one master, your intellect must be very dull indeed if it gets no food. And it will happen that if nature has bestowed on you any invention, you will acquire a manner of your own, which cannot be other than good, because your hand and your understanding being always accustomed to gather the flowers, would scarcely know how to take thorns.
Remember that the most perfect guide that you can have and the best course (helm), is the triumphal gateway of drawing from nature: it is before all other example, and with a bold heart you may always trust to it, especially when you begin to have some judgment in design. And continue always, and without fail, to draw something every day, not too little to be enough, and it will do you excellent service.
Your manner of living should always be regulated as if you were studying theology, philosophy, or any other science; that is to say, eating and drinking temperately at least twice a day, using light and good food, and but little wine; sparing and reserving your hand, saving it from fatigue as throwing stones or iron bars, and many other things which are injurious to the hand, wearying it. There is still another cause, the occurrence of which may render your hand so unsteady that it will tremble and flutter more than leaves shaken by the wind, and this is frequenting too much the company of ladies.—Let us return to our subject. Make a pocket of sheets of paper glued together, or of light wood, square-shaped, large enough to hold a foglio reale (royal sheet), that is, half one, and also serve for a desk to draw on. Then always retire alone, or with companions who are inclined to do as you do, and are not disposed to hinder your work; and the more intellectual these companions are, the better will it be for you. When you are in churches or chapels, and you begin to draw, consider first what space, or history, or figures you wish to sketch, and remark where the shades, middle tints, and lights fall; and I must tell you here to shade with ink and water, to leave the ground of the panel for the middle tints; and to use white for the lights.
Procure some fine charcoal, cut to a point, like a pen or style, and the first measure that you take in drawing let it be one of the three parts into which the face is divided, namely, the head, hair, and forehead, the nose, and the chin with the mouth, And taking one of these three parts, it is a guide to you for the whole figure, for the buildings, from one figure to another, and is a perfect guide if you use your intelligence in knowing how to follow these measures; and this is done because the historical painting, or the figure you copy, may be of large dimensions, and you may be unable to reach with the hand to measure it. You must make use of your understanding, and in this way you will discover truth. If you have not proportioned your drawing successfully by the first touches, take a feather, either of a hen or goose, as may be, and with the feather part of it rub and clean away the charcoal from what you have drawn, and the design will be effaced. Begin again from that part the proportions of which appear to agree with the original; and when you see that it is about correct, take the silver style, and pick out the outlines and extremities of your design, and the main folds. When you have done this, with the feather part of the quill or fluffy feather (penna pelosa) remove the charcoal, and your drawing will be fixed by the style.
When you have gained the power in the hand of shading, take a brush, rather blunt, and with water and ink in a small vase go over the main folds, and then soften the dark of the fold according to its direction. This water-colour must be almost like slightly tinted water, and the brush must be almost dry. Do not hurry, but shade by degrees, always returning with your pencil to the darkest parts. Do you know what will happen from this proceeding? If the water has but little colour, and you take pleasure in shading, and do not hurry yourself, your shades will at last appear soft, like smoke. Always remember to keep the brush flat. When you can shade well, take a drop or two of ink, add it to the water-colour, and stir it well; and then in the same manner find the depths of these folds, seeking the very bottom of them—always remembering, while shading, your three divisions: the first consists of shades, the second of the colour of the ground, and the third of the lights. When you have done this, take a little white lead well ground with gum-arabic—hereafter I shall treat of the manner in which this gum should be liquefied and dissolved, and I shall also treat of all kinds of vehicles; a very little white will be sufficient. Put some clean water in a little vase, dip your brush into it, and rub it on the prepared white lead, particularly if it is dry; then hold it on the ball of your thumb, and, squeezing the brush, discharge the colour from it, so that you leave it almost dry. Begin by rubbing the brush flat over those places where there ought to be lights and relievos, and go many times over them, but with discretion; then for the extreme relievos and high lights, take a pointed brush, and touch them with the point of the brush dipped in white. Take a small brush, and with pure ink draw the folds and outlines, noses, eyes, and the divisions between the locks of the hair, and beard.
I advise also, when you are more practised, that you endeavour to draw with white in water-colour as you did with ink and water. Take white lead ground with water, and temper it with the yolk of an egg, and shade (wash?) softly as you did with the ink water-colours; but it is more difficult and requires more practice. Both methods are called drawing on tinted paper, and they will lead to the art of colouring. Practise as frequently as you can, for it is the whole of your education; attend closely, and with great diligence, delight, and pleasure, to these studies.
Before we proceed further, I will teach you how to make crayons of charcoal. Take some slips of willow, dry and smooth, and cut them into pieces as long as the palm of the hand or the little finger; then divide them like matches, and fasten them together like a bundle of matches; but first polish and sharpen them on each side as if they were tin. Thus, laying them in bundles, bind each bundle in three places, that is, by the middle and each end, with a fine copper or iron wire; then take a new pipkin, and fill the pipkin with them; put on an earthen cover, and lute it round with chalk or clay, so that no air can enter. Then go to the baker in the evening, when he has left off work, that is, when he has finished baking the bread,. and put this pipkin in the oven, and let it remain till morning; then look whether the crayons are well burnt and black. If they are not black enough, let them remain till they are so. How to see if they are right? Take one of the crayons and draw with it, either on paper (parchment?) or tinted paper, or on a primed panel. If the crayon works freely it will do; if it is too much baked it will not keep together in drawing, but will split to pieces. I will tell you another way of making these crayons. Take a small baking-pan, covered as above mentioned; put it at night under the fire, cover the fire well with ashes, and go to bed. In the morning the crayons will be done. And in the same manner you may make small or large crayons as you please, and there are no better crayons in the world.
I have found that a certain black stone which comes from Piedmont is good for drawing; it is a soft stone and very black; it can be sharpened with a knife, for it is soft. You can bring it to the same perfection. Draw with it what you please.
In order that step by step we may attain to the light of art, we come to the grinding of the colours, and to instructing you which are fine or coarse or impure; that some require but little, others much grinding; some demand one vehicle, some another; and how they differ in colour, as in the manner of tempering them and grinding them.
You must know that there are seven natural colours; namely, four which are of the nature of earths, as black, red, yellow, and green; three are natural colours, but require the assistance of art, as white, ultramarine blue, or della magna blue, and Naples yellow. We will not proceed further, but return to the black pigment. To grind it properly, procure a slab of porphyry which is hard and strong, for there are many kinds of stones for grinding colours, as porphyry, serpentine, and marble. Serpentine is a soft stone, and is not good; marble is worse, that is, softer; porphyry is the best of all; and if you procure a slab very pale-coloured, it will be best. One of those which are not very much polished is also best. It should be about half a braccio square. Take another stone to hold in the hand, also of porphyry, flat underneath and raised above in the shape of a porringer and half the size, of such a form that the hand may be mistress of it and move and guide it at pleasure. Then take some of the black (or of any other colour), about the size of a walnut, and put it on the slab, and with that stone which you hold in your hand break the pigment into small pieces. Put some clean water, either from a river, a fountain, or a well, to the colour, and grind it well for the space of half-an-hour, or an hour, or as long as you please; but know, that if you were to grind it for a year, so much the blacker and better would be the colour. Then take a flat piece of fine-grained wood, three fingers wide, part of which is shaped like the blade of a knife, and with this blade scrape the stone and collect the colour neatly; keep it liquid, and not too dry, that it may flow well on the stone, and that you may be able to grind it thoroughly, and collect it all. Put it then into a small vase, and pour clean water on it till the vase is full; and in this manner keep it always soft, and well covered from the dust, and from all other harm, that is, in a little box suitable for holding several vessels containing liquid.
Remember that there are several black pigments, one of which is a soft black stone, and the colour is opaque (grasso). I must inform you that transparent colours are better than those which have much body, except that in laying on gold, the richer (piu grasso) the bole or terra-verde, when you have pictures to gild, the better will be the gold. Let us leave this subject. Another black is made of the young shoots of the vine, which are to be burnt, and when burnt, thrown into water, and quenched, and then ground like other black pigments. This colour is black and transparent (magro), and it is one of the most perfect pigments we use. Another black is made of the shells of almonds, or of peach-stones; this also makes a perfect and fine black. Another black is made in this manner: Take a lampful of linseed oil, fill the lamp with this oil, light the lamp, and put it under a clean baking-dish, so that the flame of the lamp shall be about the distance of two or three fingers from the dish, and the smoke which comes from the flame shall strike against the bottom of the dish; it will get covered thick with smoke. Collect the smoke together; wait a little; take the baking-dish, and sweep off the smoke which is the pigment into paper, or into some vessel; it does not require grinding, because it is already a very fine powder. Thus refill the lamp several times with the oil, put it back under the dish, and make in this manner as much as you require.
There is a natural red pigment, which is called sinopia or porphyry. The colour is naturally transparent (magro) and drying. It bears grinding well, and the more it is ground, the finer it is. It is good for painting either on panels or walls, in fresco or in secco. These terms, ‘fresco’ and ‘secco,’ shall be explained to you when I treat of painting on walls. And this is enough about the first kind of red.
There is a red colour called light cinabrese, and I do not know that this colour is used anywhere but in Florence; it is perfect for flesh-painting, for making the flesh of figures on walls, and works well in fresco. This colour is made of the finest and lightest sinopia which is to be found; it is mixed and ground with bianco sangiovanni, as it is called in Florence (a white made of a very white well-slaked lime). And when you have well ground together these two colours, that is, two parts of cinabrese, and the third lime-white, make them into cakes the size of half a walnut, and let them dry, and when you require some take what seems right. This colour will do you honour for painting faces, hands, and naked figures on walls, as I have said. And sometimes you may make with it beautiful draperies, which on walls look like cinnabar.
There is a red colour called cinnabar, and this colour is made by a chemical process performed in an alembic, which I will leave alone, as it would take too much time to put in my explanation each method and recipe. If you wish to fatigue yourself with it, you will find plenty of recipes, especially collecting them among the monks. But I advise you, that you may not lose your time in the many variations in the methods, to get what you want at the apothecary’s and pay for it; and I will teach you how to buy it and to distinguish good cinnabar. Always purchase the whole cinnabar, unbroken and unground. The reason? Because it is often adulterated with minium (red lead) and with pounded brick-dust. Examine the whole lump of cinnabar, and at the top, where the veining is most extensive and finest, it is the best. Put this then upon the slab above mentioned, grinding it with clean water as much as you can; if you were to grind it every day for twenty years, it would be but the better and more perfect. This pigment requires various temperas, according to the situation in which it is to be used; but of this I shall hereafter speak, and shall give you proper directions in a more fitting place. But bear in mind that it is not its nature to be exposed to the open air; it is more lasting on panels than on walls, because, by long exposure to the open air (all’ aria) it becomes black when applied to walls.
There is a pigment called minium, which is artificially produced by chemistry. This pigment is only proper to be used in pictures (on panels), for if it is used on walls, on exposure to the open air it suddenly becomes black, and loses its colour.
There is a red colour called amatito. This is a natural colour, and is produced from a very hard and solid stone. It is so solid and perfect (flawless?) that tools and teeth are made of it to burnish gold on panels, which tools become of a colour very dark and perfect and as polished as a diamond. The pure stone is of a maroon or purple colour, and is crystallised (ha un tiglio) like cinnabar. Break this stone in a bronze mortar, because if you were to break it upon the porphyry slab you might split it; and when you have broken it put a small quantity on the slab, and grind it well with clean water; and the more you grind it the better it will be, and the more perfect the colour. This pigment is proper for walls and for working in fresco; and it makes a colour such as cardinals wear, or a violet or lake colour. If you want to use it for other things, or with tempera, it is not good.
There is a red called dragon’s blood. This colour is sometimes used on parchment (carta), in miniature painting. Let it alone, however, and be not too anxious for it; it is not of a nature to do you much credit.
There is a red called lake, which is an artificially made pigment. There are many recipes for it; but I advise you pay your money and take the colour ready-made, out of regard to the skilled processes necessary; but be careful to distinguish the best, for there are many sorts of it. If the lake is made of the shreds of cloth, or stuffs, it is very beautiful to the eye; but beware of this, because it always retains some body by reason of the alum which it contains—is not durable, either tempered or not, and rapidly loses its colour. Be careful to shun this kind; but procure the lake which is obtained from gum, and is dry and transparent, and granular, so that it almost appears to be earth: it has a blood-red colour. This cannot be otherwise than good and perfect. Take this and grind it on the, stone. Grind it with clean water; it is good on panels. It is also used on walls with tempera, but the open air is destructive to it. Some there are who grind it in urine, but this is unpleasant, and soon becomes offensive.
There is a natural yellow called ochre. This pigment is found in mountainous country, where there are veins of it like sulphur; where these veins exist are found sinopia, verde-terra, and other pigments. I found this ore, having been taken one day by my father, Andrea Cennini, to the territory of the Colle di Valdelsa, near the confines of Casole, on the outskirts of the wood of the commune of Colle, above a villa called Dometaria, and coming to a small valley, and into a very wild grotto, and digging with a spade, I saw veins of many colours, namely of ochre, light and dark sinopia, blue and white; and it seemed to be the greatest miracle in the world that white should come from veins in the earth; but I remember that I made a trial of this white and found it unctuous (grasso), and unfit for the colouring of flesh. There was also in this place a vein of a black colour; and these colours were as visible on the earth here as any marking in the face of a man or woman.
But let us return to the ochre-pigment. I went with a knife seeking everywhere where the veins of this colour showed, and I assure you that I never met with more beautiful or perfect ochre. I agree that it does not show up as bright as Naples yellow, it is a little darker; but for hair and drapery, as I shall hereafter instruct you, I never found any colour better than this ochre. It is of two kinds, light and dark. Each colour requires to be ground in the same manner, with clean water; and grind them well, they will be all the better for it. You must know that this colour is of general usefulness, specially in fresco-painting, and with other mixtures. It is used, as I shall tell you hereafter, in painting flesh, in colouring landscapes, mountains, buildings, horses, and in many other things. This colour is, in its nature, of good body (grasso).
There is a yellow colour called giallorino, which is made artificially, and is very hard. It is as heavy as a stone, and hard to break. This colour is used in fresco, and is very everlasting, that is, on walls and on panels, with tempera. It must be ground, like the other colours, with clean water. It does not want to be much ground; and before you grind it, because it is very troublesome to reduce to powder, it is better to break it in pieces in a bronze mortar, as I advised you to do with regard to the lapis amatisto. And when you have put it on your work, it is a yellow of a very lovely colour; so that with this colour, with other mixtures, as I will show you, is made beautiful verdure and grass-colour. I wish you to understand that this is a real stone, produced in mountainous volcanic districts; therefore, I say it is an artificial pigment, but not a chemical preparation.
There is a yellow pigment called orpiment. This is an artificial pigment, and a chemical preparation, and is very poisonous. It is a very lovely yellow, like gold in colour. It is not good for walls, neither in fresco nor with tempera, because by exposure to the open air it becomes black. It is very good for painting shields and lances. This colour, mixed with indigo, makes a green the colour of grass and herbage.
Sparrowhawks (sparvieri) are doctored with this pigment, in a certain illness which attacks them. It is the hardest colour to grind of any used in our art; therefore, when you are going to grind it, put the quantity you want on the stone, and with that stone which you hold in your hand, coax and press it between the stones, mixing with it a little crushed glass, because the powdered glass draws the orpiment to the roughness of the stone. When you have broken it to pieces, put clean water to it and grind it as much as you can,—and if you were to grind it for ten years, so much the better would it be. Beware of letting it soil your mouth, lest you harm yourself.
There is a yellow colour called risalgallo; this colour is very poisonous. It is not used by us except sometimes on panels. It cannot be mixed with any other colour. If you wish to grind it, do as I have before directed: it must be ground with a good deal of water; and guard your person from contact with it.
There is a yellow colour, made from a drug called saffron; you must put it into a piece of linen upon a hot stone or brick; get about half a glassful of strong lye, put the saffron in it and grind it on the stone. It will produce a beautiful colour for dyeing linen or cloth. It is good on parchment (carta). Do not expose it to the open air, for it soon loses its colour. And if you would make the most perfect colour possible for grass, take a little verderame (verdigris) and some zafferano, that is, of three parts, one saffron, and the most beautiful green grass colour will result which can be made. Temper it with size as I have before directed.
There is a yellow pigment called arzica, which is a chemical preparation and not much used. It is chiefly used by miniature-painters, and more by those of the neighbourhood of Florence than at any other place. It is a very delicate colour, not durable when exposed to the open air, is not proper for walls, but is good on panels; mixed with a little azzurro della magna and giallorino, it makes a beautiful green. It must be ground, like all other fine colours, with clean water.
There is a natural green pigment which is an earth, and is called verde-terra. This colour has many uses. First, as it is a very full-bodied pigment, it is proper to use for faces, draperies, buildings, in fresco and secco, on walls, on panels, and wherever you please. Grind it as I have told you to grind the other colours, with clean water; and the more you grind it, the better it is. And if you temper it in the same manner as I shall direct you to temper bole for putting on gold, you may in the same way lay on gold upon verde-terra. And know that the ancients were never accustomed to lay gold on panels, otherwise than with this verde-terra.
