S. Cuthbert's Stole and Maniple at DurAam foundation, is a much finer one and hidden from sight between the upper and under surface of the stitching.

FIGURE 8 is a diagram illustrating the couching upon both upper and under surface of the stole and maniple. The close perpendicular lines re- present the warp threads which form the ground support. A comparison of FIGURES 7 and 8 shows that the two methods, though carried out upon different foundations, are, upon both front and back, identical excepting for one detail. This is that in FIGURE 8 the couching thread, when at the back, is always, before passing again to the surface, interlocked with the thread lying upon each side [see B]. The straight dotted lines in the diagram represent the way the couching thread would have gone but for this interlace- ment. These dotted lines will be found to agree exactly with the couching thread in the lower diagram of FIGURE 7. The interlacement at the back, which is easily contrived during the process of execution, is necessary because of the unusual foundation. This simple device knits the work so well together that it practically makes the com- pleted fabric independent of the warp foundation; if this gave way, which is what has actually happened, the work would still hold fairly well in place. The interlacement answers still another purpose: without this contrivance the couching thread when passing across the gold upon the surface would incline to cross it at a distinct angle rather than straight over, because warp threads even though tightly strung could not hold the couching thread so exactly in position as if it had passed through fabric.

This peculiar basis of warp threads, slight though it is, fulfils all real requirements, and for this couch- ing, is hardly more difficult to work upon than fabric. It serves as an excellent guide for bringing through the couching thread at regular intervals, and it supplies just the least possible necessary support for working upon. In fact, the inference to be drawn from the whole of this part of the tech- nique is that the warp was hardly intended for more than a temporary support. The fragile

nature of the basis probably accounts for this couching process being chosen for use rather than weaving. With the latter technique the fine warp threads of the ground would not have been of sufficient strength to bear the gold, but with the former the couching thread is of material assis- tance in the way of support. By this ingenious method the strength of a fabric ground was ob- tained without its clumsiness. Making use of warp instead of fabric for the working basis changes the character of the technique to a wonderful degree, and it is this treatment which is responsible for the mysterious beauty of the background.

The reason why so much of the warp founda- tion has disappeared may be partly because it is of less substance than the couching thread, which, though it would soon fall to dust if tampered with, is practically intact. And it is possible that the foundation threads were of more perishable material. This curious accident of one material lasting and another perishing has clearly occurred with other work similarly circumstanced. On the 12th-century Worcester fragments of embroidery, preserved for many centuries in the tomb of Walter de Cantelupe, the gold remains intact, also the ground of silk fabric, but the couching thread has practically all perished leaving little circular hoops of gold standing out upon the reverse side, through which, by the point retire' method of work, it once passed, securing the gold in position. To give still another instance: Mr. St. John Hope,6 when describing some late 12th-century em- broideries found in an archbishop's tomb at Canterbury, says, "The linen foundation has completely perished and only some very slight traces of its former presence are left. The stole, therefore, now consists of the silk embroidery simply cohering without any actual support ".

[We are obliged to John Hogg for the use of the blocks of FIGURES 5 and 6, from his publication " Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving " by Mrs. Archibald H. Christie.-ED.]

(To be continued.) 6 Vetusta Monumenta, Vol. vii, Part I, 1893.

NOTES ON ITALIAN MEDALS-XIV* BY G. F. HILL LODOVICO SCARAMPI. BY CRISTOFORO GEREMIA

HE British Museum, by the generosity of the National Art Collections Fund, has recently acquired a good specimen of the medal of Lodovico Scarampi,' which is illustrated in PLATE I, A.

This medal, with its extraordinarily characteristic portrait of the warrior-prelate-more like an Irish- man than an Italian, one would say,-is so well known that it is unnecessary to describe it again, or to discuss its attribution to Cristoforo Geremia. That attribution may be taken to be as certain as any that has ever been made of an unsigned and undocumented medal can be.' Tomasini- has * For previous articles see Vols. xxix, p. 131, xx, p. 200, and

xxx, p. 138, where will be found a full list up to that date. 1 It was purchased at the Frankfort auction (Cahn's Catalogue,

23 Oct., 1912, lot 5) of the duplicates of the Berlin Museum.

2 Cp. Armand II, 37, 2 ; Fabriczy (Eng. transl.), pp. 156, 59 ; Numism. Chron., I19o, p. 365. 3 Illustr. virorum elogia, p. 18.

