CHAPTER XIV. HOW TO MAKE STEEL DIES FOR STAMPING COINS.
Since the art of the coiner can teach the elements of stamping medals in methods similar to those of the ancients, we will treat of that art first. You must bear in mind that the ancients, though they made their coins for use, undoubtedly made their medals for show; and as regards the former, we moderns may pride ourselves on being able to produce them with greater facility, and that, like the printing of books and many such-like arts, is a discovery of ours, which though it be out of my scope to speak of them here, I may have occasion to touch on elsewhere. As to the coins, I shall, according to my usual custom, speak with actual instances of the methods I have myself wrought in. The first coins I made were for Pope Clement VII. in Rome, who summoned me to come to him from Florence some eighteen months after the great sack of Rome by the Lord of Bourbon. And since the house of Medici was at that time expelled from Florence, the Pope sent for me by the hand of Master Jacopo dello Sciorina,[79] the same that kept the ferry across the Tiber, by the Banchi in Tresteveri not far from the palace of Messer Agostino Chigi. This Master Jacopo wrote me twice on the Pope’s account; when I got the second letter, I made off as fast as I could, for of a truth those terrible radicals[80] in power then would have hanged me had they found it on me. Pope Clement, when I came, treated me with the most winning kindnesses, and ordered me to make the coins for his city and Mint in Rome. The first coins I made were gold pieces, worth about two ducats each, on which were stamped figures of divers sort. On the one was the form of a nude Christ, his hands bound behind him, done with all the care and study I was capable of; down the sides of the figure ran the legend ‘Ecce Homo,’ and around the circumference the words ‘Clemens VII., Pont. Max.’, while on the other side was stamped the head of the Pope.
A new occasion soon offered itself. Though I don’t want to write a chronicle of events, & though I was not directly affected by them, I can’t help touching upon them slightly. What the current talk in Rome was at the time, I don’t need to dwell on; any man with a head on his shoulders may easily imagine that for himself. The second coin, a beauty, was likewise of gold, & a two-ducat piece. On one side was a pope in his pontifical robes, & an emperor also in his regalia; the two were supporting a cross which was in the act of falling to the ground. I forget if there was a legend on this side; but on the other were a St. Paul and a St. Peter in more than half relief, with this legend around them: ‘Vnus spiritus, una fides erat in Eis.’ This coin brought me much honour, for I put great labour into it. As the Pope put more gold into it than its value warranted, it soon was melted down again.
A third coin of my making was in silver, of the value of two carlins, on the one side of which was the head of the Pope, and on the other side a St. Peter, just the moment after he has plunged into the sea at the call of Christ, and Christ stretches out his hand to him in most pleasing wise, and the legend to this was ‘Quare dubitasti?’
In Florence likewise did I make all the moneys for Duke Alexander the first of that name; they were 40 soldi pieces. And because the Duke was curly headed, the people called these coins the Duke’s curls.[81] On one side was his head, and on the other St. Cosmo and St. Damian. In like manner did I make the coins called barile and grossone.
As I said above, the ancients had not the facilities for stamping coins we have, & therefore we never see any of the beautiful sort,[82] for coins should be made, or rather their dies, with the purpose of striking with the greatest ease. To begin with, two steel tools are needed, one called the pila the other the torsello. The pila is in the form of a small stake or anvil, upon which the medal you wish to press is cut in intaglio. The other tool, the torsello, is about five fingers high, its face being the size of your coin, and it gradually tapers off toward the end. Both pila & torsello are made of carefully chosen iron, with their heads covered in the finest steel about one finger thick. With his file the master gives them whatever shape & size his coin may need. Then he makes a concoction of earth, powdered glass, soot from the chimney, and bole of Armenia,[83] adds a little horse-dung to this, mixes it all up into a paste with a man’s urine, & puts it on to the ends of the pila and the torsello to the thickness of about a finger. These he then puts into the fire, which should be strong enough to raise them to bright redness;[84] keeping the fire up for, say, a good winter’s night, he then lets them cool down by allowing the fire to go out.[85] The exact size of the coins is now given to the ends of the dies, barring about half the thickness of a knife’s back all round the circumference, and the face of each is then ground on a soft, polished stone until both pila and torsello are absolutely smooth. Then with the compasses the exact size of the coin is drawn upon them, & also with another pair of compasses the circumference of the letters that form the legend round is marked. In order that these compasses should not shift about, a pair should be specially made of thick steel wire and of the exact size needed. It is best to have at least two pairs of each kind, and also one pair that will open and shut as you please. When this is done, the pila is firmly set in a big lump of lead of at least 100 lbs. in weight. After this you can proceed to the engraving[86] of your coin on the die.
Coins and Medals from various collections
You very carefully cut upon the finest steel your design, e.g., the head of whatever prince you are serving, and in order to do this nicely you must first have your steel well softened in the fire in the way I showed you the pila & torsello were; only take heed that your tool is of the very finest steel. And the tools with which you work have to be made specially for the purpose. Thus for a head I should make the tool in two pieces, and for the various figures on the reverse of a coin I should use a number of different pieces according to my discretion. Some have worked with very few, but in so doing have much greater difficulty in sinking the design into the die. The more such pieces you have, the easier it becomes; but you must always give great care in the combination of your punches. And this combining is done while the master is engaged in cutting the intaglios by taking frequent impressions on a piece of polished tin, to which you can give the right circumference with your compasses, until you get the results you wish.
The tools used for this purpose have two names, in some instances they are called punzoni (punches), and in other cases madre (matrices), and of a truth they are the mothers that may be said to beget the figures and all the other things you fashion in the die of your coins.[87] The men who did the best work in coining always did the whole of the work upon either the punches or the matrices, and never once touched up the dies with either gravers or chisels, for that would be a great blunder, as all the various dies necessary for making many impressions of the same coins, would be a bit different, and thus cause slight differences in the coins themselves, and that would be making things easy for forgers, whereas coins well wrought in the way above described could be less easily copied. But I must return to you, dear reader, where I left off above, with the pila stuck in the lead.