Just as the ecclesiastics converted Greek painted vases to altar use and sculptured sarcophagi into containers of holy water, they now turned their attention to engraved gems and rescued these baubles from the reproach of being mere vanities by clothing their subjects with Christian legends. Probably to this fact we owe the preservation of some of our finest examples. It was a difficult task to rechristen the gems and endow them with a sacred character quite out of keeping with their conception. However, the early church was ingenious and gave to Jupiter with his eagle the significance of St. John the Evangelist, while Melpomene did very well for Salome with John the Baptist’s head. However, gem-engravers arose to help truth out with veritable subjects, and the church became a powerful patron of the art of gem-engraving. Prelates and princes hastened to have their fancies carried out in intaglii, until the cinquecento produced a host of clever engravers capable of catering to any taste or to any fad or fancy. About this time the forms of intaglii were greatly enlarged. Lorenzo de’ Medici and his successors were munificent patrons of the gem-engraver, and not only formed splendid collections of intaglii but encouraged engravers in Florence, and by the middle of the fifteenth century a graceful classic style had been revived. Giovanni, surnamed Della Corniole, was one of the most excellent artists of the time, and in his everlastingly entertaining “Memoirs” Benvenuto Cellini speaks of Micheletto, who was “very clever at engraving carnelians, an old man and of great celebrity.” This was the engraver whom Vasari calls by the affectionate diminutive “Michelino,” but Cellini himself later calls him “Michele.” The gem-engravers of the sixteenth century were prolific, and their work appealed immensely to the French taste. Francis I was a liberal patron of the glyptic art and had at his court the renowned gem-engraver, Matteo del Nassaro of Verona. Probably the first French gem-engraver of note was Julien de Fontenay, sometimes known as Coldore, who executed an intaglio portrait of Henry IV, and was later invited to England by Queen Elizabeth. Subsequently a taste for the art developed in England, although the culmination of encouragement was not reached until the middle of the eighteenth century, when collecting engraved gems became a mania with many and good examples brought huge prices. Up to the beginning of the nineteenth century the influence of classic designs obtained. King George III was a liberal patron of gem-engravers, and to the foresight of the Duke of Devonshire and Marlborough the world owes the preservation of some of the finest examples extant of intaglii of any time.