'7

Notes on Italian Medals already remarked that the reverse clearly refers to Scarampi's military triumphs on behalf of the Church. Scarampi (or Mezzarota, as he called himself when he became a patrician of Venice) began his career as a soldier in the papal service under Martin V, and rose, after the fall of Giovanni Vitelleschi, to be commander-in-chief under Eugenius; he was employed for similar purposes by all the Popes until his death in 1465. This medal seems to have been made between that date and 1461, when Cristoforo is first known to have been working in Rome in Scarampi's employment. Not the least of Scarampi's services to the papal court consisted in the way in which he controlled the unruly Romans. As admiral in 1456 he de- feated the Turkish fleet in the /Egean, and plun- dered some islands.' It was after this that he had something like a triumph, on his return to Rome, and this may be the subject represented on the reverse. On the other hand the words ecclesia restituta would refer more properly to his defeat of Piccinino at Anghiari and expulsion of the enemy from the papal territory in 1440. " Exalto ", in the exergue of the reverse, has not, so far as I know, been explained ; it may have been his device, embodying a claim to raise up the church from its fallen state. The medal should be compared with Mantegna's fine portrait at Berlin.

IPPOLITO D'ESTE The rare medal of Ippolito, the handsome son

of Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, and Eleonora of Aragon, is illustrated in PLATE I, B, from the only specimen known to me, that at Vienna.$ Ippolito was born in 1479, and made cardinal b•y Alexander VI in 1493. As he does not bear the title of cardinal it might seem that the medal should date from before his promotion ; but his features are fully developed, not those of a boy of less than fifteen years. At the same time the style of the piece forbids us to date it much after 1500.

In my last notes " I discussed a few Florentine medals connected more or less directly with Niccol6 Fiorentino. This medal is also of Florentine work, and comes fairly close to the master's style. Now we have a record of the presence of Ippolito in Florence in 1503. Being absent from Rome at the death of Alexander VI, he was hurrying thither when, his horse stumbling, he broke his leg, and was forced to lie up at Florence until he recovered. Such circumstances would be very favourable to the employment of a Florentine medallist to do his portrait. The features as rendered on the medal may well be those of a young man of about twenty-four years.7

PIETRO MONTI Obv. *PETRVS

MONTIVS" (wedge-shaped stops). Bust to right, with long hair, classically draped, with bulla on right shoulder. Granitura.

Rev. VIS'TEMPERA(t)A'FERT

and in field IN Ij VIA- (wedge-shaped stops). Monti, nude, standing to front ; on left, a halberd, cuirass, sword, helmet and shield, which he appears to reject with a gesture; on r., on two closed books an open volume with an incised inscription (apparently dur j abil in a kind of cursive) to which he points with his left hand.

Cast. Diam. 34'5 mm. See PLATE I, C. Cp. Armand I 1 20. 6, "Tr6sor de Numism." II. xxxvIII, 8; Gaetani, " Mus. Mazzuchellianum ", I, p. 159-

The " Tresor de Numismatique ", dealing with this medal 8, supposes it to represent the Venetian scholar and cleric Pietro Monte, who died in 1457. Armand did not question this attribution, although the style of the medal is clearly some half-century later. Moreover, Gaetani, in the " Museum Mazzuchellianum," had long ago point- ed out that the person represented is, by his dress, no cleric, and had identified him rightly as the Milanese Pietro, son of Giorgio Ambrogio Monti.9

This "vir monstruose doctrinae ", a proficient theologian and linguist, also followed the art of war, and commanded infantry in the Venetian service, distinguishing himself particularly in the battle of Ghiara d'Adda in 1509. It was in the same year that two of his books on military matters were published at Milan. The medal, which represents him standing between weapons of war and a pile of books, clearly commemorates his double activity. The attitude of rejecting the implements of war and turning to literature illus- trates the remark, which I find in Miss C. M. Ady's excellent History of Milan under the Sforza (p. 298), that " soldiers, such as Pietro Monti, turned from their active life to devote themselves to the study of tactics ".