There is a green pigment which is partly natural, but requires artificial preparation. It is made of azzurro della magna. This is called verde-azzurro. Do not trouble yourself as to how it is made, but buy it ready-made. This colour is good in secco, tempered with yolk of egg, to paint trees and grass, and also for laying flat tints; and they lighten it with giallorino (Naples yellow). This colour is of itself coarse and sandy. For love of the azzurro grind it very little with a light hand, because, if it be too much ground, it will become a faded and ashen colour. It must be ground with clean water, and when you have ground it pour clean water into the vase on the colour, and stir both well together; then let it rest for an hour or two, or three; pour away the water, and the green will be most beautiful. Wash it in this manner two or three times, and it will be still finer.
There is a green colour made of two parts of orpiment and one of indigo, and grind them well together with clean water. This colour is good for shields and lances, and it is also used for painting rooms in secco. It does not like any other tempera than glue (size).
There is a green colour made with verde-azzurro and giallorino. This is proper for walls and pictures (panels), and is tempered with the yolk of egg. If you would make the colour more beautiful, add to it a little arzica; also it is a beautiful colour, adding to it some azzurro della magna; pounding some wild plums and making verjuice (agresto), and of this putting four or six drops to the blue. It makes a beautiful green, but does not bear exposure to the open air. And in time the verjuice entirely disappears.
A green colour may be made of ultramarine and orpiment. These colours must be mixed with judgment. First take the orpiment, and then add the blue. If you would have it incline to a light green, let the orpiment prevail; if to a dark green, let the blue prevail. This colour is proper for pictures (panels), but not for walls. Temper it with size.
There is a green pigment called verderame. It is sufficiently green of itself, and is an artificial chemical production, made of copper and vinegar. This colour is used on panels tempered with glue. Be careful never to put it near white lead, because these two colours are mortal enemies in everything. Grind it with vinegar, which it is its nature to retain; and it makes a green for grass most perfect and beautiful to the eye, but not durable. It is good on parchment, on paper, or on vellum, tempered with the yolk of an egg.
There is a green the colour of sage, which is made by mixing biacca and terra-verde, for panels, tempered with the yolk of an egg; for walls in fresco, mix the verde-terra with bianco sangiovanni made of slaked white lime.
There is a natural white pigment which, however, requires some preparation. It is prepared in this manner. Take very white slaked lime (calcina sfiorata); pulverise it, and put it into a little tub for the space of eight days, changing the water every day, and mixing the lime and water well together, in order that it may throw off all unctuous properties (grassezza). Then make it into small cakes, put them upon the roof of the house in the sun, and the older these cakes are, the whiter they become. If you wish to do it quickly and well, when the cakes are dry, grind them on your slab with water, and then make them into cakes and dry them again. Do this twice, and you will see what a perfect white it will become. This white must be ground with water, and thoroughly. It is good for working in fresco, that is, on walls without tempera; and without this colour you can do nothing,—I mean, you cannot paint flesh, or make tints of the other colours which are necessary in painting on walls, namely, in fresco; and it never requires any tempera.
There is a white pigment prepared chemically from lead, which is called biacca. This white is strong and brilliant (focosd), and is in cakes of the shape of drinking-glasses. To know the best sort, always select that kind the top of which is in the form of a cup. The more this colour is ground, the more perfect it is; it is proper for pictures. It is certainly used on walls; but beware of it nevertheless, for in time it becomes black. Grind it with water; it will bear any tempera, and will enable you to make your colours lighter in pictures (on panels) in the same manner as the other white does on walls.
There is a natural pigment of a blue colour, which is found in and around veins of silver. A great quantity is produced in Germany and also in Siena, but it must be perfected artificially by the pastello. When you are going to lay on grounds with this blue, you must grind it very little at a time and carefully with water, for it has a horror of the grinding-slab. If you would use it for draperies, or to make greens, as I have told you before, you must grind it more. This pigment is good on walls, in secco, and on pictures (panels); it bears a tempera of yolk of egg, glue, or whatever you please.
To make a light blue like azzurro, take indaco baccadeo (indigo from Bagdad) and grind it very fine, with water; and for pictures, mix it with a little biacca; and for walls, with a little bianco sangiovanni. It becomes like azzurro, and must be tempered with glue.
Ultramarine blue is a colour noble, beautiful, and perfect beyond all other colours, and there is nothing that could be said of it but it will still exceed this (praise). On account of its great excellence, I shall speak of it at length, and give you full directions for preparing it; and you must pay great attention to them, that you may gain honour and service from them. And with this colour, together with gold (which adorns all the works of our art) let everything be resplendent, whether on walls or panels.
First take some lapis lazuli; and if you would know how to distinguish the best stones, take those which contain most of the blue colour, for it is mixed with what is like ashes. That which contains least of this ash pigment is the best; but be careful that you do not mistake for it azzurro della magna, which is as beautiful to the eye as enamel.
Pound it in a covered bronze mortar, that the powder may not fly away; then put it on your slab of porphyry, and grind it without water; afterwards take a covered strainer like that used by the druggists for sifting drugs (spices), and sift it and pound again as much as is required. But bear in mind that though the more you grind, the more finely powdered the azzurro will be, yet it will not be so beautiful and rich and deep in colour; and that the finely ground sort is fit for miniature-painters, and for draperies inclining to white. When the powder is prepared, procure from the druggist, six ounces of resin of the pine, three ounces of mastic, and three ounces of new wax to each pound of lapis lazuli. Put all these ingredients into a new pipkin and melt them together. Then take a piece of white linen and strain these things into a glazed basin. Then take a pound of the powder of lapis lazuli; mix it all well together into a paste, and that you may be able to handle the paste, take linseed oil, and keep your hands always well anointed with this oil. This paste must be kept at least three days and three nights, kneading it a little every day; and remember that you may keep it for fifteen days or a month, or as long as you please. When you would extract the azure from the paste, proceed thus. Make two sticks of strong wood, neither too thick nor too thin, about a foot long; let them be well rounded at each end and well polished (smoothed). Then, your paste being in the glazed basin into which you first put it, add to it a porringerful of lye, moderately warm; and with these two sticks, one in each hand, turn and squeeze and knead the paste thoroughly, exactly in the manner that you would knead bread. When you see that the lye is thoroughly blue, pour it out into a glazed basin; take the same quantity of fresh lye, pour it over the paste, and work it with the sticks as before. When this lye is very blue, pour it into another glazed basin, and continue to do so for several days, until the paste no longer tinges the lye. Then throw it away, it is good for nothing. Range all the basins before you on a table in order, that is to say, the first, second, third, and fourth; then beginning at the first, with your hand stir up the lye with the azure, which by its weight will have sunk to the bottom, and then you will know the depth of colour of the azure. Consider how many shades of the azure you will have, whether three, or four, or six, or what number you please, always remembering that the first-drawn extracts are the best, as the first basin is better than the second. And if you have eighteen basins of extract, and you wish to make three shades of azure, take the contents of six basins and mix them together; that will be one shade. Proceed in the same manner with the others. But remember that if you have good lapis lazuli, the azure from the first two extracts is worth eight ducats the ounce. The last two extracts are worse than ashes—may your eyes therefore be experienced, so as not to spoil the good azure by mixing it with the bad; and each day remove the lye that the azure may dry. When it is quite dry, according to the sorts you have, put it into skins, bladders, or purses, as may be most convenient, and take notice that if the lapis lazuli should not be very good, or if after having ground it the colour were not to turn out deep (violante) enough, I will tell you how to give it a little colour. Take a little pounded kermes lake (grand) and a little verzino, but mind the verzino is grated or scraped with glass; and then boil them together with lye or a little roche alum. And when they boil, and you see that the colour is a perfect crimson, before you have withdrawn the azure from the porringer, but well dried from lye, add to it a little of this lake and verzino, and with your finger mix everything well together; and let them remain till dried, without sun, or fire, or wind. When dry, put it into a skin or purse, and rejoice in it, for it is good and perfect. And bear in mind that it is a rare gift to know how to make it well. You must know also that it is rather the art of maidens than of men to make it, because they remain continually in the house, and are more patient and their hands are more delicate. But beware of old women. When you would use this azure, take as much as you want: and if you are going to work on light dresses, it must be ground a little on your usual stone. And if you want it for laying grounds, it must be very little worked on the stone and always with very clear water, the stone being well washed and clean. And if the azure should get soiled in any way, take a little lye or clean water, and put it into the vase, and stir them well together, changing it two or three times, when the blue will be quite clean. I shall not treat of its tempera, because I shall hereafter describe all the temperas proper for every colour to be used on pictures, on walls, on iron, on paper, on stone, or on glass.
As I have told you the names of all the colours individually which are used with brushes, and how they are ground, which colours must always be kept in a box well covered, and must be prevented from hardening by being kept wet with water (col becco sempre in molle, e bagnati), I will now instruct you how to use them both with tempera and without. But you must first know how to make use of them, and this you cannot do without brushes. Therefore we will leave these subjects, while I teach you how to make the brushes, which you are to do in the following manner.
In painting, two kinds of brushes are necessary, namely, minever and hog’s bristles. Those of minever are made in the following manner: Take the tails of the minever, for no others will do, and these tails must be baked and not raw. The furriers will tell you so. From the tip of such a tail draw the longest hairs, and collect the tips of many tails, so that from six or eight points you may make a soft pencil fit for laying gold on pictures, that is to say, to wet it with in the manner that I shall direct hereafter. Let us return now to the tail, which you are to take in your hand, and select the straightest and stiffest hairs from the middle of the tail; gradually make them into small bundles; soak them in a glass of clear water, then press and squeeze each bundle with the fingers. Then cut them with scissors; and when you have made many bundles, tie them together any thickness you please for pencils, so that they can be put into the quill of a vulture, of a goose, of a hen, or of a dove. When you have made them in this manner, laying the points very even, take waxed thread or silk, and with two knots fasten them well together, each sort by itself, the size you would have your brushes. Then take a quill, of a size corresponding to that of the bundle of hairs, and cut off the end of the quill, and put the bundle of hairs into the quill, and take care to squeeze in as many as you can, so that the brush may be stiff, for the firmer and shorter it is the better, and the more delicate the work it can do. Then make a small stick of maple, larch, or chestnut, or any other good wood; make it smooth and clean, scrape it into the form of a spindle, of such size that it shall fit tightly into the quill, and be about a span long: and this is the way to make brushes of minever. It is true that minever brushes are of various kinds; for instance, some are proper for laying on gold, some for putting on flat washes, which require to be blunted a little with the scissors, and rubbed upon the porphyry stone to soften them a little. Some brushes should have a perfect point for drawing outlines, and some must be very small and fine, for certain very minute works and figures.
Hog’s-bristle brushes are made in this manner. First take bristles from a white pig, which are better than black ones (but mind they are from the domestic pig), and make them into a large brush in which you must put a pound of bristles, and bind them to a large stick with a knot of . . . Such brushes must be softened by whitening walls and washing those which are to be covered with mortar. Afterwards unfasten this brush, and make the bristles up into other brushes of all sorts. Let some of them be of the kind which are called blunt brushes (pennelli mozzi), in which the hairs are all of equal length; and some should be pointed, and you must have them of all sizes. Then make sticks of the wood formerly mentioned, and bind each bundle with a double waxed thread. Introduce the point of the stick into the bundle of bristles, and bind it evenly half the length of the bristles, and then along upon the stick, and finish all the others in the same manner.
If you would preserve the tails of the minever so that they should not be moth-eaten, and the hairs should not fall off, steep them in kneaded clay or chalk, stick them tight into it, hang them up and let them remain so. When you would use them, or make them into brushes, wash them well with clean water.
In the name of the most Holy Trinity, I will now put you to colouring. I begin first with painting on walls, and shall teach you step by step the manner in which you ought to proceed. When you are going to paint on walls, which is the most delightful and charming kind of work that there can be, procure, in the first place, lime and sand, both of them well sifted. If the lime is very rich and fresh, it will require two parts of sand, the third of lime. Grind them well together with water, and grind enough to last you fifteen or twenty days. Let it rest for some days till it be quite slaked; for if any heat remains in it, it cracks the plaster (intonaco). When you are going to plaster, first sweep the wall, and wet it well—you cannot wet it too much; and take the well-stirred lime, a trowelful at a time, and spread it over once or twice, till the intonaco becomes quite even on the wall. Afterwards, when you are going to work, remember to make the surface of the mortar quite rough (bene arricciato) with a good tooth (rasposo). Then, according to the subject or figures you have to make, if the intonaco is dry, take some charcoal, and design and compose, and take every measurement carefully, first striking one line, taking the centre of the space, and another for the horizon. The perpendicular line by means of which the horizontal one is obtained must be made with a plumb-line. Then put one foot of the large compasses on the top of this line. Turn the compasses half round on the under side; then put the leg of the compasses on the point of intersection of these two lines and make the other half-circle above, and you will always find a cross on your right hand by the lines intersecting each other. Do the same on the left hand, which will give you two crosses, and the line between will be exactly level. Then draw with charcoal, as I have before directed you, historical pieces and figures, and arrange your spaces always equal. Next take a small and pointed bristle-brush, with a little ochre without tempera, as liquid as water, and continue to draw your figures, shading them as you did with water-colours when I taught you to draw. Afterwards take a bunch of feathers and thoroughly brush away the charcoal.
Then take a little sinopia without tempera, and with a finely pointed brush mark out the nose, eyes, hair, and all the extremities and outlines of the figures, and let these figures be correctly set out in every measurement which helps you to realise and project the figures which you have to paint. Then make your fringes (or ornaments, fregi) and accessories as you please. Take some of the above-mentioned lime; stir it well with a trowel till it is like the consistence of ointment. Then consider how much you can paint in a day; for whatever you cover with the plaster you must finish the same day. Sometimes in winter, in damp weather, working on a stone wall, the plaster remains fresh till the next day; but if you can help it do not delay, because when painting in fresco, that which is finished in one day is the firmest and best, and is the most beautiful work. Then spread over a coat of thin intonaco, and not too much, first wetting the old intonaco. Next take your large hog’s-hair brush in your hand, steep it in clean water, beat it and wet your plaster with it, and then with a slip of wood as wide as the palm of your hand, rub round and round over the wetted intonaco so as to remove the lime where you have put too much, and put more where there is not enough, and thus make your plaster quite smooth. Then wet the plaster with the same brush if necessary, and with the point of the trowel, which must be very clean and smooth, rub all over the intonaco. Then place your plumb-line as usual, and measure as you did on the underlying intonaco. Let us suppose that you can paint in one day the head only of a young male or female saint, such as that of our most holy Lady. Having thus smoothed the lime of your intonaco, procure a glazed vessel; the vessels should be all glazed and shaped like drinking or beer glasses, with a good heavy bottom that they may stand firmly, and not spill the colours. Take as much as a bean of dark ochre (for there are two kinds of ochre, light and dark); and if you have no dark ochre, take light ochre ground very fine; put it into your vase, and take a little black the size of a lentil, mix it with the ochre; take a little bianco sangiovanni (lime-white) as much as the third of a bean, and as much light cinabrese as will lie on the point of a penknife; mix all these colours thoroughly together, and make them flowing and liquid with water, without tempera. Make a sharp brush of fine soft bristles, which may be introduced into the quill of a goose, and with this brush indicate with proper expression the face you are going to paint (remembering that the face is divided into three parts, namely, the forehead, the nose, and the chin, with the mouth), and with your brush nearly dry, put on this colour, little by little, which is called in Florence verdaccio, and in Siena Bazzeo. When you have sketched out the form of the face, if the proportions or any other thing should displease you, with a large brush steeped in water, by rubbing over the intonaco, you can efface and repair what you have done. Then take a little verde-terra, very liquid, in another vase, and with a hog’s-bristle brush, without a point, squeezed with the fingers and thumb of the left hand, begin to shade under the chin, and all those parts of the face which should be darkest—under the lips, the corners of the mouth, under the nose, and under the eyebrows, making the shade darker near the nose, a little on the edge of the eye towards the ear; and in the same manner making out with judgment (sentimento) the whole face and hands, which are hereafter to be coloured with flesh-colour. Next take a pointed minever brush, and strengthen all the outlines of the nose, eyes, lips, and ears, with the verdaccio. There are some masters who now, when the face is advanced thus far, take a little bianco sangiovanni tempered with water, and seek out the high lights and reliefs in proper order; then give the rosy colours to the lips and cheeks; then wash over the whole with the flesh-colours very liquid with water, and the colouring is done. It is a good plan to retouch afterwards the high lights with a little white. Some wash over the whole face with the flesh-colour first; they go picking out with a little verdaccio and flesh-colour, retouching with a little flesh-colour, and the work is finished. This plan is adopted by those only who know but little of the art; but do you follow the method of colouring which I shall point out to you, because Giotto the great master followed it. He had Taddeo Gaddi the Florentine for his disciple for four-and-twenty years, who was his godson. Taddeo had Agnolo his son; Agnolo had me for twelve years, whereby I gained this manner of colouring; which Agnolo coloured with more charm and freshness than Taddeo his father.
