One may see that the change from casting to striking medals greatly affected the art of the medalist. The preparation of the model for casting required a technique almost identical with that of the sculptor preparing for a bronze statue, the sculptor in marble of course having to take into account further matters incident to the substance he was finally to work in. On the other hand, the die-engraver’s art required a totally different technique, a skill akin to the requirements of gem-engraving and also to the craft of a goldsmith. When cast medals became reduced to the size of struck medals, the reduction required finer workmanship in the original modeling and in the finishing. This again brought the medalist nearer the goldsmith. Accordingly, we find Francia, Cellini, Valerio Belli, Cesati, Annibale Fontana, Leone Leoni, and others at once goldsmiths or gem-engravers and medalists. It is interesting to visit some museum collection and compare a _cast_ medal by Pisano with a _struck_ medal by Cellini, or with one by Bernardi, in order to note their differences. Very often the extreme fineness in finish of early Italian medals makes them appear at first sight struck when in reality they have been cast. This is especially noticeable in the medals of Pastorino of Siena, who very nearly brought medallic portraiture to its perfection. His manner is full of delicacy and beauty, but it just misses the mark in requisite vigor. There are various medals intimately connected with American history, though many of them have been executed by alien artists. However, with the example set by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Frederick Mac Monnies, Victor D. Brenner, Paul Manship, James Earle Fraser, John Flanagan, and others, it is to be hoped that more of our artists will turn to this field and that more encouragement, public and private, will be given in it. We might well emulate the attention that has been given to the subject in France. Fine medals and coins should be tenderly treated. Every scratch mars their beauty. Each should be kept protected from abrasion. It is vandalism to subject a medal or coin to an unskilled scouring or scraping. The early Italians were greatly interested in medallic art and appreciated beautiful medals as perhaps no other people has ever done. There are, of course, those soulless persons who find in a medal or an uncurrent coin only a suggestion of something that might once have been spent but which cannot be now, and who, with a shrug, refuse to share the enthusiast’s pleasure. The collector must not hope to win such to the interest with which medallic art is invested. CHAPTER XXXV ENGRAVED GEMS