Few have noticed, and no one seems to have read, the inscription incised on the book to which Monti points. Mr. A. C. Stewart of the British Museum suggests that the reading, which is very obscure, though clearer on the Berlin specimen 1 than on our own, is as given above. The last word of the inscription round the field can hardly be anything but FERT, although the T, owing to the stop which follows it having run into the upright stroke, resembles an E. We now come to the two words in the field. The A has a top serif to the left, and a stop after it. Are the words

' Some papal writers ascribe to him the defeat of the Turks at Belgrad in the same year, which one is accustomed to regard as the exploit of John Hunyadi.

5I have to thank Ritter A. von Loehr for a cast. It is described by Armand, Vol in, p. 169, G. Diameter 45 mm.

6Burlington Magazine, Vol. xxuI, p. 131.

7 It should be noted that the medal which Chacon describes as representing this cardinal, with the reverse "ne transeas servum tuum " is of Ippolito II (Armand I, 222, 4).

8 The British Museum owes this medal and that of Elijah de Latas described below to the generosity of Mr. Maurice Rosen. heim, who presented them through the National Art Collections Fund.

9 P. Argelati, Bibl. Script. Mediol. II. I. p. 956-7. 10 Of which I owe a cast to Dr. Regling.

18

B, D, D G, J

A! .......~ !

A 59~~i?A

C C

EE

F F

H

H

NOTES ON ITALIAN MEDIALS-XIV

Notes on Italian Medals simply "in via", or is the peculiar A meant for TA, and are we to read the whole inscription "1Vis temperata fert in vita(m) durabil(em) " ? In any case there seems to be a reminiscence of Horace Od. III, 4, 66 : "vim temperatam Dii quoque provehunt in maius". The solution could probably be reached by examining the works of Monti, none of which is accessible to me. A GROUP OF VENETIAN MEDALS

Obv. ELIA'DELATAS'EBR EO'MD52. Bust

to right, with curly hair and beard, wearing doublet. Rev. "RICA'SVA GIENETRICE. Bust to r., with hair in net, wearing bodice cut square in front over undergarment.

Cast. Diam. 40 mm. PLATE I, D. From A. E. Cahn's Auction, Frankfurt a. M., 1912, lot 55, Taf. II. See above, note I. Cp. Armand II, p. 231, 10.

The Jewish family of Latas or Lattes n (origin- ally from the village of Lattes near Montpellier) has been well known in Italy for many centuries. The member who is represented with his mother Rica on the medal of 1552 [PLATE I, D] was the son of Immanuel Lattes, who flourished in Rome at the court of Leo X, from about 1515 to 1527. The family in the 16th century seems to be chiefly mentioned in connexion with Rome ; but the style of this medal points distinctly to northern Italy, and especially to Venice.

In fact the nearest parallel to it seems to be a medal of Girolamo Cornaro (Cornelio) and his wife Elena, which is illustrated beside it [PLATE I, E]. Although not quite so plump in style, it has similar lettering, and it will be noticed that there is a general resemblance in the way of naming the persons represented, " Helena sua moglie ", corre- sponding to "Rica sua gienetrice ".

This medal of Cornaro and his wife is generally placed beside two others, one representing two brothers of the Podocataro family, the other Elisabetta Quirini. Both are illustrated for com- parison in PLATE I, F, G. I am disinclined to believe that they are by the same hand as the Cornaro medal; they are at once more delicate and stronger. But all four medals come close to- gether. That of Elijah and his mother, though perhaps inferior to its companions, is important in that it bears the date 1552. The others, or some of them, have been attributed to Riccio,'2 although