First take a small vase; put into it (a tiny morsel is enough) a little bianco sangiovanni, and a little light cinabrese, about as much of one as of the other. Temper them very liquid with clean water; then with a soft bristle-brush, squeezed between the finger and thumb as before, go over the face when you have finished putting it in with verde-terra; and with this red colour (rossetta) touch in the lips and the roses of the cheeks. My master was accustomed to put the colour in the cheeks nearer the ear than the nose, because it assisted in giving relief to the face, and then he softened the rosiness well into the surrounding colours. Then have three small vases, and make three shades of flesh-colour, so that the darkest may be darker by one-half than the rossetta, and the other two each lighter than the other in regular gradations. Now take the little vase containing the lightest tint, and with a very soft bristle-brush without a point take some of this flesh-colour, squeezing the brush with the fingers, and pick out the reliefs of the face; then take the vase containing the middle tint of the flesh-colour, and paint the middle tint of the face, hands, and body, when you paint a naked figure. Afterwards take the third vase of flesh-colour, and go to the edges of the shadows, but always taking care at the contours that the verde-terra should not lose its value, and in this manner keep on softening one flesh-tint into another, until it is all covered as well as the nature of the work will permit. But mind that if you would have your work appear very brilliant, be careful to keep each tint of colour in its place, except that with skill you soften one delicately into the other. But seeing others work and practising with your hand, will make you perceive better than seeing it merely written. When you have painted in these carnations, make from them a tint much lighter—indeed almost white, and use this above the eyebrows, on the relief of the nose, the tip of the chin, and the upper eyelids; then take a sharp-pointed pencil of minever, and with pure white put in the whites of the eyes, and above the tip of the nose and a little on the fulness of the mouth (della proda della bocca), and so touch tenderly such lights. Then put a little black into another vase, and with a brush mark out the outlines of the eyes above the lights of the eyes, and make the nostrils of the nose, and the holes within the ear. Then put some dark sinopia into another vase, paint the under outline of the eyes, the contour of the nose, the brows and the mouth, and shade a little under the upper lip, which must be a little darker than the under. Before you finish these outlines thus, take the said brush and with verdaccio retouch the hair; then with the said brush, put on the lights of the hair with white, and with a watery wash of light ochre, and a soft bristle-brush, cover over the hair as you did the carnations. Mark out the extremities of the shadows with dark ochre, then with a small and very pointed pencil of minever put on the lights of the hair with bianco sangiovanni and light ochre. Retouch the outlines and extremities of the hair with sinopia as you did on the face, all over. And this is sufficient for you for a youthful face.
When you wish to make the face of an old man, you must proceed in the same manner as in colouring the face of a young person, except that your verdaccio must be darker—also the carnations—observing exactly the same method as you did with the head of the young person, and also in the hands, feet, and body. But remember your old man must have his hair and beard grey. When you have put him in with verdaccio and white with your pointed pencil of minever, put into a small vase some bianco sangiovanni and a little black mixed together, and liquid, and with a pencil of bristles without a point, and very soft, well squeezed, lay a ground-colour on the hair and beard; then make this mixture a little darker, and pick out the shades; afterwards take a very small and pointed pencil of minever, and make the light hairs of the head and beard. And with such colours you can make fur.
When you would paint hair and beards of other hues, either red, or sandy, or black (o sanguigue, o rossette, o negre), or any other colour you please, first make them in any case with verdaccio, and pick them out with white, and then lay on a flat colour in the usual mode, as above mentioned. Consider what colour you want, for the habit of seeing it will teach you how to do it.
Take note that, before I proceed further, I will make you acquainted with the proportions of a man; I omit those of a woman, because there is not one of them perfectly proportioned. First, as I have said before, the face is divided into three parts, namely, the forehead, one; the nose, another; and from the nose to the chin, the third; from the bridge of the nose through the whole length of the eye, one of these parts; from the corner of the eye right up to the ear, one of these parts; from one ear to the other, the length of one face; from the chin to the pit of the throat, one part; from the fork of the throat to the top of the shoulder, one face; and the other shoulder the same; from the shoulder to the elbow, one face; from the elbow to the (al nodo della mano) beginning of the hand, one face and one part; the whole length of the hand, one face; from the fork of the throat to the pit of the stomach, one face; from the pit of the stomach to the navel, one face; from the navel to the beginning of the thigh (nodo della coscia), one face; from the thigh to the knee, two faces; from the knee to the heel, two faces; from the heel to the sole of the foot, one part; the length of the foot, one face. The length of a man is equal to his width with the arms extended. The arm with the hand reaches to the middle of the thigh. The whole length of a man is eight faces and two of these measures. A man has on his left side one rib less than a woman. And all over the body there are bones. The handsome man is dark, woman fair, &c.
I shall not speak of irrational animals, because they appear to have no certain proportions. Draw them as frequently as you can from nature and you will see. And this requires much practice.
Let us now return to colouring in fresco and on walls. If you wish to colour any drapery, you will design it first carefully (gentilmente) with your verdaccio, and do not let your drawing show too much, but moderately. Then, whether you choose to make a white, or red, or yellow, or green drapery, or any colour you please, take three small vases. Take one and put into it any colour you please—we will say red; take some cinabrese, and a little bianco sangiovanni, and this shall be one gradation of colour; let it be thoroughly mixed with water. Of the other two colours make one of a very light tint—that is to say, put to it plenty of bianco sangiovanni. Now take some from the first vase and some of this light colour, and make a medium shade, and you will have three. Now take the first, that is, the dark shade, and with a large bristle-brush, a little pointed, go over the folds of the figure in the darkest places, but not exceeding half of the whole size of the figure. Then take the middle tint, lay on a flat colour from one dark fold to another, uniting them and softening them together, and softening the folds into the extremity of the shades; then with this middle tint go picking out the dark on the lighted side of the figure, preserving carefully the shape of the nude. Then take the third, lightest, colour, and in the same manner in which you picked out and laid the flat tint on the folds of the shadow side, so do the folds on the light side, arranging the folds with grace, propriety, and taste. When you have laid on each colour two or three times (never forsaking the plan of the colouring nor suffering one tint to take the place of, or give place to another, or mix with it except where they unite), soften and blend them together. Then put in another vase, some colour much lighter than the lightest of the three, and pick out and give relief to the top of the folds. Into another vase put pure white, and put in finally the highest lights. Afterwards with pure cinabrese go over the darkest places and round some outlines, and this is the way drapery is usually done. But by seeing others work, you will understand better than by reading. When you have finished your figures, or historical pieces, leave them so that the lime and colours shall dry thoroughly all over; and if any drapery remain to be done when dry (in secco), you must proceed as follows.
Any of the colours used in painting in fresco may also be used in secco; but in fresco some colours cannot be used, as orpiment, cinnabar, azzurro della magna, minio, biacca, verderame, and lacca. Those which may be used in fresco are giallorino, bianco sangiovanni, black, ochre, cinabrese, sinopia, verde-terra, and amatisto. Colours used in fresco must be made lighter with bianco sangiovanni, and if you wish the greens to preserve their green tint, make them lighter with giallorino; when you would have them take the colour of sage, add bianco. Those colours which cannot be used in fresco must be made lighter by the addition of biacca, giallorino, and sometimes orpiment, but orpiment is very rarely used; indeed I think it superfluous. To make a light blue, take three of the same kind of small vases as I directed you to use when speaking of the carnation tints and cinabrese, and prepare them in the same manner, except that where you then used bianco, you should now use biacca, and temper them all. Two sorts of tempera are good, but one is better than the other. The first tempera consists of the white and yolk of an egg, into which are put some cuttings of young shoots of a fig-tree; beat them well together; then add some of this tempera moderately, neither too much nor too little, to each of the vases, like mixing half wine with half water; then work with your colours, either white or green or red, as I directed you in fresco-painting; and you will proceed with your draperies in the same manner as you did in fresco, with a careful hand, waiting, however, till it (the plaster) is dry. If you use too much tempera, suddenly the colour will crack and peel off the wall. Be wise and skilful. Remember, before you begin to work, if you wish to make a drapery of lake, or of any other colour, take a clean sponge, and having mixed the white and yolk of an egg with about two porringers full of clean water, and mixed them well together, with the sponge squeezed half dry pass this tempera over the whole of the space on which you have to paint in secco, and ornament in gold, and then colour freely as you please. The second kind of tempera is the yolk of the egg only; and you must know that this tempera is of universal application on walls, on panels, and on iron, and you cannot use too much of it, but be wise, and take a middle course. Before we proceed further, I would have you paint a drapery in secco in the same manner as you did in fresco, with cinabrese. Now I will have you make one of ultramarine blue. Take the three vases as usual; into the first put two parts azure and the third biacca; into the third, two parts biacca and one part azure: mix them and temper them as I have directed you. Then take the empty vase, that is to say, the second; put into it an equal quantity from each of the others, and stir all well together with a hog’s-bristle brush, or, if you like, a minever brush blunt and firm; and with the first colour, that is to say the darkest, go round the outlines, marking out the darkest folds. Then take the middle colour and lay the flat tint of these dark folds, and mark out the light folds of the light side of the figure. Then take the third colour, and lay the flat tint of the light folds which come on the lighted side, and unite them with each other, softening and laying in the flat tints as I showed you how to do in fresco. Take the lightest colour, add to it some biacca with tempera, and put on the high lights of the folds of the light part. Then take a little pure biacca, and retouch a few of the highest lights as the nude shape of the figure requires. Afterwards with pure ultramarine pick out the darkest folds and outlines, in this way retouching (leccando, lit. licking) the drapery according to its situation and colours, without soiling or mixing them one with another except to soften them. And in this manner use lake and all other colours with which you work in secco.
If you would make a beautiful purple colour, take equal quantities of fine lake and ultramarine and temper them. Then take three little vases as above, and leave some of the purple colour to retouch the shades; and of the rest which you take out make three gradations of colour with which to colour the drapery, making each lighter than the other, as before directed.
If you would make a purple colour to use in fresco-painting, take indigo and amatisto and mix them without tempera as before mentioned, and make four shades. Then paint your drapery.
To make a drapery in fresco like ultramarine, mix indigo with bianco sangiovanni, and make them into regular gradations of colour; then glaze in secco the extreme darks with ultramarine.
If you would paint a drapery in fresco like lake, take amatisto and bianco sangiovanni, and mix your colours in shades as before, softening and uniting them together. Then in secco retouch the extreme shades with pure lake, tempered.
If you would make a changing (rainbow-like, or shot) green drapery for an angel, lay a ground of two shades of carnation, one darker than the other, softening them well together. Then shade the dark part with ultramarine, and the lighter carnation tint shade with terra-verde, retouching them in secco. And remember that everything you paint in fresco must be finished and retouched in secco with tempera. Put on the lights of the drapery in fresco, exactly as I directed you to do with other colours.
Take bianco sangiovanni and black, and make a minever colour (i.e. colour of grey squirrel) called cignerognolo (ash-colour). Lay some as the flat ground-colour, put on what lights you please with giallorino, and some with bianco sangiovanni. Put the shades on as you like with purple, or black, or dark green.
If you would make a changing drapery in secco, cover it with a flat tint of lake; use flesh-colour for the lights, or, if you will, giallorino. Glaze the dark parts as you like with pure lake, or purple (bisso), with tempera.
To make a changing drapery of ochre either in fresco or in secco, cover with flat tints of ochre. Use bianco for the lights; for the lighter shades, shade with green; the darker, with black and sinopia, or, if you please, amatisto.
If you would make a drab drapery, take black and ochre; that is, two parts ochre and the third black. Make your gradations of colour as I have before taught you in fresco and in secco.
If you would make a drapery the colour of wood, take ochre, black, and sinopia; two parts ochre, and the other part black, and sinopia half the quantity of the ochre. With this make the gradations of your colours, in fresco or in secco, or in distemper.
If you would make a mantle for our Lady of azzurro della magna, or any other drapery that you wish to be of azure alone, first lay in fresco a ground on the mantle or drapery of sinopia and black, two parts sinopia and the third black, having previously marked out the finished drawing of folds, with an iron point or needle; then “in secco” take azzurro della magna, well washed either with lye or with clean water, and grind it a very little on the stone. Then, if the blue is of a fine and full colour, add to it a little diluted glue, neither too strong nor too weak. Of this I shall hereafter speak. Again, put to the said azure a yolk of egg; but if the azzurro should be rather pale, it must be tempered with the yolk of country-laid eggs, which are very red-coloured; stir it well together with a soft hog’s-hair brush, and pass it three or four times over the drapery. When the ground is well covered and dry, with a little indigo and black shade the folds of the mantle as well as you can, returning many times over the shades with the point of the brush. If you would make it lighter on the knees or any other part, scrape to the pure blue with the handle of the brush. If you lay a ground on a drapery with ultramarine, temper it in the usual way given for azzurro della magna, and lay on two or three coats of it. To shade the folds, take fine lake and a little black, tempered with the yolk of an egg. Shade them as tenderly as you can and very neatly, first with a little of this lake and afterwards with the point, and make as few folds as you can, because ultramarine does not like the neighbourhood of other mixtures.
If you would paint a black drapery of a monk or friar, take pure black, making your gradations of colour as I before directed you, in fresco and in secco, with tempera.
If you wish to make mountains in fresco or in secco, make verdaccio, one part of black, and two parts of ochre. Make your gradations in fresco with bianco, without tempera; and in secco use biacca with tempera; and give them form, as to a figure with darks and lights. And when you have to paint mountains which appear at a distance, make your colours darker; and if you would have them seem nearer, let your colours be lighter.
If you would embellish these mountains with groves of trees and grass, first paint the trunk of the tree with pure black, which cannot be well done in fresco; then make some of the leaves of dark green or verde-azzurro (verde-terra is not good for this purpose) and let the foliage be well painted and dense; make a lighter green with giallorino, and let your leaves be smaller as you come towards the top of the tree. Touch the lights on the top with giallorino alone, and the trees and foliage will appear in relief; but first when you have painted the trees with black at the base, and also a few of the branches, let leaves shoot above, and then put the fruits, and scatter a few flowers and birds on the green grass.
If you would make buildings (casamenti), set them out in your design of any size you please, and stretch threads. Put them in first with verdaccio, or terra-verde, either in fresco or in secco, but let the colour be very liquid; some you may make purple, and some cignerognolo (grey), some green, some drab (berettino, or wood-coloured), or any colour you please. Then make a long thin straight lath, one of the edges of which should be scooped out so as not to touch the wall, lest this should be spoiled by the passing over it and the rubbing of the brush and colours; and you will paint these cornices with great pleasure and delight. And in the same manner paint bases, columns, capitals, porticos, garlands of flowers, altar decorations, and the whole art of mazzoneria, which is a noble part of our art, and must be done with great delight. And remember that the same rules of light and shade which apply to figures, must be observed here with regard to these matters, and always apply this rule to buildings; that the cornice which you make at the top of the house on the shadow side must incline downwards; the middle cornice of the building facing you must be quite equal and even; and the cornice (plinth?) at the base of the building must ascend in a direction contrary to that at the top of the building, which descends.
If you wish to draw mountains well, so that they appear natural, procure some large stones, rocky and not polished, and draw from these, giving them lights and shades as the same rule guides you.
Before we proceed further, I will teach you to paint in oil on walls, or on panels, which is much practised by the Germans, and in the same way on iron or stone. But we will first speak of walls.
Cover your wall with plaster, exactly as you would do when painting in fresco; except that where you then covered but a small space at a time, you are now to spread it over your whole work. Make your design with charcoal, and fix it with ink or verdaccio, tempered. Then take a little glue, much diluted with water—a whole egg, well beaten in a porringer, with the milky juice of the fig-tree, is a still better tempera—you must add to the said egg a glassful of clean water. Then, either with a sponge or a very soft brush without a point, go once over the whole ground on which you are going to paint, and leave it to dry for one day at least.
It will be very useful to you to know how to prepare this oil, for many things that are done; therefore, take one, two, three, or four pounds of linseed oil, and put it into a new pipkin; if it is glazed, so much the better. Make a small furnace, and make a round hole, into which the pipkin fits exactly, so that the flame may not reach it, because the fire easily catches it, and there would be danger to the oil, and also of burning the house. When you have made your furnace, put a moderate fire in it; and the more slowly your oil boils, the better and more perfect will it be. Let it boil until it is reduced to half the quantity. But to prepare mordants, when it is reduced to half the quantity, add to each pound of oil one ounce of liquid varnish (vernice liquida), and let it be very fine and clear: and oil thus prepared is good for mordants.
When you have prepared this oil (which is also cooked in another way, better for painting, but not for mordants, for which it must be done on the fire, that is, cooked), take your linseed oil, and in summer-time put it in a basin of bronze or copper. And in August (quando è il sole leone) place it in the sun; and if you keep it there till it is half wasted, it will be exactly right for mixing with colours. And you must know that, in Florence, I have found the finest and best that there can be.
Let us return to grinding the colours. Begin and grind colour by colour, as you did when working in fresco, except that where you then ground them with water, you must now grind them with oil. And when you have ground them, that is to say all the colours, (for every colour can be mixed with oil except bianco sangiovanni), provide small vessels, either of lead or of tin, into which put these colours. And if you cannot find such, get glazed vessels, and put the ground colours into them; put them in a box, that they may keep clean. When you would paint a drapery with three gradations of colour, as I have previously taught you, divide the space, and let each colour be laid in its proper place with a minever brush, uniting one colour well with another, the colours being very stiff. Then stop for a few days and return again to your work, see how the paint covers, and repaint where necessary. And in this way paint flesh or anything you please; and in this way mountains, trees, and every other work. Provide a vessel of tin or lead (something like a lamp), about the height of your finger, half fill it with oil, and keep your brushes in it that they may not dry.
And in the same manner you may work on iron, on stone, or on any panel, always sizing first, and also on glass or on anything you please.
Having now taught you how to paint in fresco, in secco, and in oil, I will tell you how to embellish walls with gilded tin, white tin, and fine gold, and take especial notice that you use as little silver as possible, because it does not last, and becomes black on walls and on wood, but loses its colour quickest on walls. Use instead of it beaten tin, or tin plates. Beware also of alloyed gold (oro di metà) which quickly turns black.
