FOOTNOTES:
[91] Fuscelletti.
[92] Ispianera’ gli.
[93] Ceselletti da ammaccare.
[94] This might be translated, ‘I sank.’
[95] Tasello.
[96] Ceppi di legno bucati.
[97] Perhaps: ‘harden’ (see pp. [68] & [70]). I am indebted to Prof. Roberts-Austen for the following note: ‘This passage is amplified in the next chapter where the author treats of the hardening of medal dies. He has shown that before working on the coin dies he has made them as soft as possible, but before they could actually be used for striking coins they would need “hardening” & “tempering.” Hardening steel is effected by heating it to bright redness & then quenching it in some fluid which will cool the metal with more or less rapidity, cold water being usually employed for this purpose. Hence in this chapter Cellini states that there must be ten gallons of cold water in which the hot die is quenched, & kept moving (as in modern practice) until it is cold. “Tempering,” on the other hand, to which he alludes here, consists in reducing the hardness of the quenched steel by heating it to a moderate temperature much below redness. Usually the die would be (in modern practice) heated until a straw-coloured film forms on its surface. Probably such a film is contemplated by the author when he indicates the necessity for removing a film, produced at the hardening stage, by polishing with fine oxide of iron.’
[98] The barila is about forty pints. Capt. Victor Ward tells me about twenty Florentine wine flasks.
CHAPTER XVI. HOW THE BEFORE-MENTIONED MEDALS ARE STRUCK.
Medals are struck in various ways. I will speak first of the method called coniare[99] a term derived from this particular method of medal stamping, and then I’ll go on to the others of which I have also availed myself.
You make an iron frame[100] about four fingers wide, two fingers thick and half a cubit long, and the open space within it should be exactly the size of the dies (taselli) on which your medals are cut in intaglio. These dies you remember are square, and they have to fit exactly square and equal into the frame so that they may be in no way moved in the striking of the medal. Before beginning the actual thing, it is necessary first to strike a medal of lead of just the size you wish the gold or silver one to be. You do it in the usual way, taking the impression of it in caster’s sand—you remember we spoke about it before—the same that all the founders use for the trappings of horses, mules, and brass work generally. From this pattern medal you make your final casting[101] which you carefully clean up, removing the rough edges[102] with a file, and after that polishing off all the file marks. This done you place the cast medal between your dies (taselli). The medal, in that it is already cast into its shape, is more easily struck, and the dies are for the same reason less used up in the process of striking. When you have them in the middle of your frame, & the frame itself fixed firmly upright, push them down into the frame at one end, leaving a cavity of three fingers’ space from the edge of it. Into this cavity fix two wedges of iron,[103] or biette, the thin ends of which are at least half the size of the thick ends and which in length are about twice the breadth of the frame. Then when you want to do the striking, set them with their thin ends over your dies, the point of the one set towards the other.[104] Then take two stout hammers, and let your apprentice hold one at the head of one of the wedges, and do you strike with the other hammer the opposite wedge three or four times, very carefully alternating your blows first on one wedge, then on the other. The object of this is as a precaution to prevent the shifting & facilitate the action of your dies[105] or the pieces of metal that are to form your medals. Then take your frame, set the head of one of the wedges on a big stone & strike the other head with a large hammer called in the craft mazzetta, using both your hands.
This you repeat three or four times, turning the frame round at every second stroke. This done, take out your medal. If the medal be of bronze it will have been necessary to soften it first,[106] for that is too hard a metal to strike straight off without heating; and repeat this three or four times until you see that the impression is sharp. True it is I could give you hundreds of little wrinkles yet, but I don’t intend to do it, because I assume I am speaking to those who have some knowledge of the art, and for those who haven’t it would be dreadfully boring to listen. So much for the method of striking medals that we call coniare.[107]