the attribution has not met with much favour. Elisabetta Quirini is was the learned daughter of the Venetian Francesco and married Lorenzo Massolo. She is best known as the subject of a lost portrait by Titian,14 which was in 1544 in the collection of Giovanni della Casa (by whom, as by Bembo, she was "affezionata "). Crowe and Cavalcaselle date the picture about 1540; but it may have been painted in 1544, when Giovanni della Casa was nunzio at Venice. In the I8th century the picture is said to have been in Rome, and a copy of it in Venice "appresso li Padovani Pittori". Giovanni della Casa wrote a sonnet on the picture. All record of it seems now to be lost, except for an engraving made by Giuseppe Canale, on which the engraver (presumably on the basis of conjecture) has put the date I56o. The engraving is rare, neither the British Museum nor the Biblio- thbque Nationale possessing impressions; but Dr. Regling has kindly provided a photograph of the Berlin specimen [see PLATE II, A], and there is no doubt that both engraving and medal repre- sent the same person. If, as seems probable, the medal and the picture were made about the same time, the former clearly cannot be the work of Riccio, who died in 1532. Elisabetta was still living in 1556, when her husband died, and she commissioned Titian to paint the S. Lawrence of the Gesuiti for his tomb.

As regards the Podocatari, Ludovico obviously cannot be the man who was made cardinal in I5oO and died in I5O4. But Giampaolo may well be that nephew of Livio Podocataro, archbishop of Nicosia, who died prematurely in or shortly before 1552,", and Ludovico a younger brother of his.

Again, the medal of Paolo Rannusiol' and his wife Cecilia Vitali, which is illustrated in PLATE I, H, from Mr. T. W. Greene's beautiful specimen, is from the same hand as the medals of the Podocatari and Elisabetta Quirini. Paolo was the son of that Giambattista who was con- nected with the Aldine Press; born in 1532, he appears here to be about 25 to 30 years old, so that the medal dates from about I16o.

Everything, in fact, points to the middle of the I6th century in Venice for the origin of the medals.

The plump treatment of the busts on the group is characteristic of the Venetian style of the period. We see it also, in a modified form, in the work of Alessandro Vittoria, as in his portraits of Caterina

n See the Jewish Encyclopadia s. v. ; Zunz and Steinschneider in Jeschurun (Bamberg), VI (i868), p. 1o2. The most famous member of the family was the celebrated physician Jacob ben Immanuel, or Bonet de Lattes, the grandfather of Elijah, on whom see Vogelstein and Rieger, Gesch, der Juden in Rom, II, pp. 81 ff.

12 Keary (in his Guide to the British Museum Exhibition, 2nd ed., p. 43) attributed the three medals to Riccio "chiefly, on the authority of Cicognara ", who, however, expressed his opinion on the Cornaro piece only. Armand, while leaving them under the heading, indicated his doubts. The author of the Simon Catalogue (Berlin), no. 145, rejects the attribution so far as the Cornaro medal at any rate is concerned. Independently of this, I had noted in my copy of Armand that these medals are not much earlier than 155o.

13Gaetani, Mus. Mazzuch., II, p. 201 ; Armand III, p. 49, a. The reverse of her medal represents the Three Graces, but is omitted from the plate for lack of space.

14 What follows is gathered from the notes by Egidio Menagio to the sonnets of Giov. della Casa (Opere, ed. 1728, Vol. I, p. 19, Sonnet No. 32); Vasari, ed. Milanesi, vii, p. 456; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Titian, 2nd ed., II, pp. 48, 259 f.

12 Cicogna, Iscrizioni Veneziane, IV, p. 143. I6 Or Rhamnusius, the pseudo-classical form preferred by him

and his relations on their medals,

B 21

Notes on Italian Medals Sandella and Hadria; and Dr. Bode'7 has noticed the existence of a group of medals of nameless ladies, doubtless Venetians, treated in the same way.

The only specimen of this medal previously described was in the Spitzer Collection's; the present one was sold in the Frankfort auction mentioned above as one of the duplicates of the Berlin Cabinet. It is claimed for it that it is the earliest known medallic portrait of a Jew.

Had the Lattes family any connexion with Venice or the North of Italy ? Prof. Kracauer in- forms me (through Dr. Julius Cahn) that Elijah's father Immanuel was allowed a salary of sixty ducats out of the taxes received from the Jews of the March of Ancona and Pesaro, and that Elijah also received a salary from the taxes paid by the Jews of Pesaro ; from which he argues that Immanuel and Elijah must have had a residence in Pesaro.'9 One would like to have more precise

details, for the fact that a papal employe's salary was paid out of the revenue from a certain place does not prove that the employe was connected with that place. But that the medal is the work of an artist of the Veneto seems to me to be certain.