It is usual to adorn walls with gilded tin, because it is less expensive than gold. Nevertheless, I give you this advice, that you endeavour to adorn always with fine gold and good colours, particularly in the figures of our Lady. And if you say that a poor person cannot afford the expense, I answer that if you work well and give time to your work, and good colours, you will acquire so much fame, that a rich person will come to you to pay for the poor one; and your name will stand so high for using good colours, that if some masters receive one ducat for painting a figure, you will be offered two, and your wishes will be fulfilled; according to the old proverb, good work, good pay. And whenever you should not be well paid, God and our Lady will reward your soul and body for it.
When you ornament anything with tin, either white or gilded, and have to cut it with a knife, first procure a smooth plank of walnut, pear, or plum tree, not too thin, cut square each way like a sheet of paper (called) reale. Then take some liquid varnish, cover the board with it, and lay your piece of tin upon it, well spread and smooth. Then cut it with a knife very sharp at the point, and with a ruler cut off a strip the width you intend to make your fringes (fregi, borders?) either only tin, or wide enough to adorn them with black or other colours.
Again, in order to embellish these fringes (borders?) you may take verderame ground with linseed oil, and spread it over a sheet of white tin, and it will be a beautiful green. Let it dry in the sun, then spread it out upon a plank with varnish; then cut it with a knife; or if you would first stamp it with rosettes or other fair devices, anoint the plank with liquid varnish, and put your rosettes upon it, then fix them to the wall. Again, if you would make stars of fine gold, or a diadem for saints, or ornaments with the knife, in the manner I have shown you, you must first put fine gold upon gilded tin.
Gilded tin is prepared in this manner. Have a very smooth plank, three or four braccia long, grease it with fat or with tallow. Put some white tin on it; then put a liquor called gold size (doratura) upon the tin in three or four places, a very little in each place; and with the palm of your hand pat the tin, spreading the gold size equally, as much in one place as in another. Let it dry in the sun. When it is almost dry, but still a very little sticky, take the fine gold, and put the pieces on in order, and cover the tin with this fine gold. Polish it with clean cotton; stick the tin to the plank, and when you would make use of it, apply with liquid varnish, and make stars or any ornaments you please, as you did with gilded tin.
You must first cut out all the stars with a ruler, and when you are going to put them on, first put over the azure, where the star is coming, a lump of wax, and work the star in rays, as you have cut them out in the plank. And you must know that in this way you can do much more work with less fine gold, than by putting it on with mordants.
If you would make the diadems of saints without mordants, when you have coloured the figures in fresco take a needle and scrape (indent a line) around the contour of the head. Then, in secco, spread varnish upon the diadem, put on it the gilded tin that is overlaid with fine gold; then spread the varnish over it, pat it with the palm of your hand, and you will see all the marks made by the needle. With a well-sharpened knife-point, gently cut away the loose gold, and keep it for your other work.
You must know that a glory (again diadema) must be raised with a small trowel on the fresh mortar in this manner. When you have drawn the head of the figure, take the compasses and make the glory. Then take a little very rich lime, worked like paste or ointment, and spread it over thickly in the further parts, but thinner near the head. Then take the compasses again, when you have smoothed the lime well, and with the knife cut away the lime above the line of the compasses, and it will remain raised. Then have a strong thin stick of wood, and indent the rays round the glory, and this is the way you are to do it on walls.
When you do not choose to adorn your figures with tin, you must use mordants. Of these I shall treat fully hereafter, in their order; as to which can be used on panels, on glass, on iron, and every other thing; which are strong, and capable of withstanding air, wind and water; which require to be varnished, and which not.
But let us return to our colouring, and from walls proceed to panels, which are the neatest and pleasantest part of our art. And remember, that he who learns to paint first on walls, and then on panels, does not become so perfect a master of the art, as when he happens to learn to paint on panels first, and then on walls.
Know that you cannot learn to paint in less time than thus. In the first place, you must study drawing for at least one year, on tablets; then you must remain with a master at the workshop, who understands working in all parts of the art; you must begin with grinding colours, and learn to boil down glues, to acquire the practice of laying grounds on panels, to work in relief upon them; and to rub them smooth and to gild; to engrave well; and this for six years; afterwards to practise colouring, to adorn with mordants, to make cloths of gold, and to be accustomed to paint on walls, for six more years,—always drawing without intermission either on holidays or workdays. And so, through long habit, good practice becomes a second nature. Adopting other habits, do not hope ever to attain great perfection. There are many who say they have learned the art without having been with a master. Do not believe them, for I give you this very book as example: even studying it day and night, if you do not see some practice with some master, you will never be fit for anything, nor will you be able with a good face to stay among the masters.
Beginning to paint pictures (panels) in the name of the most Holy Trinity, and always invoking this name, and that of the glorious Virgin Mary, we must first prepare a foundation, and this is made with various kinds of glue. There is a cement made of boiled flour which is used by paper (or parchment) makers (cartolari) and the masters who make books, and is proper to fasten paper (or parchment) together, and also to fix tin upon parchment. It is also used sometimes when paper is to be glued together for making transfer patterns. This paste is made in the following manner. Fill a pipkin almost full of clean water, and make it very hot. When it is just going to boil, shake some fine flour, a little at a time, into the pipkin, stirring it continually with a small stick or spoon; make it boil, but do not make it too thick. Pour it out and put it into a porringer. If you wish it not to go bad, add some salt, and use it when you want it.
There is a cement proper for glueing stones, and this is made of mastic, new wax, and pounded stone, strained and well tempered together over the fire. First clean your stone, then heat it and apply the glue. It will withstand air and water, and is used to fasten grindstones and millstones.
There is a cement proper for joining broken glasses or jugs, or other beautiful vases of Damascus or Majolica. This is made of liquid varnish, a little white lead, and a little verdigris. Put in it some of the same colour as the glass; if it is blue add a little indigo; if green, add more verdigris, et sic de singulis. Take the pieces of your broken vase or drinking-glasses, and though they be in a thousand pieces, join them together with this glue, putting it on thinly; and if you let them dry for the space of some months in the sun and wind, you will find these vases stronger and better able to keep out the water where they are pieced than where they are whole.
There is a glue called fish-glue (colla di pesce, isinglass). This is prepared from many kinds of fish. If you put a piece of this to your mouth as long as is necessary, and then rub a little on your sheepskin parchment, or other parchment, it will fasten them strongly together. When dissolved, it makes a good and most excellent cement for lutes, or other delicate works of parchment (or paper, carta), wood, and bone. When you put it over the fire, add for each piece of glue half a glass of clean water.
There is a glue called colla di spicchi, which is made of the clippings of the muzzles of goats, feet, sinews, and many clippings of the skins. This glue is made in January or March during the great cold or high winds, and is boiled with an equal quantity of water until it is reduced one-half; then pour it into flat vessels, such as saucers for jelly, or basins. Let it remain one night; the next morning cut it in slices, like bread, with a knife; put the pieces on rush-mats to dry in the wind, without sun, and it will become excellent glue. This glue is used by painters, by saddlers, and by many masters, as I shall hereafter tell you. It is good glue for wood, and many other things, of which we shall treat fully when showing how it is to be used, and in what manner for plaster, in tempering colours, making lutes, in inlaid works (tarsie), also to fasten wood, and the leaves (of books), in tempering plaster, in working with plaster in relief, and it is useful for many things.
There is a glue made from waste of sheep and goat parchment, and from the clippings of this parchment. These are to be well washed, and put to soak for the space of one day before they are boiled down. Boil them till the quantity of water is reduced to one-third part; and I wish that, when you have no colla di spicchi, you should use this only for mixing with the gessos for your panels, and it is impossible anywhere to find better.
There is a glue (size) made from the scrapings of goat and sheep parchment. Let it boil in clean water until the water is reduced to about a third in quantity. It makes a glue as clear as crystal, and is good for tempering dark blues; and if you should have laid a ground tint of any colour not properly tempered, give it a coat of this size and it tempers the colours again, and fixes them; you may varnish them if you please when used on pictures, and also blues on walls. This size is also good for mixing with grounds; but it is naturally thin, and (unsuitable for) plaster which is to be afterwards gilded, (for this) must have more body.
There is a glue used by workers in wood which is made of cheese put into water to soften. Rub it down with a wooden pestle with both hands, adding a little quicklime. Apply it to the boards you wish to join, unite them, and fix them well together. And this is sufficient for you for making the different kinds of glue.
Now we are really going to paint pictures. In the first place, a panel must be prepared of the wood of the poplar, which is very good (ben gentile), or lime-tree, or willow. Begin with the flat surface of the picture; if it is defaced with knots, or if it is greasy, you must cut it away as far as the grease extends, for there is no other remedy. Take care that the wood is very dry; and if it is such a piece that you can boil in a cauldron of clean water, the wood will never do you the ill turn of splitting. Let us now return to the knots or any other defects in the flat surface of the panel. Take some size (colla di spicchi) and about a glassful of clean water, melt and boil two pieces (spicchi) in a pipkin free from grease; then put in a porringer some sawdust, and knead it into the glue; fill up the defects or knots with the wooden spatula, and let it dry. Then scrape smooth with a knife-point to level the surface. Examine if there is any nail, or other thing, that renders the panel uneven, and knock it well into the wood; then take glue and pieces of tin, beaten like quattrini (small pieces of money), and cover over the iron with them. And this is done that the rust of the iron may never rise through the ground. The flat surface of the panel must never be too much smoothed. Boil some glue made of shavings of sheep parchment till the water is reduced to one-third of what it was at first. Feel with the palms of the hands, and when you feel one hand stick to the other, it is sufficiently boiled. Strain it two or three times. Put half this glue into a pipkin, add a third part of water, and make it very hot. Then with a hog’s-hair brush, large and soft, pass a coat of the glue over the panel and carved foliage or pyxes (civori) or columns, or whatever you work upon, that is to be covered with gesso, and let it dry. Then take some of your first strong glue (size), and pass it twice over your work, letting it dry well between each coat of glue (size), and it will be properly sized. Do you know the effect of the first glue? It is merely a weaker liquor, and just as if when fasting, you eat a few comfits and drank a glass of good wine, which gives you an appetite for dinner. Such is this size; it adapts the wood for taking the size and grounds.
Having thus applied the size, get some linen cloth, old, fine, and white, and free from all grease. Take your best size, cut or tear large or small strips of this linen, soak these in the size, and spread them with your hands over the surface of the panel; remove the seams, and spread the strips out with the palms of the hands, and leave them to dry for two days. And remember it is best to use size when the weather is dry and windy. Size is stronger in the winter than in summer, and in winter gilding must be done in damp and rainy weather.
When the panel is quite dry, take the point of a knife like a file (mella, rasp?) which rasps well, and search over the surface to find any little knots, or any seams, and remove them. Then take some gesso grosso, that is to say volteranno (plaster of Paris) purified (purgato) and sifted like flour. Put a porringer-full on the porphyry slab, grind it well with this size by hand as you would grind colours, collect it with a spatula, and put it on the surface of the panel, and with a very smooth and rather large spatula (stecca) cover the whole surface, and whenever you can use the spatula, do so. Then take some of this ground plaster (gesso), warm it, take a soft hog’s-hair brush and give it a coat on the cornices and foliage, as on the even surface with the spatula. Give three or four coats on the other parts of the cornices; but on the level parts you cannot put on too much. Leave it to dry for two or three days. Then take the iron rasp (mesella) and scrape the flat surface; procure some small iron tools, which are called raffiette, such as you will find at the painters’; there are several kinds of them. Pick out all the cornices and foliage if not well done, that they may not be choked up, and generally take care that all defects of the flat surface or cornices are remedied by this grounding of plaster.
You must now prepare a plaster for fine grounds, called gesso sottile. This is made from the same plaster as the last, but it must be well purified (purgata), and kept moist in a large tub for at least a month; renew the water every day until it almost rots, and is completely slaked, and all fiery heat goes out of it, and it becomes as soft as silk. Throw away the water, make it into cakes, and let it dry; and this gesso is sold by the druggists to our painters. It is used for grounding, for gilding, for working in relief, and other fine works.
Having laid on the gesso grosso, rubbed it smooth, and levelled it well and delicately, take some of this gesso sottile, and put it cake by cake into a pipkin of clean water, and let it absorb as much as it will. Put it little by little on the porphyry slab, and without adding any more water to it, grind it perfectly. Put it then on a piece of linen cloth, strong and white, and go on till you have as much as a loaf, then fold it up in this cloth, and wring it well to get as much water out as possible. When you have ground as much of it as you want, for you must consider what quantity you will want, that you may neither have to make two portions of tempered plaster, nor to throw away any good plaster, take some of the same size with which you tempered the gesso grosso. You must make sufficient at one time to temper both kinds of gesso. The gesso sottile requires less tempering than the gesso grosso; the reason? that the gesso grosso is the foundation of all your work, and you must also reflect, that howsoever much you press the gesso sottile a little water will still remain in it. For this reason, diligently make the same size for both. Take a new pipkin which is free from grease, and if it is glazed, so much the better. Take a cake of this gesso sottile and scrape it fine with a knife, as you would cheese, and put it into the pipkin. Put some of the size on it and work the gesso with the hand, as you would a paste for making fritters, smoothly and dexterously, so that it may not froth at all. Have a cauldron of water, and make it very hot, and put into it the pipkin Containing the tempered gesso. This will keep the gesso warm, and it will not boil; for if it should boil it would be spoiled. When it is warm, take your panel, and with a large and very soft brush of hog’s bristles, dip in the pipkin and take some in moderate quantity, neither too much nor too little, and spread it evenly over the level surfaces, the cornices, and the carved foliage. It is true that in doing this the first time you should spread and rub the gesso with your fingers and hand, round and round, and this will incorporate the gesso grosso with the gesso sottile. When you have done this, begin again, and lay on one coat with the brush without rubbing it in with the hand. Let it rest a little, but not so as to dry thoroughly; then go over again in the other direction also with the brush, and let it dry as usual, then give another coat in the reverse direction; and in this manner, always keeping your gesso warm, give the flat surfaces eight coats at least. Foliage and other reliefs do with less, but you cannot put too much on the flat. This is on account of the rasping or rubbing down, which is done next.
Small and delicate works may, as I told you before, be sized two or three times, and then give them as many coats of gesso sottile only as you find from experience they will require.
There are, nevertheless, some persons who grind gesso sottile with water and size. This is proper for grounds where no gesso grosso is used, which required to be more tempered. This same kind of gesso is good for raising foliage and other works in relief, which frequently has to be done. But when you are going to execute works in relief with this gesso, add to it enough Armenian bole to give it a little colour.
When you have finished laying the ground, which must be done in one day, even if you work at it in the night, to allow the necessary intervals of time, let it dry without sun for two days and nights at least. The longer you let it dry the better. Tie some powdered charcoal like a ball in a piece of linen, and powder it over the ground of the picture. Then with a bunch of feathers of a hen or goose, spread this black powder equally over the ground. And this is because the surface cannot be scraped too perfectly, and because the iron tool with which you scrape the surface is flat also. Where you remove the surface the ground will be as white as milk. Then you will see whether it requires more scraping.
Take a flat raffietto, about as wide as a finger, and gently go all round the surface of the cornice once; then with a sharp rasp (or rough file), with as straight an edge as possible, scrape over the flat surface of the panel with a very light hand, not grasping the rasp at all tight, and brushing away the loose gesso with the bunch of feathers. And know that this dust is excellent for removing grease from the pages of books. In the same manner rub smooth the cornices and foliage, and polish them as if they were ivory. And sometimes, through haste and much work, you may polish cornices and foliage, by rubbing them with a piece of linen, first wetted and then squeezed almost dry.
Having well scraped the ground, and made it like ivory, the first thing you should do is to draw on your panel with those sticks of willow charcoal which I previously taught you to make. But you must fasten the charcoal to a stick about the length of your face, which is a help in composing. Have a feather ready, that when any stroke appears to you to be badly drawn, you may efface it with the feather, and draw it again. Draw with a light hand, and shade the folds and the faces as you did with the brush or with the pen in making a pen-and-ink drawing. When you have finished drawing your figures, especially if the picture be of great value, and you expect gain and honour from it, leave it for a day, return many times to examine it, and improve it where there is need. When it appears to you correctly drawn, and you can copy from or look at things done by other good masters, which is no shame to you if the figure is good, gently rub away the charcoal with the feather from the design, so that it may be just seen, but not too much, lest you should not understand your design. Put a few drops of ink into a glass half full of water, and with a pointed minever brush mark over the outline of your design. Then with the feather part of the pen, brush away the charcoal. With some more of the ink, and a flat-pointed minever brush, shade any fold and any shaded part of the face, and you will have made an agreeable design, which will cause all men to fall in love with your works.
When you have sketched your design on the panel, have a needle fixed into a small stick and engrave the outlines of the figure which come against the background which you are going to cover with gold, also the borders which you intend to make on the figures, and certain draperies, which are to be of cloth of gold.
