CHAPTER XXI
SIXTEENTH-CENTURY JEWELLERY (GENERAL)
ITALY, SIXTEENTH CENTURY
GREAT ostentation and external splendour were the chief features of the Renaissance. So, if the jewellery of this time appears to us more magnificent than that of any other, this superiority is but an indirect result of the intermediate causes which find a place in all that is included under the term Renaissance.
In enumerating certain characteristics that distinguish sixteenth-century jewellery from that of other epochs, the enormous quantity used may first of all be noted. A general increase in wealth had taken place, but in the comparative rarity of opportunity for investments, it was still customary to keep gold and precious stones secreted,[122] or, as was more generally done, make them into ornaments of small compass and easily convertible into hard cash.
Coupling this with the magnificent style of living during the Renaissance, we need feel less surprise at the extraordinary abundance of jewellery which we read of in contemporary chronicles, and find represented in the utmost variety on the portraits of the period. Men of solid reputation and serious disposition seem, equally with women, to have fallen victims to the reigning passion for jewellery.
If we are at first inclined to wonder at the number of Cinquecento jewels that have survived, we can more readily understand that they represent the merest fraction of what formerly existed, when we take into consideration all the risks of destruction such fragile and precious objects have undergone—objects by their nature the very first to disappear. Monetary pressure caused by war, the division of property, and many other events were fraught with danger to objects in the precious metals. Change of taste, almost as rapid as that in dress, which has caused the last fashion but one to be the least of all desired, necessitated the repeated refashioning of jewellery. Notwithstanding their perfection, the exquisite productions of the sixteenth century were unable to resist the fatal influence of fashion, and were largely broken up towards the termination of the seventeenth century, when brilliant enamels and artistically wrought gold were less in request, and the precious metals became entirely subservient to the stones, for which they acted simply as settings. On the other hand, their small size, which has rendered them easy to conceal, accounts for the preservation of some examples, while mere chance, or perhaps an historical association, oft-times solely traditional, has saved others from destruction.
The finest productions of the artificers of antiquity transcend in abstract beauty of design everything, perhaps, that has since been produced. Those of the mediæval craftsmen possess a charm and beauty impossible to deny, and a peculiar naïveté and ingenuousness of their own, to be looked for in vain elsewhere. It must be acknowledged, however, that the jewels of the Renaissance, the receptacle of every variety of adornment by way of precious stones, pearls, and enamels that the goldsmith could devise in order to enrich them, are in their own manner incomparable. It may be that some err so far on the side of over-elaboration that they lose the balance and dignity of harmonious design, but the majority possess qualities rarely found in combination save at this remarkable period—a richness of form, boldness of conception, and extraordinary refinement of technique. There is no species of technical work, whether it was a case of hammering, chasing, or casting, or, above all, enamelling, that was not then brought to perfection. But the splendours of the Renaissance must not blind us to the efforts of the preceding age; for thorough though the change was from the style of Gothic art, the jewellers of the Renaissance were deeply indebted to the mediæval traditions which they had by their side to aid them in developing their artistic conceptions.
Another noticeable point with regard to the jewellery of this period is its astonishing variety. Its decline, and reduction to a monotonous repetition of design, coincides with the disappearance of those artists who possessed the universality of a man like Cellini, and with the division of labour characteristic of modern art and industry.
In addition to the enormous quantity used, a distinctive feature of Renaissance ornaments is the preference shown for colour. The placing together of bright-coloured gems with delicately worked gold invariably enriched with polychrome enamels is the fundamental motive of the jewellery of the period. So admirable was the craftsman's taste that each jewel forms in itself a scheme perfect in design and colour, and the rubies, emeralds, and sapphires introduced for the sake of their colour values, serve the composition as a whole without overwhelming it; while the diamond, which comprised almost the sole material of the jewellery of later times, was used only for purposes of contrast. It cannot be said that precious stones had entirely forfeited their mediæval reputation at the period of the revival; but as jewellery was beginning to assume generally the character of mere ornament, the stones which enriched it were naturally chosen rather with an eye to their decorative qualities than for any fancied virtues they might be considered to possess.