Die-cutting was only a branch of sculpture and the goldsmith’s art, sure to be practised where these two arts flourished, and contemporary history furnished a store of materials. But here the Tuscans do not hold the foremost place, either in time or in excellence of workmanship. Natives of Northern Italy, Lombards, and Venetians, came before them in the great cast portrait-medallions, by which Vittore Pisanello made a name in the fifteenth century. Donatello’s followers strove to follow but never came up to him. Three of the Tuscan medallists—Antonio Pollaiuolo, Bertoldo, and Andrea Guazzalotti of Prato, had dealings with the Medici. Only the first is known to have struck a medal referring to his country’s history, namely, one relating to the Pazzi conspiracy. Guazzalotti, who was in correspondence with Lorenzo and cast statues for him, commemorated the Pope and the Duke of Calabria as victors over the Turks; the medals are characteristically conceived, but lacking in delicacy of treatment. Medals of Cosimo and of Filippo de’ Medici, Archbishop of Pisa, are attributed to Pisanello, the latter probably incorrectly; a medallion with the head of Lorenzo seems to be the work of a Florentine, Pietro di Niccolò.[202] Yet another branch of art reached a high perfection in Florence—that of engraving precious stones. The taste for engraved gems, which kept pace with the increasing knowledge of antiquity and the passion for books and antique works of all kinds, revived the art of cutting cameos and precious stones. A good example of the growth of this taste is related by Vespasiano da Bisticci in the ‘Life of Niccoli,’[203] whose house was full of antiquities. Passing along the street one day, he saw a boy wearing round his neck a chalcedony with a figure engraved, which the learned man thought he recognised as a work of Polycletes. He inquired the name of the boy’s father, and sent to ask him whether he would sell the stone. The man was willing to let him have it for five florins, which he thought good payment. Now, in the days of Pope Eugene, the future Cardinal Luigi Scarampi—who had much taste for matters of this sort—being in Florence, asked Niccoli to show him the stone, and offered him two hundred ducats for it. Niccoli, who was not rich, accepted, and the chalcedony passed into the hands of Scarampi, then to Paul II., and, after his death, to Lorenzo de’ Medici. Lorenzo’s uncle, Giovanni, had collected many gems, of which not the least famous was the carnelian representing Apollo and Marsyas. It was supposed to be Nero’s seal, and was set in gold by Lorenzo Ghiberti.[204] Lorenzo considerably increased the collection of antique gems inherited from his father, and formed a treasury, of which numerous remains still exist, after all the disasters that befell his posterity. He and Paul II. inspired this branch of art with new life, and enabled modern workers to enter the lists against the ancients. The