Besides this, take some of the same gesso for reliefs, if you would raise ornaments or foliage, or fix precious stones to certain ornaments (fregi, borders?) belonging to the figure of God the Father, or to Our Lady, or certain other ornaments which embellish your work, and which are stones of various coloured glass. Arrange them with judgment, having your gesso in a vessel upon some hot ashes, and another vessel of hot water, because you must wash your brush frequently; and this brush must be of minever, the hairs fine and rather long. Take a little of the gesso on the point of the brush, and with that quickly raise whatever figures you wish to make in relief; and if you raise any foliage, draw the design previously like the figures, and be careful not to relieve too many things, or confusedly, for the clearer you make your foliage ornaments, the better will you be able to display the ingraining with stamps, and they can be better burnished with the stone. There are some masters who, having relieved all they wish, give one or two coats of the gesso which they have used for the ground of the picture, that is, of gesso sottile, with a soft, small bristle-brush. But if you relieve but little, it appears to me that it will be better, firmer, and safer work without this further application, for the reason I have before given you, not to use different kinds of tempered gesso on the same picture.
As we are talking about relief work, I will tell you a few things. With the same kind of gesso, or made with more size, you may cast a head of a lion or other shapes modelled in earth or in chalk. Oil the mould with lamp-oil (olio da brucciare), fill it with the gesso well tempered, and let it cool thoroughly; then remove the gesso with the point of a knife and blow upon it hard. It will come out quite clean; let it dry. Then in any ornamenting use the same gesso which you grounded and relieved with, first oiling the part with the brush where the head is to be fixed, then press it with the finger and it will stick properly. Afterwards with a minever brush lay a coat or two of the same gesso on the parts in relief, pressing with the finger on the cast figure and it will please you. Afterwards feel over with the knife-point, and if there are any little lumps, remove them.
I shall also teach you how to raise designs in relief on walls. In the first place, there are certain parts of the wall that are either embossed or carved with foliage, on which the plaster cannot be spread with a trowel. Take some lime and sand, both well sifted, put them in a basin, and with a large bristle-brush, make them into a paste with water, and apply several coats of this plaster with the same brush on these places. Then smooth the parts with the trowel, and the plastering is done. You may paint on it in fresco or in secco, as I directed you when speaking of fresco-painting.
Again, with the before-mentioned lime, ground a little on the stone; you can make what you please in relief on the walls, as I have told you to do with regard to panels, that is, on the fresh lime and intonaco.
You may also have a stone cut with any devices you please, and grease the design with lard or tallow. Get some beaten tin, and lay moist tow over the tin and lay that over the engraved stone, and beat as hard as you can with a mallet of willow. Then have some gesso grosso, ground up with size, and with the spatula fill up the moulds with it; you may use them to adorn walls, coffers, stone, and anything you please; then apply the mordant over the tin, and when it is a little tacky, cover it with fine gold. When dry attach it to the wall with ship-pitch.
You may also relieve on walls in this manner: Mix liquid varnish with flour, and grind them well together, and execute your reliefs with a pointed minever brush.
In the same manner you may also make reliefs on walls with melted wax and with ship-pitch melted together, two parts wax and the third pitch. Make the reliefs with a brush, and let it be warm.
Let us return to our subject. When you have finished the reliefs of your picture, get some Armenian bole, and take it of good quality. Touch your underlip with it; if it sticks to it, it is good. You must now learn the best tempera for gilding. Put the white of an egg into a very clean glazed basin. Take a broom of twigs cut equal, and as if you beat spinach, that is, beating it very fine, so beat up the white of egg with it till the basin is full of thick froth, which appears like snow. Then take a common drinking-glass, not too large, and not quite full of water; pour it on the white of egg into the basin. Let it stand from night till the next morning, to clarify itself. Then grind the bole with this tempera as perfectly as you can. Take a nice sponge, wash it well and dip it into clean water, and squeeze it; rub lightly with the sponge, not too wet, on those parts on which the gold is to be laid. Then with a large minever brush distemper this ground bole as liquid as water for the first coat, and where you have wetted with the sponge spread this bole thinly, and beware of leaving edges with the brush. Then wait a little; put a little more bole into your vessel, and let the second coat of colour have a little more body. Give it this second coat, and let it again rest a short time; put more bole into the vase, and give it a third coat in the same manner, making no hard edges. Put more bole still into the vase, and give it a fourth coat, and then you will have finished laying on the bole. Now you may cover over your panel with a cloth, to keep it as much as you can from dust, sun, and water.
This tempera may be tempered in a different way. In order to grind the bole, put the whole albumen of an egg on the porphyry slab, then take the pulverised bole and grind it into this albumen. Grind it very fine, and if it dries under your hands, add to it while on the stone a little very clean water. When it is well ground, dilute it until it flows from the brush like clear water, and give your work three or four coats, in the manner above directed. This is a surer way than any other tempera if you have not much experience. Cover your picture, and keep it well from dust, as I have told you before.
You may also adopt the same process as that used by the ancients, namely, to stretch linen over the panel before you lay on the gesso, and then put on the gold with verde-terra, grinding the verde-terra as you like, in either of the two sorts of temperas, as I have taught you above.
When mild, damp weather comes, and you wish to lay on gold, place your panel flat on two trestles. Sweep it well with the feathers; and take a raffietto and feel with a light hand over the ground of bole, and if there is any dirt or knot or roughness, remove it. Take a piece of linen rag (or ravelling), and burnish the bole with great care. If you afterwards burnish it with a tooth, it cannot but be of assistance. When you have thus cleaned and burnished it, take a glass nearly full of clear water, very clean, and put into it a little of the white-of-egg tempera; if it is not at all stale, so much the better. Mix it thoroughly in the glass with the water. Take a large minever brush, made of the hairs of the tip of the tail, as I told you before. Take your fine gold, and with a pair of small pincers take up a leaf of the gold. Have a card (or piece of parchment?) cut square, with the corners cut off. Hold it in your left hand, and with the brush, which you hold in your right hand, wet the bole sufficiently to hold the piece of gold you have in your hand. Wet the bole equally, that there may not be more water on one part than on another; then let the gold gently approach to the wet bole, and take care that the gold projects a trifle beyond the card, so that the edge of the card may not get wet. Now, as soon as the gold has touched the wet part, withdraw the card quickly and suddenly; and if you perceive that the gold does not adhere everywhere, take a piece of clean cotton and press the said gold down as gently as you possibly can; and in this manner put on the other pieces; and when you are wetting for the second piece, be careful that the brush does not go so near the first piece as to go over it, and let the piece you are putting on overlap a trifle the one already laid, first breathing on it, that the gold may adhere where it overlaps. When you have laid on three pieces, press the first piece again with the cotton, first breathing on the gold, and that will show if any part requires mending. Prepare a cushion as large as a brick, made of a smooth piece of board covered with soft leather, white and not greasy, of the same kind as that of which boots are made. Nail it over, stretched, and fill between the wood and the leather with a few shreds of cloth; then on this cushion spread out a piece of gold, and with a flat-edged knife cut the gold into pieces as you want it. For the defects which there may be, have a little pointed minever brush, and with the same tempera wet the defective places, and wetting with the lips the handle of the brush, it will be able to take up the little bits of gold and lay them on the defective place. When you have laid as much gold on the level surface as you can burnish in one day, for which I shall give you directions when you have to gild cornices and foliage, be careful to collect the small pieces of gold, as that master does who wishes to pave the road, being always as sparing of the gold as you can be, and always covering with a clean handkerchief the gold which you have laid on.
When you mean to burnish gold, you must have a stone called lapis amatisto, which I will teach you to prepare. If you have not this stone, sapphires, emeralds, balass-rubies, topazes, rubies, and garnets are still better for those who can afford the expense, and the nobler the stone, the better it is for this purpose. The teeth of dogs, lions, wolves, cats, leopards, and of all clean flesh-feeding animals are also good.
Get a piece of lapis amatisto; take care to choose one that is sound and without flaw, with the veining running lengthwise. Grind it on the grindstone, and make it very smooth and polished, and about the width of two fingers, or how you can. Then take emerald dust, and rub it till it has no sharp edge, but only a sort of backbone, and round off all the corners and put it in a handle of wood, with a band of brass or copper, and let the handle be round and smooth, so that the palm of the hand may rest well upon it. Then polish it in the following manner: Put some charcoal powder upon a porphyry slab, and grasping the stone well in the hand, as if you were burnishing with it, burnish it on the slab, and your stone will become hard, dark, and shining as a diamond. You must be very careful that it does not hit anything or touch iron, and when you would use it to burnish gold or silver, put it first into your bosom to get rid of any dampness, for gold must be humoured (che l’oro e motto schifo).
You must now burnish gold, for the time is come that you should do so. It is true that in winter you may put on gold whenever you please, during damp and mild weather, but not during very dry weather. In summer, lay on gold one hour and burnish it the next; but should the gilding remain too damp, and from some cause or other you want to burnish it, keep it in a place where it will not feel any ardour of heat or air; but if it is too dry, keep it in a damp place, always covered; and when you would burnish it, uncover it gently and carefully, for the smallest scratch will blemish it. If you put it in a cellar at the foot of the casks, it will become fit to burnish. But should you be prevented from burnishing anything for eight or ten days or a month, take a very clean handkerchief or a towel, lay it over your gold in the cellar, or wherever it may be; then take another handkerchief, dip it in clean water, wring and squeeze it very dry; open it, and spread it over the first handkerchief that you laid over the gold, and the gold will then become fit for burnishing. Now I have told you the sort of condition in which gold is fit to be burnished.
Take your panel, or anything on which you have laid gold. Place it level upon trestles or on a bench. Take your burnisher, rub it on your breast, or on any part of your clothes that is not greasy. Warm it well; then try whether the gold is fit for burnishing. Feel it carefully, always with doubt. If you feel any powder under the stone or scratching as you would feel powder between your teeth, take a minever’s tail and sweep with a light hand over the gold, moving the stone very softly, and if ever, as you burnish, you see that the gold is not as even in its brilliance as a looking-glass, put over a piece or half a piece (a leaf or half a leaf), first breathing on it, and immediately burnish with the stone. And if it should happen that the surface of the gold is obstinate and does not come as you wish, you may remedy it in the manner I have just described; and if you can afford the expense, you will add materially to the perfection of your work, and to your own honour, if you gild in this manner the whole of your ground. When it is properly burnished, the gold will appear almost dark from its own brightness.
You should know that the gold proper to be laid on flat surfaces is that where 100 leaves only are made from the ducat, and not 145 pieces, because the gold for gilding flat surfaces must be more dead-looking (piu appannato). And if you would know good gold when you buy it, get it from a person who is a good gold-beater; and look at the gold: if it appears cloudy and dull like parchment, then consider it good. For cornices and foliage thinner gold is better; and for the delicate fringes and ornaments laid on with mordants, the gold should be very thin and gossamer-like (cobwebby).
When you have burnished and finished your panel, you must first take the compasses and describe the circles for the glories or crowns (corone o ver diademe). Engrave them, add fringes, indent them with small stamping tools so that they glitter like grains of millet; adorn with other stamping tools, and engrave if there is foliage. To see some practice is necessary for this. When you have thus formed the glories and ornaments, put into a glazed vessel a little biacca, well ground with some thin Size, and with a small minever brush, ground and outline the figures where they come against the background, as you find them marked out by the lines which you scratched with the needle, before you put on the bole. Again, if you would dispense with the biacca and brush, scrape away the gold which encroaches on the figures, and this will be the best plan.
This stamping on gold with small patterns (granare) which I have told you about is one of the most beautiful parts of our art: it can be done all over, and it can be done in relief, as I have said; and guided by a just fancy and with a light hand, you may make foliage designs and little angels, and other figures which will shine through the gold; but in the folds and in the shadows you do not stamp any patterns; in the half-lights a few, and a good many in the lights; because this stamping, so to say, brightens the gold, which otherwise is dark where it is burnished. But before you stamp (or engrave?) any leaf-work or figure draw upon the gold ground whatever you want to do, with either a silver or lead style.
Before you begin to colour, I should like to show you how to make a cloth of gold. If you would have a mantle, or a woman’s petticoat, or a little cushion of cloth of gold, put on the gold-leaf with bole, and scratch the folds of the drapery in the manner I have shown you formerly for putting on a background. Then, if you wish to make a red drapery, lay a flat tint of cinnabar upon the burnished gold. For darkening it, use lake; for lightening it minium, all tempered with the yolk of an egg, not rubbing the surface too hard with your brush, nor touching it too many times. Let it dry, and go over it at least twice. In the same manner you may make green or black draperies, if you please. But if you would make a beautiful drapery of ultramarine blue, first lay a flat tint on the gold of biacca tempered with the yolk of an egg. When it is dry, temper your ultramarine with a little size, and a little yolk of egg, perhaps two drops. Pass it over the white two or three times, and let it dry. Then, according to the drapery you wish to paint, prepare your powders; that is, you must draw the designs first on parchment and prick them in fine holes with a needle, holding a piece of cloth under the parchment, or, if you like, a board of lime-tree wood or alder wood; this is better than cloth. When the holes are pricked, take powder according to the colour of the drapery you have to transfer to. If it is white, dust with charcoal powder tied in a rag; if it is black, dust with biacca, also tied in a rag—and sic de singulis. Make your transfer patterns match well at the edges.
Having transferred the design to the drapery by dusting powder (through the holes of the cartoon) take a stiletto (small style) of birch, or other hard wood, or of bone, pointed like a proper drawing style at one end, at the other blunt for engraving. And with the point of this style pick out the drawing of all the draperies, and with the other end scrape off the paint to the gold below, without rubbing off the gold, whatever you wish either in the background or the pattern work, and you can stamp patterns with the rosetta on what you uncover. And if in certain small parts of the design you cannot use the rosetta, you must use an iron point like a drawing-style. And this is how you begin to learn to make gold draperies. If you would make silver draperies, you must proceed in exactly the same manner in putting on the silver as in putting on the gold. I advise you too, if you want to teach boys or children to put on gold, let them begin with silver, that they may get some practice, for it is cheaper.
Again, if you wish to make a rich drapery of gold, there is the way of ornamenting this garment with leaf-work in relief, or with stones of many colours set in it; then lay fine gold all over, then stamp patterns on when it is burnished.
Ad idem. Cover the whole ground with gold; burnish it; design upon it the drapery which you wish to make, hunting scenes or other subjects. Then stamp the patterns (granare) on the ground or ornamental work (lacci), that is, what you have already designed.
Ad idem. Put on the gold ground, draw whatever design you wish, lay over, when the design requires it, a ground colour of verdigris in oil; shading each fold twice; then putting one coat evenly everywhere over the ground and designs.
Ad idem. Put on the ground with gold, burnish it, and stamp (granare) it in relief.
Ad idem. Lay silver over the drapery; draw the pattern of the stuff when it is burnished, which latter is always implied; lay in the ground or coloured spaces in the design with cinnabar, tempered with yolk of egg; then with a fine lake and oil give one or two coats over all the work, either the ground or coloured parts of the pattern.
Ad idem. If you wish to make a beautiful drapery of ultramarine blue, cover the garment with burnished silver; design the pattern of the stuff, and put on this azure, whether covering the ground or in patterns, tempered with size. Then spread some of it equally all over the grounds and the coloured patterns, and it will be a velvet-like drapery.
Ad idem. Ground the draperies, the figure, with what colour you like; shade it. Then take a fine minever brush, and the mordants. When you have dusted on the pattern of the stuff and borders (lacci), work with mordants, which I have told you about already. And you can use these mordants for gold or silver, and you will get beautiful draperies if you rub and burnish them with cotton-wool.
Ad idem. Having laid in a ground of whatever colour you like as I have just told you, if you make a shot effect, work on the gold with whatever colour you like, but different from the ground colour.
Ad idem on the wall. Make the garment of gilded tin; put in what ground-colour you like; dust the design on and engrave the pattern of the drapery by scraping with the wooden style, the colours being always tempered with yolk of egg. And it will be a very good drapery for a wall. But you can work with mordants on a wall, the same as on a panel.
If you would imitate velvet, paint the drapery of any colour you please, tempering your colour with the yolk of an egg. Make the pile on the velvet with a minever brush with colour tempered with oil. Make the pile with thick paint. And in this manner you may imitate red, black, or any other coloured velvet, tempering your colours as before. Sometimes it is a good thing to show on a wall, a lining or a garment or drapery which should really appear woollen. And to do this, when you have laid on the plaster, smoothed and coloured it, reserve that part which you are now going to do thus: take a small bit of board, a little bigger than a play-tablet, and sprinkling water on this or on the place in the picture, move this little board round and round; the lime will become rough and ill-polished. Colour it as it is without being smoothed, and it will appear like real woollen cloth.
Ad idem. If you would make a silk drapery either on panels or on walls, lay on the ground with cinnabar and lighten with minium, or if you like with sinopia, and lighten with giallorino on walls; and in panels with orpiment or green or any colour you please. Lay the ground dark, and lighten it with a light colour.
Ad idem. On walls in fresco. Lay on a ground of indigo, and lighten with indigo and bianco sangiovanni mixed together, and if you would use these colours on panels or on shields, mix indigo with biacca, tempered with size; and in this manner you may make many kinds of drapery, according to your abilities and inclination.