GIOVANNI FONDATI Obv. GIOVANNI" "FONDATI'N-F" (wedge-

shaped stops). Bust to right, bearded, classically draped, with bulla on r. shoulder,

Cast. Diam. 41.5 mm. See PLATE I, J. A. E. Cahn's Auction, Frankfurt a. M., 23 Oct., 1912, lot 52, Taf. II.

Presented to the British Museum by the National Art Collections Fund.

The identity of this man, so far as I know, has not been made out. Possibly he belonged to the Bolognese family of Fondazza. About the style and period of the medal, however, we may make a fairly safe conjecture; we shall not be far wrong in dating it about i56o, and attributing it to the classicizing school of Padua, which produced medals such as that of Sir John Cheke.2?

1 Zeitschr. ftrbild. Kunst, xv (Nov. 1904), p. 40. Cp. also the medal of Eugenio Sincritico and his wife in the Burlington Fine Arts Club Catalogue of a Collection of ltalia4a Sculpture, etc. (1912), Case G, no. 63.

18 Purchased by Albert Wolf, and figured and descibed by him in MonatschriJt fiir Gesch. u. Wzss des Judenthums, xxxviii (1894), p. 239. He mentions another specimen in the Berlin Cabinet.

19 Vogelstein and Rieger, cp. cit. pp, 83 and 104 f., mention the payment to the father out of the revenue from the Jews of

the March of Ancona, but say nothing about Pesaro or any pay- ment to the son. Elijah is given by these writers in the genea- logical tree as second son of Immanuel, with the date 1554, and his identity with the person on the medal of 1552 is accepted.

20 Burlington Magazine, Dec. 1907, p. 150.

REMBRANDT'S EARLIER ETCHING OF JAN CORNELIS SYLVIUS BY ARTHUR M. HIND

HE traditional identification of the sitter in Rembrandt's etching, B. 266, with the Mennonite preacher, Jan Cornelis Sylvius, having been ques- tioned,' I take this opportunity of

reproducing an impression bearing on the subject in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, to which Mr. John Charrington has called my attention. It appears to me to provide further confirmation of tradition, if any be required. I feel no hesita- tion in regarding the sitter as the same as is represented in the picture dated 1645 in the Carstanjen Collection (Bode 290, now exhibited in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, formerly in the Berlin Museum), which also bears the traditional name of J. C. Sylvius. In spite of this tradition, and what seems to me convincing resemblance between the picture and the etching of 1634,2 Dr. Bode writes of the picture in Vol. Iv of his Rem- brandt work (p. 36), " the noble and serious, almost gloomy, features, relieved only by a slight ray of light that glances off them on to the open book before him, have little in common with the plain,

in fact ugly, face of Sylvius, who died in 1638, and whose appearance is familiar to us from the etch- ings. Such likeness as there is lies in such super- ficial traits as the scanty beard ".

If we knew only the Carstanjen picture and the posthumous etching of 1646 (B. 280, Hind, 225), I could understand serious reason for doubting the identity of the sitter in the picture. But the etch- ing of 16343 forms a bridge between the two-i.e., between the somewhat lofty features of the picture and the more squat appearance of the face in the print.

To me the shape of the forehead, nose, and cheeks, the line of the mouth, and the cut of the beard, all point indubitably to the same person in the picture and posthumous etching, though the face and figure are given an added dignity in the picture. But this enhanced dignity would be thoroughly in keeping with a posthumous com- mission given to the artist by relatives who would desire the ideal.

The posthumous etching undoubtedly repre- sents Sylvius nearer the end of his life. He certainly looks more than four years older than in 1E.g. by Dr.

W. von Seidlitz, Kritisches Vergeichniss der

Radierungen Rembrandts, Leipzig, 1895. 2Which we may assume Dr. Bode accepts as a portrait of

Sylvius, for he speaks of the etchings of Sylvius. SOr 1633, as it is sometimes read. The figures of the date

are obscured by the heavy shading of the background.

22

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NOTES ON ITALIAN MEDALS--XIV

PLATE II

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REMBRANDT'S EARLIER ETCHING OF JAN CORNELIS SYLVIUS