Much has been written about the ring or rather the engraved seal of Michelangelo. This gem enjoyed such high esteem that it was very often copied, the copies sometimes acquiring the repute of being originals. Four of them, two in paste, one in amethyst, and one in carnelian, exist in Denmark, the two latter having the dimensions of the original gem. The copy in carnelian--the stone in which the original was cut--is exceptionally well executed.[257] The original seal is now in the Bibliothêque Nationale in Paris and came into the possession of Louis XIV in 1680. The king wore it set in a ring. It was brought to France in 1600 by a Sieur Bigarris, director of the Mint, and its history was at the time traced back to Agosto Tassi, goldsmith in Bologna, to whom Michelangelo had bequeathed it. The gem was the work of Pier Maria di Pescia, and bears his symbolic signature, a boy fishing (_pescia_, fishing). The dimensions are given as 15 mm. by 11 mm., the form being oval, and in this restricted space is a design embracing twelve human figures, two genii, a horse, a goat and a tree. Two of the figures appear to have been copied from a detail of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes: a woman helping another woman to place a basket of grapes upon her head. Watelet and Levesque in their “_Dictionnaire des Arts_” published in 1791, characterize this seal as “the most beautiful engraved gem known.” The Royal Collection at Windsor Castle contains a gold ring set with a cameo portrait of Louis XII, of France (1498–1515), cut in a pale ruby of clear lustre. The work is believed to have been executed during the lifetime of the king, and was considered by Rev. C. W. King to be the earliest Renaissance portrait cut on a stone of the hardness of a ruby. He regarded it as a work of the famous Renaissance gem-cutter Domenico dei Camei, this artist having engraved a portrait of the Milanese duke Ludovico Sforza, surnamed Il Moro, on the same hard material. The gold plate at the back of the bezel holding the gem bears the inscription “Loys XII^{me} Roy de France décéda I Janvier, 1515,” the stone having been set in the ring at some time after the monarch’s death.[258] This collection also contains an imperfect specimen of a squirt-ring. The hoop is of enamelled gold set with a garnet engraved in relief with a mask or bacchic head finely executed by a sixteenth-century artist. The hole at the base of the hoop, with its internal screw-worm, indicates that it was once provided with a squirt for projecting perfumed liquids.[259]