I think that you will have so much understanding from your own experience as will enable you to teach yourself from these rules to paint skilfully many kinds of drapery, and by the grace of God we must come to painting on a panel. You must know that painting on panels is the proper employment of a gentleman; and that, with velvet on his back, he may do what he pleases. It is true that pictures are painted just as I explained to you to work in fresco, with three exceptions. One is that you must always paint the draperies and buildings before the faces. The second is that you must temper your colours always with yolk of egg and thoroughly tempered, always as much of the yolk as of the colours which you temper with it. The third is this, that the colours must be ground very fine, well ground, just like water. And that you may have great pleasure, begin to paint draperies in lake in the same manner that I taught you in fresco-painting; namely, let the first gradation be pure colour, then take two parts lake and the third biacca—and of this when tempered make three gradations, but little varying from each other; temper them well, and make them lighter with biacca finely ground. Then take your panel before you, and always keep it covered with a cloth for love of the gold and the ground, that they may not be hurt by the dust; and that your work may be fair and clean when it leaves your hands. Then take a minever brush without a point, and begin to lay on the dark colour, and make out the shadows in what should be the dark part of the figure. Then in the usual manner take the middle tint and paint the reflected lights, and lights of the dark folds, and begin with the same colour to make out the folds of the lighted side. Then with the lightest colour paint the light reliefs on the light side of the figure, and in this manner return to the first dark folds of the drapery with the dark colour. And thus, as you have begun, go many times over with these colours, first one and then the other, painting them over and uniting them skilfully, and softening them tenderly. And now it is time to leave your work and to rest yourself for a short space, and then return to the work on your panel. You should always take pleasure in your work. When you have covered the ground properly with these three gradations of colour, take the lightest, and prepare another still lighter, always washing the former colours from the brush. Make another colour still lighter than this, and let them vary but little from each other. Then touch with pure white, tempered as above on the high lights; and thus paint the shades one after the other in regular gradations, until they reach the deepest shades of pure lake. And remember that, as you have made your colours in gradations, so you must arrange your vases in order of this gradation, that you may not mistake one for the other. Thus in this manner you may paint any colour you please, either red, or white, or yellow, or green. But if you would make a beautiful purple (bisso) colour take fine lake, and the best ultramarine blue, finely ground, and of this mixture, with biacca, properly tempered, make your gradations of colour. If you would make a light blue colour, lighten it with biacca, and paint it in the manner above described.
If you would make a blue drapery, neither all mixed with white, nor all pure blue, take several shades of ultramarine, of which there are many, one lighter than the other. Colour them according to the lights and shades of the figure, in the manner I have shown you. And you may use them on walls, with the same tempera as above, in secco. And if you will not afford the expense of using these shades of ultramarine, you may find similar shades of azzurro della magna; or if you wish to make a gold pattern on the blue, you may do so. You can touch with a little purple (bisso) in the dark of the folds and a little on the lights, making out the folds delicately on the gold. These draperies will please you much, particularly in the draperies of the Lord God. If you would clothe Our Lady in a purple drapery, paint the drapery white, and shade it with a very light bisso, but little removed from white; make the patterns of fine gold, making out the folds in the gold with a little dark purple. This will be very lovely.
Having drawn and coloured draperies, trees, buildings, and mountains, you should next colour flesh, which you should begin in the following manner. Take a little verde-terra, and a little well-tempered biacca, and go twice over the face, hands, feet, and all the naked parts. But this first bed of colour must, when painting the faces of young persons with fresh complexions, be tempered with the yolk of the egg of a city hen; because they have lighter yolks than those laid by country hens, which, from their redness, are only fit to temper the flesh-colouring of old and dark persons. Now bear in mind, that when painting on walls you made your rosy tints (rossette) with cinabrese; on a panel they must be of cinnabar, and the first rosy tints must not consist of pure cinnabar, but you must add a little white (biacca) to it, and also to the verdaccio with which you first shade. Then, as you did in painting on walls, you must prepare three gradations of flesh-colour, one lighter than the other, laying every tint in its right place in the face, taking care not to cover over the whole of the verdaccio, but shading partially on it with the darkest flesh-colour, making it very liquid, and softening off the colour in the tenderest manner. On a panel more coats of colour are required than on a wall, yet not so many but that the green tint under the flesh-colour should be just visible through it. When you have worked your flesh colours, and the face begins to look nearly right, make a flesh-tint lighter still, and paint the prominent parts of the face, putting on the lights gradually in the most delicate manner, until at last you touch in the highest lights, as over the eyebrows, and on the tip of the nose, with a little pure white. Paint the outlines of the upper eyelids with black, also the eyelashes and the nostrils. Then take a little dark sinopia with a little black, and make the outline of the nose, eyes, eyebrows, hair, hands and feet, and generally of every part, as I directed you when painting on walls always with the same tempera of yolk of egg.
Next we shall speak of colouring a dead man,—that is to say, his face, his body, or any naked part that may be visible either on a panel or a wall; except that on a wall you need not first lay a ground tint of verde-terra. If it is laid on the half-tints, between the lights and shades, that will be sufficient. But on a panel you must lay it on in the usual way as directed for colouring living faces, and also shade it in the same way with verdaccio. You must use no rosy tints, because dead persons have no colour; but take a little light ochre for your three gradations of flesh-colour, mixed with white, and temper in the usual manner, laying each tint in its place, and softening them into each other, as well on the face as on the body. And in the same manner, when you have nearly covered your ground, make the lightest flesh-tint still lighter, reducing it to pure white for the highest lights. Then mark the outlines with dark sinopia, mixed with a little black, which is called ‘sanguigno,’ and in the same manner the hair, but not so that it shall appear to be alive but dead, with several shades of verdaccio, and as I showed you how to paint several kinds of beards on walls, in the same way paint on panels, and so paint the bones of Christians or rational creatures with this same flesh-colour.
Having to paint a wounded person, you must lay a tint of pure cinnabar wherever the blood is to appear. Then take fine lake tempered in the usual manner, and shade the wound and the drops of blood.
When you would paint water, a river or any other water, either with or without fish, on walls, or on panels—for walls take the same verdaccio with which you shaded faces on the lime intonaco—draw the fish, and shade them with the verdaccio; but only the shades on the back, for I must inform you that fish and irrational animals generally have their dark parts upwards, and their light parts beneath. When you have finished shading with the verdaccio, whiten them beneath, with bianco sangiovanni on walls, on panels with biacca, and then pass some touches of the same verdaccio over the fish and the water. If you would make a variety in your fish, let some have a row of spines of gold on their backs. In secco lay a tint of verdigris ground in oil, over the water, and the same on panels; or if you do not choose to use oil, take verde-terra, or verde-azzurro, and cover every part equally, but not so much but that you may see the fish and the waves of the water. And if needful lighten the waves with bianco on walls, and tempered biacca on panels. This is sufficient information for you on colouring. We shall now. proceed to the art of embellishing, but we must first speak of mordants.
A mordant is made which is perfect for walls, on panels, on glass, on iron, and in every place: it is made in this way. You will take your oil, which has been cooked on the fire or in the sun, cooked in the way I told you before, and grind with this oil a little biacca (lead-white) and verdigris; and when you have ground it like water, put a little varnish (or resin) in it, and let everything boil together for a little while. Then take one of your glazed vessels and put it in and let it rest. And when you want to use it either for cloths (panni, draperies?) or for adornments, take a little in a small vessel, and a minever brush, made in the quill of a pigeon’s or hen’s feather, and make it stiff and pointed, with the point coming out very little beyond the quill. Then dip the tip of the point into the mordant, and make your ornaments and borders (fregi), and, as I tell you, never load the brush too much. The reason is that in this way your work will come like fine hairs, which is very lovely work. Do you wish to hear more about doing it? wait till the next day; then feel what you have done with the ring-finger of the right hand, that is, with the tip of the finger, and if it is only slightly tacky, then take the pincers, cut off half a leaf of fine gold, or alloyed gold (oro di metà), or of silver, though these two do not last, and lay it upon the mordant. Press it with cotton, and with the same finger stroke the piece of gold, putting some over the mordant where there is none. Don’t do it with any other finger-tip, for this is the most sensitive and delicate of the whole hand, and take care that your hands are always clean. I warn you that gold which is laid over mordants, especially in such very fine work, must be the thinnest beaten gold which you can get; for if it is thick you cannot use it so well. When you have put on all the gold, if you wish you can let it remain till another day; and then take a feather, and sweep all over, and if you like collect the sweepings of the gold and keep them. They do for goldsmiths or for your own work. Then take clean new cotton, and burnish perfectly your gilt borders.
If you wish this mordant, first described, to last eight days before the gilding is done, do not put any verdigris in it. If you wish that it should last four days, put a little verdigris; if that it should be good from one evening to another, put plenty of verdigris, and also a very little bole. And if you find that any person blames you for using verdigris, for fear it should contaminate the gold, tell them I have proved it, and that the gold keeps quite well.
There is another mordant which is made in this way. Take clean garlics, one, two, or three pans full; pound them in a mortar; squeeze them in a piece of linen, two or three times. Take this juice and grind it as firmly as possible with a little biacca and bole. Then collect it, put in a vase, cover it and keep it, and the older it is, the better it is. Do not take small or young garlic, but half-grown ones. And when you wish to use this mordant, put a little in a glazed vessel, with a little wine, and stir it thoroughly together with a skewer till it flows from your brush in such manner as to be fit to work skilfully with. Then, after half-an-hour, the gold can be laid on as has been described already. The nature of this mordant is such that it will remain fit for putting the gold on for half-an-hour, an hour, or a day, or a week, or a month, or a year, whenever you like. But keep it covered and preserve it well from dust. This mordant is not proof against water and damp, but can be used in churches, and elsewhere under cover if the wall is built of bricks; but it is most suited for panels and ironwork, and on anything which is varnished with liquid varnish. And these two ways for the two different species of mordants are enough for you.
I think I have said enough on the subject of painting on walls in fresco, in secco, and on panels. But we shall say more further on about the manner of painting and gilding and making miniatures on parchment. But first I want you to see how to varnish pictures on panels and all other works except on walls.
You must know that the best varnishing is to delay as long as possible after your picture is painted—the longer the better. And I speak truth when I say, that if you delay for several years, or at least for one year, your work will be much fresher. The reason of this is, that the colouring naturally acquires the same condition as the gold, which shuns a mixture with other metals; so that the colours, when mixed with their proper tempera, dislike the inmixture of other tempera. Varnish is a strong liquor and gives great force (dimostrativo), and will be obeyed in everything, and annuls every other tempera. And suddenly as you spread it over the picture, the colours lose their natural strength and must obey the varnish, and their own tempera has no longer power to refresh them. It is therefore proper to delay varnishing as long as you can; for if you varnish after the tempera has had the proper effect on the colours, they will afterwards become more fresh and beautiful, and will remain always the same. Then take liquid varnish, the brightest and clearest you can obtain; place your picture in the sun, wipe it and clean it as thoroughly as you can from dust and dirt of every kind, and take care that it is weather without wind, because the dust is subtle; and every time that the wind blows it over your picture, you will have more difficulty in making it clean. You might well varnish in such a place as a green meadow or by the sea, that the dust may do no harm. When you have warmed the picture in the sun, and the varnish also, place the picture level, and with your hands spread the varnish all over thinly and well. But be careful not to go over the gold with it, for association with varnish and other liquors are displeasing to it. If you do not choose to spread the varnish with your hand, dip a small piece of fine sponge into the varnish, rolling it with the hand over the picture varnish in the usual manner, adding or taking away as is needful. If you wish the varnish to dry without sun, boil it well first, and the picture will be much better for not being too much exposed to the sun.
If you would have your picture appear in a short time to have been varnished when it has not been, take the white of an egg, beaten thoroughly with a whisk as much as it can be, until it makes a thick froth. Let it stand one night to clear itself. Put the clear part into a clean vessel, and spread it with a minever brush over your works, which will appear as if varnished, and they are even stronger. This varnish is applicable to detached figures in relief either of wood or stone. In this way you may varnish the faces, hands, and flesh of such figures generally. And this is enough to say about varnishing. We will now speak of painting miniatures on parchment.
First, if you would paint miniatures you must draw with a leaden style figures, foliage, letters, or whatever you please, on parchment, that is to say in books: then with a pen you must make the delicate permanent outline of what you have designed. Then you must have a paint that is a sort of gesso, called asiso, and it is made in this manner; namely, a little gesso sottile and a little biacca, never more of this than equals a third part of the gesso; then take a little candy, less than the biacca; grind these ingredients very finely with clear water, collect them together, and let them dry without sun. When you wish to use some to put on gold, cut off a piece as large as you have need of, and temper it with the white of an egg, well beaten, as I have taught you. Temper this mixture with it; let it dry; then take your gold, and either breathing on it or not, as you please, you can put it on; and the gold being laid on, take the tooth or burnishing-stone and burnish it, but hold under the parchment a firm tablet of good wood, very smooth. And you must know that you may write letters with a pen and this asiso, or lay a ground of it, or whatever you please—it is most excellent. But before you lay the gold on it, see whether it is needful to scrape or level it with the point of a knife, or clean it in any way, for your brush sometimes puts more on in one place than in another. Always beware of this.
If you would like another kind of asiso—but this is not so good, but may be used for putting on gold grounds, though not to write with—take gesso sottile, and a third part biacca, a fourth part Armenian bole, with a little sugar; grind all these very finely with the white of an egg; lay on the ground in the usual manner, and let it dry; then with the point of a knife scrape and clean the gesso. Put the previously mentioned tablet under the parchment, or a very flat stone, and burnish it; and should it by chance not burnish well when you put on the gold, wet the gesso with clean water with a small minever brush, and when it is dry burnish it.
I will show you how to make a colour like gold which is a good colour for miniature-painters on parchment, and also on panels if it should be employed; but beware, as of poison or fire, lest this colour, which is called porporina, should approach a gold ground; for I warn you, if a ground of gold were made which reached from hence to Rome, and if a piece of quicksilver as large as half a grain of millet were to touch the gold ground, it would be sufficient to spoil the whole. The best remedy you can have is quickly with the point of a knife or needle to make a scratch on the gold, and it will not get any further hold on it. This porporina colour is made as follows: Take sal armeniaca, tin, sulphur, and quicksilver, of each equal parts, except that there must be less quicksilver. Put these things in a vessel of iron, copper, or glass, melt it all on the fire, and it is done; then temper with the white of an egg and gum-arabic, and use it as you please. If you make draperies with it, shade it with lake or azure or purple, always tempering the colours on parchment (carta) with gum-arabic.
If you would work with gold on pictures, panels, parchment, or walls, or on anything you please (but not covering all over as in grounds of gold), or if you wish to paint some tree that might appear as of the trees of paradise, take pieces of fine gold in quantity according to the work you are going to paint or write, that is to say about ten or twenty pieces, put them on the porphyry slab, and grind them with the well-beaten white of an egg; then put the whole into a glazed vessel. Put sufficient tempera to make it flow from the pen or brush, and you may do any work you please with it. You may also grind it with gum-arabic for use on parchment, and if you make leaves of trees, mix with the gold a little green very finely ground for the dark leaves; and in this manner, mingling in other colours, you may make changing colours at your discretion. With this kind of gold, silver, or alloyed gold (oro di metà) you may make ‘reticulated gold-work’ (?) ([cardare) on draperies in the antique manner, and certain ornaments which are not used by many other painters; yet if you paint them well, they will increase your reputation. But what I teach you, you must use great judgment to know how to carry it all out well.
It is true that all colours which you use on panels you can use on parchment; but they must be ground very finely. It is also true that there are certain colours which have no body, which are called ‘pezzuole,’ which are made in all sorts of colours; and it is only necessary to take a bit of rag of any tint, and to put it in a glazed vessel, or drinking-glass, and to put some gum with it, and it is fit to work with. A colour is made besides of Brazil wood boiled with lye and rock-alum, and then when it is cold it is ground with caustic lime, and it makes a very fair red and gets in this way a little body.
Now let us speak of the way to work on cloth, that is, either linen or canvas, and you will observe this method in painting on any kind of cloth; that in the first place it is necessary to stretch it firmly on the frame (stretcher), nailing the seams straight first, then going round and round with little nails, spreading it equally and in an exact manner, getting all the threads precisely in the right direction. When you have done this, take gesso sottile (slaked plaster of Paris) and a little starch, or a little sugar, and grind these with size in the same manner that you tempered gesso for panels, grinding it very fine; but first with this size, without gesso, go once over the whole; and if the size were not so strong as that which is mixed with the gesso, never mind. Let it be as hot as possible, and with a blunt, soft bristle-brush, put some all over every part where you have to paint. Then take the cloth when it is dry; have a knife-blade (mella di coltello) level at the edge and straight as a cord, and with it put this gesso on the cloth, putting it on and scraping it off equally, and the less gesso you leave on the better; only just let it fill up the holes between the threads. It is enough to put the gesso on once. When it is dry, take a knife that scrapes well, and look over the cloth to see whether there are any knots or lumps, and remove them; and then take your charcoal, and in the same way that you drew on the panel, draw now on cloth, and fix the drawing with water-colour made of ink. Next I wish to teach you, that if you wish to make glories and backgrounds of burnished gold, this is put on both linen and canvas with mordants, and because the following way is marvellously better than others which many people have used, I am going to tell you about it; and the cloth can be rolled up and folded, without hurting the gold and the colours. First take the said gesso sottile with a little bole, and temper this gesso with a little white of egg and size, and put one coat over the place where you are going to lay on gold. When it is dry, scrape it a little; then take bole, ground and tempered as it should be for putting on a panel, and put on five or six coats of it, and leave it for a few days. Put on your gold exactly as you would on a panel, and burnish it, holding under the cloth a smooth firm board, having a cushion between the cloth and the board, and in this way engrave and stamp the glories (or diadems), and they will be exactly the same as on a panel. But it is advisable then, as sometimes these banners which are made for churches are carried outside when it rains, indeed necessary, to see to having a very clear varnish, and when you varnish the painting, varnish a little the diadems and the gold background.
