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And so the foremost scholars and the finest artists, Giorgio Merula and Lancinus Curtius, Caradosso and Cristoforo Romano, Bramante and Leonardo, were all drawn to Milan in turn, and, having once entered the Moro's service, remained there until the end.
On my return to Florence, I will make another effort to obtain some of the precious objects which I saw there, and perhaps this time affairs may be in better order, and I may be more successful in obeying the orders of your Excellency, to whom I commend myself. "Your servant, CARADOSSO DE MUNDO. Roma, February, 1495."
But the Florentine magistrates wisely declined to part from these objects of art, which were now the property of the nation, and after Christmas Caradosso went on to Rome. He arrived there to find the French army in possession of the city and everything in the greatest confusion, but in the end succeeded in securing several valuable antiques.
The bronze medals here mentioned, which by Lodovico's orders were to be placed on all the chief public buildings, were probably those designed by Caradosso after Beatrice's death, in which the head of the duke and duchess appear side by side. The name and arms of Beatrice were to be seen everywhere; her portrait was to be placed in the church of the Grazie, and her medallion above the gate.
However, the next day Prosperi reports that the famous goldsmith Caradosso has just arrived with a quantity of rubies and diamonds, which Messer Lodovico has bought for two thousand ducats, and is having strung into necklaces for his wife's ladies. A week of brilliant festivities had been arranged by Duke Ercole in honour of his son-in-law.
He was one of the last of those workers in metals who once sent their masterpieces from Rome to the great cathedrals of the world; one of the last of the artistic descendants of Caradosso, of Benvenuto Cellini, of Claude Ballin, and of all their successors; one of those men of rare talent who unite the imagination of the artist with the executive skill of the practised workman.
In the volume of Bellincioni's Sonnets, published soon after his death by the priest Francesco Tanzio, the name Magistro Leonardo da Vinci appears in a marginal note, and in another sonnet inscribed to "Four illustrious men who have grown up under the shadow of the Moro," the editor gives the respective names of these famous individuals as "the painter Maestro Leonardo Florentino, the goldsmith Caradosso, the learned Greek scholar Giorgio Merula, called the sun of Alessandria, and Maestro Giannino, the Ferrarese gun-founder."
Visit of Isabella d'Este to Milan Birth of Beatrice's son, Francesco Sforza Fêtes and comedies at the Milanese court Works of Leonardo and of Lorenzo di Pavia Mission of Caradosso to Florence and Rome in search of antiques Fall of Naples Entry of King Charles VIII. and flight of Ferrante II. Consternation in Milan Departure of Isabella d'Este.
And among those that he made was one that was very wonderful, wherein he showed the greatest possible judgment, with two bell-towers, one on either side of the façade, as we see it in the coins afterwards struck for Julius II and Leo X by Caradosso, a most excellent goldsmith, who had no peer in making dies, as may still be seen from the medal of Bramante, executed by him, which is very beautiful.
Cellini praises Caradosso beyond all others in this work, saying "it was just in this very getting of the gold so equal all over, that I never knew a man to beat Caradosso!" He tells how important this equality of surface is, for if, in the working, the gold became thicker in one place than in another, it was impossible to attain a perfect finish.
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