artists, who, although they have not produced works of sufficient importance to entitle them to a separate biography, have yet contributed in some degree to the amelioration of art, and the embellishment of the world. Wherefore, taking occasion from what has been said above of the episcopal and capitular buildings of Arezzo, I add, that Pietro and Paolo, goldsmiths of Arezzo, who acquired the art of drawing from Agostino and Agnolo of Siena, were the first who produced large works of merit with the chasing hammer. These artists executed a head in silver, of the size of life, for a dean of Arezzo, wherein the head of San Donato, bishop and protector of that city, was enclosed ; and this work was well worthy of commendation, not only because there were certain figures in enamel of considerable excellence, with other ornaments, to be enumerated among its merits, but also because it was one of the first things done, as we have said, with the chaser. [1]
It was about the same time, or shortly before, that the guild of Calimara,[2] at Florence, employed Maestro Cione, an excellent goldsmith, to construct the greater part, if not the whole, of the silver altar for the church of St. John the Baptist, on which various events from the life of that saint were represented on a plate of silver, embossed with figures in mezzo-rilievo, of tolerably good workmanship. This altar, either from its size, or because it was something new, was then considered most admirable by all who beheld it. In the year 1330, the remains of San Zanobi were discovered beneath the vaults of the church of Santa Reparata ; when this same Maestro Cione enclosed that portion of the head of the saint which is now carried in processions, within a silver head, of the size of life. This head was then accounted a very beautiful thing, and won a great name for the artist, who died soon after, rich and in high reputation.[3]
- ↑ Vasari must here be understood to mean the first in Arezzo, other works of the kind alluded to having been executed, either previously or at the same time, in other places ; as for example, the celebrated Reliquarium of Orvieto, by Ugolino Vieri and other Sienese artists, in 1338. The head executed by the Aretine artists is still in existence.
- ↑ The Guild of Wool workers ; the word calimara—fine wool, was probably brought from Constantinople ; but the MS. of Del Migliore, already cited, declares that this altar was not erected by the Guild of Woolworkers, but by the republic itself.
- ↑ This head is not by Cione. but by a certain Andrea Arditi, of