You must colour on cloth in the method used for panels, that is, in stages (di passo in passo), and it is pleasanter than working on panels; because the cloth retains the moisture (il molle) a little; and it is exactly like working in fresco, that is, on walls. Also I warn you that when you are colouring, the colours must be put on in many, many coats, even more than on panels, because cloth has no substance like panels, and the varnishing will not show up bright, if the paint is thin. Temper the colours similarly as for a panel. I will not speak at greater length on this subject.
If you were to have to work on black or blue cloth such as a curtain, stretch your cloth in the manner described above. It is not necessary to put on gesso; you cannot draw with charcoal. Take tailor’s chalk, and carefully make such little pieces of it as you would make sticks of charcoal; and put them into the opening of a goose-quill, of whatever size is required. Put a stick to the quill and draw lightly. Then fix it with tempered biacca. Then put on a coat of that size which you temper gesso with on panels: then lay the ground-colour as much as you can, and paint the draperies, faces, mountains, buildings, and what seems good to you, and temper in the accustomed way. Also in painting curtains, you may take white cloth, and apply it upon the blue cloth, stuck on with paste in the manner of glue; and put it on according to the figures which you wish to disperse over the space, and you can paint it with certain water-colours without varnishing afterwards. And a good many are done in this way and cheaply, and are very good for the price. Also on curtains you can make foliage enrichments with the brush, of indigo and biacca on the plain ground, tempered with size; and leave among this foliage work, some good spaces, to put in gilt adornments, made with oil mordants.
Also you must sometimes provide embroiderers with various sorts of designs. And for this work make these masters prepare cloth or canvas well stretched on a frame; and if it is white cloth (linen, probably), take your accustomed charcoals and draw what you like. Then take pen and ink and draw it correctly, as you did with a brush on panels. Then brush away the charcoal, then take a well-washed sponge with the water squeezed out. Rub the linen on the opposite side from the drawing, and use the sponge just so much that the linen (cloth) is wetted as much as the drawing will bear. Then take a small soft minever brush, dip it in the ink, squeeze it well, and with this begin to shade in the darkest places, lightening and softening little by little. You will find that however coarse the cloth may be, in this way the shadows will be so softened that it will seem a marvel to you. And if the cloth should dry before you have shaded enough, wet it over again with the sponge as usual, and this is sufficient for working on cloth.
If you have to work on canvas baldachinos or other works, stretch them first on a frame, as I told you in. the case of linen cloth; and, according to the colour of the ground, take either charcoal or white chalks. Make your design, and draw it exactly with ink or tempered colour, and if on each side there is to be the same story or figure, put the frame up to the sun, turning the side which is drawn upon towards the sun, so that it may shine through. Stand behind with your tempered colour; and with a very fine minever brush, go over the shadows of your design which you will see showing through. If you have to draw at night, put a big lamp on the side you have drawn upon, and a little one on the side on which you have to draw. That is, when you are working there might be a double lamp on the side which is drawn upon, and a candle on the side you are drawing. If there is no sun, and you have to draw by daylight, let the light of the two windows be on the side which is drawn upon, and on that where you are drawing let the light fall from one very small window. Then size with the usual size, wherever you have to paint and put on gold, and mix a little white of egg with the said size, as it might be one white of egg in four glasses of size; and when you have sized, if you want to put on any diadem or field of burnished gold, to bring you honour and fair name, take gesso sottile (slaked plaster of Paris) and a little Armenian bole, ground together very finely with a morsel of sugar. Then with the usual size, and a very very little white of egg mixed with a little biacca, go thinly twice over, where you want to put on the gold. Then put on your bole as if you were putting it on a panel; then put on your gold with clear water, mixing in this a little of the tempera of the bole, and burnish it on a very smooth stone, or a firm smooth board: and so engrave and stamp it over this board. Then you can paint everything in the usual way, the colours being tempered with yolk of egg, and being laid on in seven or eight or ten coats in consideration of the varnishing; and then you can put on the diadems (or glories) and gold backgrounds, with oil mordants, and the ornaments with garlic mordants, varnished afterwards; but oil mordants are better. And this is enough for standards and banners and all the rest.
If you have to work on velvets and design for embroiderers, draw your work with a pen, either with ink or with tempered biacca. If you have to colour anything or put on gold, take the usual size, and an equal quantity of white of egg, and a little biacca, and with a bristle brush put some over the pile, beat it hard down and press (bruise) it flat, then colour and put on gold in the way described; but it must be gold applied with mordants. But it will be less trouble to do the work on white canvas, having cut out in it the figures or other designs, and have them sewn into the velvet by the embroiderers.
If by chance you should have to work on woollen cloth, by reason of tourneys or jousts (for there are some gentlemen, and great and important seigniors, who wish for strange things, and they will have their devices in gold and silver on this kind of cloth), first take, according to the colour of the cloth, whatever chalk you require for designing, and fix the outline with the pen, as you did upon velvet; and then take the white of egg well beaten, as I taught you first, and put some on the nap of the cloth in that part where you have to lay on the gold. Then when it is dry, burnish with a tooth over the said cloth; then lay on two or three coats of the same tempera. When it is dry put on your mordant, taking care that it does not go beyond the prepared place; and put on such gold and silver as appears pleasing and right to you.
Sometimes in these tournaments and jousts there are made on the trappings of the horses and on mantles (giornee) certain raised devices sewn upon them. So I will explain to you how they are made of paper (carta bambagina); first these sheets of paper are covered all over the whole sheet with burnished gold or silver; and it is done in this manner, which is thus: grind a little ochre or tailor’s chalk, as finely as you can, a very very little Armenian bole; temper them together with size, which must be almost water, that is, not at all strong, but with very little substance or goodness; and with a soft bristle-brush, or, if you like, a minever brush, put one coat, over the sheets of this paper which should be fit for writing on but not written, and when they are dry begin again, and bit by bit wet with a minever brush and put on the gold, just with the same method and rule, as on a panel with bole; and then, when you have overlaid the whole sheet, watch for the right time for burnishing. Have a very level stone, or a very smooth board, and on that burnish your sheets, and put them aside. And with these sheets you can make animals, flowers, roses, and many sorts of devices, and it will do you great honour; and you do it quickly and well; and you can adorn them with any rich colouring in oil.
In case you have to make any crest or helmet for tournaments, or for ‘rettori’ who have to go before the signoria, you must first have white leather, which must not be otherwise prepared than with ‘mortina,’ or, if you like, ‘cefalonia’; stretch it, and draw your crests as you wish it done; and draw two, and sew them together, one with the other, but leave so much space on one of the sides, that you can put sand in, and with a small stick press it till it is equally full. When you have done thus, put it in the sun for a good many days; when it is thoroughly dry, take out the sand; then take the size which is used with gesso and size it two or three times. Then take gesso grosso (unslaked) ground with size, and mix with it some picked tow, and have it stiff like dough; and begin putting on this gesso, sketching with it the form of man, animal, or bird, which you have to do, making as good a resemblance as possible. This being done, take some gesso grosso ground with liquid size, and flowing from the brush, and with a brush lay three or four coats over this crest. Then when it is quite dry, scrape it and smooth it as if you were working on a panel. Then, in the same way that I explained to you to ground on a panel with gesso sottile, put this gesso on the crest. When it is dry scrape it and smooth it, and when it is needful to make glass eyes put them on with gesso used for relief work, and make relief work if required. Then, if it has to be gilt or silvered, put on bole, as on a panel, and similarly as to everything else, including colouring; varnishing it in the accustomed manner.
Supposing you wish to work on coffers or chests, and to do them really well, ground them with gesso, and observe the whole method of working on a panel, as to putting on gold, painting, engraving, ornamenting, and varnishing, so I need not go over each point at length.
If you wish to decorate other coffers of less value, size them first, and glue cloth on the cracks, which you do also to the others above described; but you ground these first with the float (stecca) and (? or) with the brush, with well-sifted wood-ashes, and the usual size. When it is grounded and dry, smooth it and, if you like, ground (or prime) it with gesso sottile.
If you wish to ornament with certain figures of tin or with other devices, observe this method, which is: have a fine stone, flat and hard (macigna), and on this stone cut out any pattern you like, or get it cut for you—a very slight hollow is enough. Here cut out figures, animals, devices, flowers, stars, roses, of any fashion that you fancy. Then have beaten tin, whichever you like, whether yellow, or whether white, in several folds, and lay it over the impression that you want to print. Then have a lump of wet tow, squeeze it and lay it over this tin; and have in the other hand a mallet, not too heavy, of willow-wood, and beat on this tow, collecting it and turning it with the other hand; and when you have beaten it enough and it shows perfectly every incision beneath, take gesso grosso, ground with rather stiff size, and with a spatula (stecca) put some over this beaten tin. When you have done this take a small knife, and with the point catch hold of one bit of the tin, separate it and lift it up, then again with your stecca and your gesso in the same way find and separate another piece of tin. Make so many in this way that you will have amply enough, and put them to dry. When they are dry have a very sharp-pointed knife, and putting these tin pieces one at a time on a very flat walnut board, cut away all the tin which projects beyond the outline of your figure, and in this way make what quantity you want of them.
When you have primed and laid the ground colour of your chests, according to rule, with whatever colour you like, take some of the usual glue, but stronger, and thoroughly wet the gesso of your figures and devices, and immediately stick on and arrange (these figures) in the space to be painted on the chest, and with a minever brush outline and put in some flat colouring (coloruzzo—? tinting), then varnish the whole ground. When it is dry take a beaten white of egg, and with a sponge dipped in this white (glaire) rub all over the varnish, and then with other colours do line work and ornamentation on the said ground with whatever colour you like, so in part varying the ground colour; and I will not speak of this at greater length, because if you are expert and practised in great things, you will know how to do well in small things; and next I will tell you how to work upon glass.
Painting on glass is done in two ways, that is, upon windows, and upon pieces of glass which are used on small pictures, or in the adornment of reliquaries. It is best we should speak first about the method for windows. It is true that this art is little practised by our craft, but more by those who work specially at it; and commonly those masters who work at it have more practical knowledge than design, and on account of their half knowledge, and for guidance in drawing, they will come to him whose art is complete and universal, and who has practice. Therefore when they come to you do thus. He will come to you with the measure of his window, the breadth and the length. You will take as many sheets of paper glued together as will be needful for your window. And you will draw your figure first with charcoal, then you will fix it with ink, your figure being completely shaded as if you were drawing it on a panel. Then your master glass-worker takes this drawing and spreads it on a table or board, large and flat, and according as he wishes to colour the draperies, so bit by bit he cuts the glasses, and gives you a paint which is made of well-ground cuttings of copper; and with this paint, with a small-pointed minever brush, piece by piece you paint the shadows on the glass, matching the folds together and the other parts of the figure according as the master has cut the pieces and laid them together; and with this paint you can always shade on every kind of glass. Then the master, before joining the pieces together, as is the custom, bakes them moderately in iron cases on hot coals, and then joins them together. You can paint on such glass silk stuffs, hatch and relieve with fine line-work (vitigare e palliare), and make lettering, that is, lay a field of the said paint (or colour) and then scratch or etch the drawing (grattare) as on a panel. There is this advantage, that it is not necessary to paint the ground colour, as glass can be had of every colour. And if it should happen to you to have to make very tiny figures, or arms, or devices so small that the glass could not be cut, when you have shaded with the above-mentioned pigment, you can paint a few draperies and hatch with oil-colours; and this need not be baked, neither must it be done, for nothing would be gained by it, but let it dry in the sun as it pleases.
There is another way of working in glass, charming, lovely, and rare as can be imagined, which is a branch of art in devout use for the adornments of holy reliquaries, and it demands sure and ready design; and this is the manner of the work, thus: take a piece of white glass, not greenish, very clear, without bubbles, and wash it with lye and charcoal, rub it and rinse it again with clean water, and leave it alone to dry; but before you wash it cut it to whatever shape you want. Then take the white of a fresh egg; and with a very clean whisk, break it up, as you do for laying on gold; let it be well beaten, and let it distil for a night. Then take a minever brush, and with the brush and the egg-clear, wet the glass on the back side, and when it is wetted equally take a piece of gold-leaf, which must be thick, that is to say, dead gold (appannato). Put it on the parchment tray (paletta di carta) and gently put it on the wetted glass; and with a piece of very clean cotton-wool press it gently down, not letting the egg-white get over the gold. And in this way gild all the glass. When it is quite dry, take a very flat tablet of wood, lined with black linen or canvas, and go into your little workroom where no one can disturb you at all, and which should have only one linen-covered window (finestra impannata). Put your table at this window as if for writing, so that the window is over your head, and stand with your face turned towards the window; the glass being laid out on the before-mentioned black cloth. Then take a needle bound to a small stick, like a little minever brush, which must have a very fine point; and invoking the name of God, begin drawing lightly with this needle the figure which you wish to make; let the first drawing be very faint, for you can efface nothing; so make your drawing light as well as firm; then go on working as if you were drawing with a pen; for the whole work is done with the point; and do you see how you must have a light hand and not tired, for the deepest shade which you can make is only to go with the point of the needle quite down to the glass, and moreover the half shade is just not quite penetrating the gold, which is a delicate matter; and this work must not be done in haste, but with great delight and pleasure. And I give you this advice: that the day before you wish to work at such works, you should hold your hand to your neck and breast, to have it well rested from fatigue, and moderate in blood.
Having made your design, you must scrape away certain spaces which are usually painted with ultramarine blue in oil. Do this with a leaden style, rubbing over the gold which comes clean away, and cutting sharp round the outlines of the figure. When this is done take other colours ground in oil, such as ultramarine blue, black, verdigris, and lake: and if you wish any garment or lining to gleam with green, (che risprende in verde) paint in green; or with lake, paint in lake; or with black, put in black. But black has more force and sculptures your figures better than any other colour: then with something flat beat and press your little figures into the gesso, so that the whole may be quite level. And this is how this work is done.
For this and other fine kinds of work, quills of feathers can be used cut up very small, like millet, and dyed as I have said; you can also make mosaic in this way. Take your egg-shells well crushed (peste) but white, and lay a ground of these all over the figure which you have drawn; fill it with these, working as if they were coloured pieces: and then when you have put in the flat colouring with the suitable paints from your colour-box, tempered with a little white of egg, paint the figure bit by bit, just as you would on gesso, but with watery transparent colours (pur d’acquerelle di colore); and then when it is dry, varnish it as you varnish other things on planes. For the background of such figures, just as on walls, you should adopt this method, taking gilded or silvered sheets, or thick beaten gold, or thick beaten silver, cut up in very small pieces, and with pincers fill in the ground as you did with your crushed egg-shells, wherever gold is required in the background. Also you can make the background with pieces of white egg-shell, wetting it with whipped white of egg, the same as you put gold on to glass with; wet it in the same way. Put on what gold the background wants, let it dry and burnish with cotton-wool, and this is enough for mosaic or Greek work.
As to the art of the brush yet appertains certain painting on linen cloth used for skirts (garnelli) of boys and children, and for certain church adornments (leggi), this is the way to do them.
Have a frame made, as if for a linen-covered window, two ells (braccio) long, and one ell wide, covered on the laths with linen, or canvas. When you want to paint your linen (pannolino), any quantity, six or twenty ells, roll it all up, and put the top end of the stuff upon the frame; also have a board of walnut or pearwood, any way of a strong kind of wood, the size of a brick, which tablet must have designed and hollowed on it a wide band, in which must be designed, in the manner of any sort of silk stuff you like, either leaves or animals; and let the design be so arranged and engraved on the block that all four faces may match together to make a complete and connected pattern, and there must be a handle to be able to lift it. Put it on the other surface which is not engraved (intagliato). When you want to work take a glove for the left hand, and first grind some pine charcoal, very finely, with water. Then having thoroughly dried it at the sun or fire, grind it again dry, and mix it with liquid varnish, as much as is needful; and with a small ladle (mestoletta) take some of this black and spread it out on the palm of the hand, that is, over the glove; and so smear it on the board where it is engraved, carefully, so that the engraving is not choked. Now, begin putting it (the engraved tablet) regularly and equally upon the cloth stretched upon the frame, putting it underneath; take in the right hand a shield-shaped board (scudella or scudellino), and with the back of it rub hard over the part where the tablet is engraved; and when you have rubbed, till you are sure that the colour must be well incorporated with the cloth or linen, remove your block, put pigment on it again, and very methodically replace it, till the whole piece of stuff is quite full. This kind of work requires to be arranged with some filling colour in parts, to look, gayer; therefore you must have colours without body, such as yellow, red, and green. Yellow: take saffron and beat it well on the fire, and temper it with very strong lye. Take a soft, blunt-pointed bristle brush, spread the painted cloth on a table or panel (tavola) and plan this colour on the animals, and figures, and foliage, as seems good to you. Next take Brazil lake (logwood) scraped with glass; put it to soften in lye; boil it with a little rock-alum; let it boil a little while, so that it may have its full crimson colour. Take it from the fire that it may not spoil; then with the same brush plan this out in the spaces as you did with the yellow. Then take verdigris, ground in vinegar, with a little saffron, tempered with a little not strong size. Plan this into the spaces as you did with the yellow and other colours, and let them be arranged as one sees in the different creatures, yellows, reds, greens, and whites.
You may also for this work burn linseed oil, as I explained previously, and temper this black, which is an extremely fine powder, with liquid varnish; and it is an extremely good and fine (sottile) black: but it costs more.
