In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, under the encouragement of the Medici family, skilled artisans again emigrated to Italy as coadjutors in the great revival of all that was beautiful in gem-engraving.

They created, for the glyptic phase of art, a position almost as important as it had enjoyed in the first century A. D.

It is not surprising that comparatively so few engraved gems have been handed down to us when we consider the tides of the last twenty centuries as a great sea which has borne to the shores of civilized Europe, and later to America, specimens of ancient art creations—that sea, at times placid, yet ever and anon turbulent with devastating storms, whose iconoclastic waves broke upon the ancient sites of antiquity, destroying treasures that thus have been irreparably lost to archÆological science and to our museums.

As a child becomes restless with the consciousness of coming day before it fully wakes from sleep, man, weary of this night of ignorance and the atmosphere of barbarism—fretful on his couch under the yoke of tyranny, striving to shake it off while yet enveloped by the shades of error, rose up to seek an element he knew not, a light he dreamed would come!

SOMMERVILLE COLLECTION.

RENAISSANCE-MEDICI PERIOD.

He burst the cords that bound his strength; he pierced the clouds which dulled his vision, and, leaving his prison-house, reached forth his fearless arm, and pushing aside the sombre folds of the long intervening veil, peered into the outer world of progress, and in the gray gloom he descried a distant terrace. With rapid strides, through furrows of popular prejudice and cinders of past magnificence, over crumbled arch and fallen pillar, frieze, and pediment, he sped his way; nor flagged nor halted, till the summit reached, he stood and gazed with earnest look out into the coming time; he beheld in the vista before him many streams flowing into the sea of the future. In the horizon gleamed again the omen of coming day; it was the harbinger of a new birth.

The light of truth flashed upon his mind, discovering to him his freed intellect. Unlike the denizens of the earlier age of luxury and repletion, he stood a thinking man, refreshed, invigorated, and ready for work; and quickly he applied himself; called forth his kinsman; his voice was heard throughout the land; men awoke everywhere and wrought in the ateliers of the new life.

Through the air came strains as of music, from creaking of timber, cracking of stone, the carol of the painter, hammer and anvil, plashing oar, wheel and shaft, mallet and chisel, and with the new demand upon the gem-engravers came—the Oratorio of the Renaissance.

With this awakening came another influx of skilled artisans into Italy, not to compete, as before, in the great established art market of the world. Now they came in response to appeals for master-workmen, came to instruct, to encourage the new birth; to lead the drowsy ones out into the full light of day, the day of a rising constellation in which once more shone brilliantly a meritorious school of gem-engravers.

Though Germany, France, and other nations shared in the work, Italy guarded the cradle of the Renaissance, and as a faithful, loving parent, watched the developing features of the youth, which grew apace, reading there the promise of a growing power that was destined to lead future generations to excellence and prosperity in art.

Italy accomplished the first great work of this period by furnishing models for both industrial and fine arts, infusing vitality into other nations. The influential families of the Medici and Farnese, Popes Leo X. and Paul III., many cardinals and nobles, were instrumental in the revival of gem-engraving; especially Lorenzo de Medici contributed to its redevelopment and growth by inducing artists to devote themselves to its practice and bestowing on them his liberal patronage.

The vigorous manner of artists of this period is so marked that even in the reproduction of antique designs a connoisseur can recognize their peculiar style. Their original works are highly meritorious, attaining a great degree of excellence. Many rose to eminence; some, not content with rising in the firmanent of the dawning effulgence, aspired to positions in the bright constellation of fame, producing engraved gems for the ornamentation of costumes, armor, inlaying and embossing of vases, tankards, etc.