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Updated: June 28, 2025
He made the medals of the twelve Emperors, with their reverses, copying the most beautiful antiques, with a great number of Greek medals; and he engraved so many other works in crystal, that the shops of the goldsmiths, or rather, the whole world, may be seen to be full of impressions taken in gesso, sulphur, or other compositions, from the intagli in which he made scenes, figures, or heads.
He also engraved many pieces of crystal in intaglio, impressions of which in sulphur and gesso are to be seen in many places, and particularly in Verona, where there are marvellous representations of all the planets, and a Venus with a Cupid that has the back turned, which could not be more beautiful.
And Donatello, then quite young, is said to have assisted him, making there by his own hand, with stucco, gesso, glue, and pounded brick, some stories and ornaments in low-relief, which, being afterwards overlaid with gold, made a beautiful accompaniment for the painted stories.
A single cord may be sewn down to make a pattern in relief, leafage, scrollwork, or what not, which, when the surface is all worked over with gold, has very much the effect of gilt gesso. If, for any reason, heavy work of this kind is to be done on silk or satin, that must first be backed with strong linen.
A request for his portrait was made to those disciples of his, who had taken it in gesso, and when I was in Rome last year they promised it to me; but, for all the messages and letters that I have sent to them, they have refused to give it, thus showing little affection for their dead master.
The workboxes, so rich in gilding and relief, came from Italy, when, as early as the year 1400, caskets were covered with a species of lime which was moulded, the gesso, as it was called, on a gilt ground of white compo, giving it a very rich effect.
When the right kind of earth can be obtained the floor can be made very hard and smooth, and will last a very long time without needing repairs. The walls both inside and out are coated in the same manner. On the inside, however, more care is taken to make the walls as even and smooth as possible, after which they are whitewashed with gesso or gypsum."
It was demolished in 1420. According to tradition some of the objects there preserved came from the older church. The pala of the high-altar, a panel painting on gesso ground, the Virgin and Child seated, on the right S. Peter with the keys, on the left S. John the Baptist with scroll "Ecce Agnus Dei," half-length, is one thing. The inscriptions are in Roman capitals.
No color is so noble as the color of a good painting on canvas or gesso. This kind of color being, however, impossible, for the most part, in architecture, the next best is the scientific disposition of the natural colors of stones, which are far nobler than any abstract hues producible by human art.
At Castello della Pieve he painted an altar-piece in oils of the Visitation of Our Lady, with some Saints about her, and in an altar-piece that was painted for the Pieve a San Stefano he depicted the Madonna and other Saints; which two works Lappoli executed much better than the others that he had painted up to that time, because he had been able to see at his leisure many works in relief and casts taken in gesso from the statues of Michelagnolo and from other ancient works, and brought by Giorgio Vasari to his house at Arezzo.
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