generally considered the most skilful goldsmith of his time (Figs. 101 and 102). However that may be, the style of the goldsmith’s art of the fifteenth century continued, as in the two or three preceding centuries, conformable to the contemporaneous style of architecture. For instance, the shrine of Saint-Germain-des-Près, which was of that period, had the form of a small ogivale[16] church; and some specimens still existing in Berlin are of the Gothic character, the prevailing style of the edifices of those times. But an influence was making itself felt that was not long in entirely modifying the general aspect of the productions of the trade we are considering. That transformation must have been promoted by Italy; in the midst of which, in spite of intestine troubles and serious contentions with other nations, a luxury and opulence prevailed. Genoa, Venice, Florence, Rome, had long been so many centres where the Fine Arts struggled for pre-eminence and inspiration. Among the majority of the wealthy merchants who had [Illustration: Fig. 102.--Escutcheon in Silver-gilt, executed by Corneille de Bonte, in the Fifteenth Century. (Museum of the Hôtel de Ville, Ghent.)] become patricians of those gorgeous republics were found so many Mæcenases, under whose patronage flourished great artists whom popes and princes emulously countenanced. “From the moment,” says M. Labarte, “when the Nicolases, the Jeans of Pisa, and the Giottos, throwing off the Byzantine yoke, caused Art to emerge from languor and supineness, that of the goldsmith could no longer find favour in Italy but by maintaining itself on a level with the progress of sculpture, whose daughter it was.[17] When we know that the great Donatello,--Philip Brunelleschi, the bold architect of the dome of Florence,--Ghiberti, the author of the marvellous doors of the Baptistery, had goldsmiths for their earliest masters, we may judge what artists the Italian goldsmiths of that period must have been.” The first in date is the celebrated Jean of Pisa, son of Nicolas, who, brought from Arezzo in 1286, to sculpture the marble table of the high-altar, and a group of the Virgin between St. Gregory and St. Donato, desired to pay tribute to the taste of the time by ornamenting the altar with those fine chasings on silver coloured with enamels to which we give the name of translucid enamels in relief; and also by designing a clasp or jewel with which he decorated the breast of the Virgin. Both chasings and clasp are now lost. To Jean (Giovanni) of Pisa succeeded his pupils Agostino and Agnolo of Siena.