[Footnote 91: There was collected for the ducal gallery in 1801, a silver _pace_ that had been made for the company of S. Paolo, and sold upon the suppression of that pious foundation. It represents the saint's conversion, with many tolerably executed figures, from an unknown hand, though less old and valuable than that of Maso. He had ornamented it with niello; but in order to ascertain the workmanship, it was taken to pieces some years since, and the plate examined in the state it came from under the tools of the silversmith. The cuts were found not at all deep, resembling those of our engravers upon sheets of copper, upon the model of which the silver plate, being provided with the ink, was put into the press, and from it were taken as many, perhaps, as twenty fine proofs. One of these is in the collection of the Senator Bali Martelli; and upon this a foreign connoisseur wrote that it was the work of Doni, I know not on what authority, unless, from an error of memory, the name Doni was inserted instead of Dei.] [Footnote 92: Ambrogio Leone mentions both, _De Nobilitate rerum_, cap. 41, and he particularly praises, for his skill in working niello, the second, who is so little known in the history of the arts. See Morelli, Notizia, p. 204.] [Footnote 93: Vasari, who is difficult to understand, at least by many, on account of his brevity, touches upon the different processes used by Maso, which are these: When he had cut the plate, he next proceeded to take a print of it, before he inlaid it with niello, upon very fine earth; and from the cut being to the right hand, and hollow, the proof consequently came out on the left, shewing the little earthen cast in relief. Upon this last he threw the liquid sulphur, from which he obtained a second proof, which, of course, appeared to the right, and took from the relief a hollow form. He then laid the ink (lamp black or printer's ink) upon the sulphur, in such a way as to fill up the hollows on the more indented cuts, intended to produce the shadow; and next, by degrees, he scraped away from the ground (of the sulphur) what was meant to produce the light. And this is also the plan pursued in engraving on copper. The final work was to polish it with oil, in order to give the sulphur the bright appearance of silver.]