And the same kind of work can be done, on green, red, black, yellow, blue, and light blue (biava) cloth. If it is green you can work with minium (red lead) or cinnabar (vermilion) ground finely with water. Dry it, powder it with liquid varnish. Put this colour on your glove as you did with black, and work in the same way. If it is red cloth, take indigo and biacca ground finely with water; collect it and dry it in the sun, then powder it: temper it with liquid varnish in the usual way, and work in the same way as you did with black. If the cloth is black, you can work upon it with light blue (biava), that is, plenty of biacca and a little indigo, mixed, ground, and tempered, according to the custom which I have described to you for the other colours. If the cloth is light blue, take biacca ground and dried again, and tempered according to the method used for the other colours. And speaking generally, according as the grounds are, you can find variations of these colourings, lighter or darker, which to your fancy it seems you can put together, and one thing will teach you another, both by practice, and by the knowledge given by your intelligence. The reason? that every art is in its nature ingenious and pleasing: chi ne piglia se n’ha (he that takes, hath). And similarly the contrary happens.
It befalls at times that the worker in one art seeks to know fully how to work at everything, especially at things which can bring honour. Therefore I will explain to you such a thing, not so much that it is usual, as because I have tried it myself. So should there come to your hands a stone figure either large or small, and you should wish to overlay it with burnished gold, follow this method. Dust and clean your figure thoroughly; then take ordinary size, that is, the same with which you temper the gesso for panels, and make it boil well; and when it is boiling put some over this figure once or twice, and let it get quite dry. After this take oak—male oak (rovere)—charcoal; pound it; take a tammy sieve (tamigio) and sift away the powder from the charcoal. Then take a small sieve which grain such as millet (miglio) would pass through, and sift this charcoal, and put these siftings aside, and in this way make as much of it as is sufficient. This being done, take cooked linseed oil, made properly for making mordants, and mix in it a third part of liquid varnish. Then make everything boil well together. When it is very hot, take a vessel and put into it the small-sifted charcoal: after that put in this mordant: mix them well together, and with a hog’s-bristle, or big minever brush, lay it on equally in every part over the whole figure or other object. When you have done this, put it into a place where it will dry thoroughly, either in the wind or in the sun, as it pleases you. Your figure being quite dry, take some of the same size, and put into, say, a glassful of it, one yolk of egg; mix these well together, quite hot; take a piece of sponge, dip it in this tempera, not filling the sponge too full, dab and rub over every part where you have put on the mordant with the charcoal. To explain to you why you put on such a mordant, the reason is this: Because the stone always holds some moisture; when the gesso tempered with size feels this, suddenly it rots and splinters and spoils; therefore this oil and varnish is the material and means of making the gesso agree with the stone, and I will explain the cause to you. The charcoal always keeps dry against the humidity of the stone. Then wishing to continue your operations; take gesso grosso, tempered with size in the manner that you primed the flat part of a panel, except that, according to the quantity, I wish you to put in one, two, or three yolks of egg, and then with a spatula (stecca) put it all over your work; and if you mix with these things a little powder of pounded bricks, it will be so much the better; and put this gesso on with the stecca two or three times, and let it get quite dry. When it is perfectly dry, scrape it and clean it, as you did the panel. Then where you want gold, take gesso sottile, and grind and temper this gesso with the same size as you did in grounding a panel; except that now it is necessary to put some yolk of egg, not so much as you put with the gesso grosso; and begin putting the first coat of it on your work, rubbing it perfectly smooth with the hand. Over this coat put on four to six more with the brush, as you laid the gesso on the panel, in the same manner, and with the same care. This done, and well dried, scrape it lightly; then put on tempered bole, the same as on a panel, and observe also the same method of putting on gold, and of burnishing with the stone or tooth. And this is as important a part of this art as can possibly be. And if it happen that any of your work, thus overlaid with gold, has to run the risk of getting wet, you can varnish it; it is not so beautiful, but much stronger.
It falls within the scope of this same art, to be obliged sometimes to find a remedy where paintings are done on damp walls: to provide which judgment and experience are necessary. You must know that damp operates on a wall, as oil does on a panel: as damp corrupts lime, so oil corrupts gesso and its temperas; and it is clear that this damp may do great injury. As I told you before, the most noble and most enduring tempera there can be on a wall is working in fresco, that is, upon the fresh lime; and know that in front on the face of the wall, rain may pour down, and will never do any harm; but rain behind on the other face of the wall is the very mischief (forte dannifica), or indeed every drop that falls on the uncovered top of the wall; but you can find a remedy, namely: first to examine the place where you are going to work and see whether the wall is sound, and have it perfectly well covered (coped?). And if it is in a position where water goes in a conduit which cannot be diverted, adopt this plan. Whatever stone the wall is built of, take linseed oil cooked as for mordants, mix and grind it with pounded bricks; but first with a brush or rag put on the wall a coat of very hot oil or mordant. Afterwards take this paste of pounded bricks and lay it on the wall, so as to leave a very rough surface (rasposo); let it dry for some months until it is very dry, then with a trowel take very fresh lime prepared with gall nuts (calcina ben fresca di galla), as much lime as sand, and mix with it sifted powder of pounded bricks, and plaster with this very carefully once or twice, not worrying the plaster, and leaving it with a roughened surface. Then when you want to paint and work upon it, plaster it with your fine intonaco, as I explained to you before about the way to work on walls.
For the same: first take boiling ship-pitch and rub it well into the wall. When you have done this, take the same pitch (pegola o pece—i.e. coarse natural turpentine resin), and take dry new bricks, pounded; in same way pound them and incorporate them with the said pegola; put some all over the wall, that is, wherever there is any damp, and beyond. This is a very perfect cement (smalto). Put on the roughing with lime, as I told you and explained before.
Again, for the same purpose: have a quantity of boiling liquid varnish, and put a priming on the face of the damp wall, and then put on pounded brick mixed with this varnish; this is a very perfect and good remedy.
Sometimes rooms are decorated or beneath loggie or balconies, which is not always done in fresco; for the plastering may have been done a long time. If you wish to work in green, take verde-terra well ground, and tempered with grounding size, not too strong, and put it on two or three times over the whole ground with a big bristle-brush; when you have done this and it is dry, draw with charcoal as on a panel, and outline your designs with ink or if you like with black paint, that is, vine-charcoal well ground and tempered with egg, or if you like with the yolk and white of the egg together. Having brushed away the charcoal, take a large pan or basin of water, or if you like ‘metadella’ (scoop, pint), as they say in Tuscany. After that put in as it might be a spoonful of honey, and beat it all well together. This being done, take a sponge, and dip it in this water; squeeze it a little, and go with it over the whole ground which has been laid in with green; then with a water-colour of black, put on your shadows very delicately, transparent and well softened. Then take biacca ground and tempered, with the said tempera of egg described above, and draw the figures in with white, as is required in this kind of art. Then on these figures you can put some colouring (coloruzzo) differing from the green, as ochre, cinabrese, and orpiment, and adorn with borders and also put on backgrounds of azure. And note that this kind of work can also be done on panels, or on walls in fresco, plastering, and then putting in the ground with this verde-terra, and doing the white drawing with bianco sangiovanni.
You will find some persons who will require you to varnish panels which they have got you to paint in green. I tell you that it is not the custom, and that verde-terra does not require it; but oblige them if they want it. So adopt this method: take scrapings of parchment, boil them well with clean water, to make size, the usual tempera, then with a large minever brush, pass it two or three times over your figures or scenes, wherever you mean to varnish it. When you have given two coats of the size, which must be very clear and bright, and which you must strain twice, let your work dry for the space of three or four days. Then you may pass your varnish safely over the whole, and you will find that verde-terra in this way will take varnish the same as other colours.
Sometimes, in the practice of art, it will happen to you to have to tint or paint on flesh, especially to colour the face of a man or of a woman. You may temper your colours with yolk of egg, or if you desire, for the sake of counterfeiting, with oil, or with liquid varnish, which is the most powerful tempera there is. But should you wish to remove the colours or tempera from the face, take the yolk of an egg and little by little rub it on the face with the hand; then take clean water that has been boiled on bran, and wash the face with it; then take more of the yolk of egg, and again rub the face with it, and again wash it with the warm water. We will not talk of this subject any more.
It might happen in the service of youthful ladies, especially those of Tuscany, to have to make some colour of which they are desirous, and use to make themselves beautiful, and certain waters. But the Paduan women do not use them, and not to give them cause for finding fault with me, and as it is also displeasing to God and our Lady, I shall be silent. But I advise you, if you desire to preserve your complexion for a long period, to be accustomed to wash yourself with water from fountains, rivers, or wells; and I warn you that if you use any artificial preparation, your face will soon become withered and your teeth black, and in the end women get old before the natural course of time, and become the ugliest old hags possible. This is quite sufficient to say on this subject.
Now it seems to me that I have said enough on colouring of all kinds. I will now touch upon another subject, which is very useful, and gains honour for your drawing in portraying and imitating natural things.
Would you take a cast of the face of a man or woman, of whatever rank? Then adopt this method. Let a young man, or woman, or an old man come to you, and let the beard be shaved; for the hair and beard are difficult to do. Then with a large minever brush anoint the face with some oil of roses, or other sweet-smelling oil; put on the head a cap or hood, and provide a band, about a span wide and as long as from one shoulder to the other, going round the head over the cap, and sew the edge of it round the cap (beretta) from one ear to the other. Put into the hole of each ear a piece of cotton, and having drawn the edge of the said band tight, sew it to the end of the collar and give a half-turn in the middle of the shoulder, and turn it to the buttons in front. Do the same to the other shoulder, then unite the ends of the band. Having done this, place the man or woman flat on a carpet, a table, or large board. Get a hoop of iron of the width of one or two fingers, with some teeth above like a saw. Put this hoop, which is to be two or three fingers longer than the face, round the face of the person; let it be held by your associate, suspended away from the face, that it may not touch the person. Take the band and turn it round and round, putting the end of it which had not been sewn into the teeth of the hoop, then fastening it between the flesh and the hoop, so that the hoop shall be beyond the band, and leave about the width of two fingers or less between the band and the flesh, according to the thickness you wish the casting to be, for I tell you this is where you have to throw the plaster in.
You must get a goldsmith to make two small tubes of brass or silver, which are to be round above, and more open below, like a trumpet, each about a span long, and as large round as a finger, made as light as possible. The other end must be made the same shape as the nostril, but just so much smaller as to enter the nostrils, fitting them exactly, without forcing the nose open at all. Let a small hole be pierced through the middle of each, and bind them together. But at the foot where they enter the nose, let them be fixed firmly at the same distance from one another as the distance there is from one nostril to another.
This being done, let the man (or woman) remain lying down, and let him put these tubes into his nostrils and hold them himself with his hand. Have prepared, some Bolognese gesso or volteranno, burnt; fresh, and well sifted. Have near you some tepid water in a basin, and quickly put this gesso into this water. Do it quickly, for it sets quickly, and make it neither too liquid nor too little so. With a drinking glass, take some of this mixture, and pour it round the face. Cover it equally, but keep the eyes to cover last of all the face. Make him keep his mouth and eyes closed; not squeezed tight, which is not necessary, but as if he slept, and when the space is filled up to a finger’s-breadth above the nose, let it remain quiet a little while till it is ready. And bear in mind, that if the person from whom you are taking a mould is of high rank, as a lord, a king, a pope, an emperor, you must mix the gesso with tepid rose-water; and for other persons, any spring, well, or river water, tepid, suffices. When your plaster is dry and set, gently with pen-knife, knife, or scissors, unsew all round the band which you sewed on: draw out the tubes from the nose carefully, make him get up and stand or sit, and he himself holding the plaster which is over his face, managing his face carefully, draw him out of this mask or mould. Set it aside and keep it carefully. This part of the task being accomplished, take a child’s bandage (fascia da putti) and wind it all round the mould so that the bandage projects two fingers’-breadths beyond the edge of the mould. Take a large minever brush; and with whatever oil you like, anoint the inside of the mould with great care, so that you may not accidentally injure any part, and mix the plaster the same as before; and if you would mix with it some pounded brick it would be a good deal better. Then with a glass or porringer take some of this gesso and put it into the mould, and hold it over a bench, so that as you put in the gesso you tap the mould lightly with the other hand on the bench, so that the gesso should be caused to enter equally into every crevice, as sealing-wax fills the seal, and that there should be neither bubbles nor hollows. When the mould is full, let it alone for half a day, or, at most, one day. Take a small hammer, and with care, feel and break the outside husk, that is to say the original mould, but in such a way that neither the nose nor anything else may be broken. To make the mould easier to break, before you fill it, take a saw and saw it in several places on the outside. But mind not to saw through, which would be a misfortune. You will then be able, when it is full, to break it dexterously in pieces with light strokes of the hammer. Thus you will have the effigy or physiognomy or cast of that great lord. And know that once you have got such a mould, you can cast from it with copper, metal, bronze, gold, silver, lead, and indeed with any metal you wish. But get capable masters, who understand founding and casting.
You must know that in the above way, following the best teaching, I inform you that you may mould and cast the whole figure, like the many naked antique figures which we find. You must get a naked man or woman, and let the person stand upright in a sort of box or case, which will reach as high as the chin, and let the case be joined together, or rather let it come apart altogether in the middle of one side and down the length of the other. Let a very thin copper plate be placed against the middle of the shoulders, beginning at the (level of) the ears down to the bottom of the case, and let it follow the outlines of the naked person’s body without hurting him, just not touching the flesh; and let this metal sheet be fixed in the corner where the case is joined together; and in this way fix four sheets of metal going to the corners of the chest. Then grease the naked person, put him upright into the case; mix a quantity of plaster abundantly with tepid water, and take care to have an assistant with you; and while you pour the plaster in front of the man, let the assistant fill the back part at the same time, so that it may be filled to his throat; with regard to the face, you may do that another time, as I have told you before. Let the plaster rest until it is quite stiff; then open the case where it is joined, insert tools and chisels into the corners where the copper or iron plates join the case, and open it like a nut, holding on either side the sides of the case with the mould you have made.
Withdraw the naked person very gently from it; wash him carefully with clean water, for his flesh will be as red as a rose. And as when you moulded the face, you may make a cast with any metal you please; but I recommend you to make it of wax, for this reason, that the mould may be broken without the figure sticking to it, and you may take away and add, and make any repairs where the figure is defective. After this you may join the head on, and make a cast of the whole person. You may similarly cast any member separately, an arm, a hand, a foot, a leg, a bird, a beast, or any kind of animal or fish. But the animals must be dead, because they have neither the sense nor firmness to stand still.
You may also make a model of a person in this manner. Have made a quantity either of mixed plaster (or dough) or wax, well stirred and clean, of the consistence of ointment and very soft; spread it on a large table (board) such as a dining-board (i.e. the top without the trestles), and put this on the ground. Spread the plaster (or dough?) or wax on it to the height of half a braccio. Then throw yourself upon it in any attitude you please, either forward or backward, or on one side. And if this paste take the impression well, you must get yourself extricated from it dexterously quite straight, so as not to pull it about. Then let the mould dry. When dry you may cast from it with lead. Do the other side of your person (the opposite side to that which you have done) in the same manner. Then join them together, and fill them both with lead or other metal.
If you would make casts of small figures in lead or other metal, oil your figures, take impressions in wax and cast from them with anything you please; also, if on your panel you want something in relief, such as heads of men, lions, or other animals or small figures. Let the mould you have made in wax dry; then oil it well with salad or lamp-oil. Take gesso sottile or gesso grosso ground with a little strong size. Fill the mould with this warm plaster and let it cool. When cold, separate the plaster a little from the mould with your knife. Blow very hard upon the separated part. Take up your little figure (figuretta) with your hand, and it is done. And in this manner you may make as many as you like. Keep them, and remember that they are better made in winter than in summer.
You may, if you please, take impressions of coins in wax or plaster. Let them dry and then melt some sulphur and fill these moulds with it, and it is done; but if you would cast with plaster mix with it some ground minium, that is to say, some of the dry powder with the paste, and make it of the consistence which suits you.
If you would take very perfect impressions of a seal or ducat, or any other money, adopt this plan, and set great value on it, for it is an excellent method. Take a basin half full of clean water, or quite full, as you please. Take half a pipkin full of (wood) ashes. Throw them into the basin, and stir them with the hand. Let the mixture rest a little, and before the water becomes quite clear, throw it into another basin; do this several times, and I recommend you to put in what ashes you want at the first. Then wait until the water is quite clear, and the ashes settled at the bottom. Draw off the water, and dry the ashes in the sun, or as you please. Then grind them with salt dissolved in water, making a sort of plaster. Then on this paste take impressions of seals, medals (santelene), figurines, coins, or in general of anything of which you desire impressions. This done, let the paste dry gradually without sun or fire. You may pour on this paste melted lead, silver, or any metal you please, for the paste is sufficiently tenacious to bear a great weight.
Praying that the most high God, our Lady, St. John, St. Luke the evangelist and painter, St. Eustachius, St. Francis and St. Anthony of Padua may give us grace and strength to sustain and bear in peace, the burdens and fatigues of this world; and that to whomsoever may study this book, they will give grace to study it well and remember it, so that by the sweat of their brows, they may live peaceably, and maintain their families in this world with grace, and finally in that which is to come, in glory, per infinita secula seculorum.
Finito libro referamus gratias Xpo 1437. A dì 31 d luglio ex Stincarum ec.