In the first place the purest gold had to be beaten out, not the alloy of gold, silver and copper which now is used for making the gold leaf of what is called "the finest quality." The English illuminators at the close of the thirteenth and in the fourteenth century frequently got their gold in the form of the beautiful florins of Florence, Lucca[255] or Pisa, which were struck of absolutely pure gold[256]. In England there was no gold coinage till the series of _nobles_ was begun by Edward III.[257], but these were of quite pure gold, like the Italian florins, and so answered the purpose of the illuminator. Another important point was that the gold leaf was not beaten to one twentieth part of the extreme tenuity of the modern leaf. The leaves were very small, about three by four inches at the most, and not more than from fifty to a hundred of these were made out of the gold ducat of Italy, which weighed nearly as much as a modern sovereign[258]. In many cases, we find, the illuminator prepared his own gold leaf, and it was not uncommon for the crafts of the goldsmith and the illuminator to be practised by the same man. For example the Fitz-Othos, mentioned at page 112 as a distinguished Anglo-Norman family of artists in the thirteenth century, were skilful both as makers of gold shrines and as illuminators of manuscripts. Many interesting notes about the Fitz-Othos and other artists employed at Westminster during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries are to be found among the royal accounts now preserved in the Record Office: see _Vetusta Monumenta_, Vol. VI., p. 1 seq. Among the accounts of the expenses of decorating with painting the royal chapel of Saint Stephen at Westminster in Edward III.'s reign, we find that John Lightgrave paid for six hundred leaves of gold at the rate of five shillings the hundred, equal to about £5 or £6 in modern value. And John "Tynbeter" received six shillings for six dozen leaves of tin used instead of silver, not because it was cheap, but because tin was not so liable to tarnish. These accounts are in Latin, which is not always of Ciceronian purity; a classical purist might perhaps carp at such phrases as these, _Item. Pro reparatione brushorum_, viij^d, under the date 1307; and, in the following year, _Item. Unum scarletum blanketum_, ij^s vij^d. The scarlet blanket was not bought to keep the artist warm, but to make a red pigment from, as is described below at page 246. _Goldsmith artists._ This close connection between the arts of the goldsmith and the illuminator had its parallel in other branches of the arts, and with results of very considerable importance. Many of the chief painters and sculptors of Italy, during the period of highest artistic development, were also skilful goldsmiths, as for example Ghiberti, Verrocchio, Ant. Pollaiuolo, Francesco Francia and many others.