Table Designs of the i6th and 1 7th Centuries
C harterhouse,who I understand is shortly publish-
ing a history of that foundation, informs me that
there is a plainer table of a similar kind and of
approximatedate at Castle Camps-four miles from
SaffronWalden, of which the Charterhouse holds
the advowson. The Masterwrites :-
Castle Camps manor belonged to the old Elizabethan
soldier, Thomas Sutton, our founder . . . . I ought to
correct one possible source of mistake. Our communion
table was probably put in its place by our first Governors
in or soon after 1614 (when the Hospital began its work),
but Sutton had died in x611. The similarity of type
NOTES ON ITALIAN MEDALS--XX
BY G. F. HILL*
SOME ANONYMOUS MEDALS
HEREis so littleto besaid,or,to be
more correct, I know so little, about
the medals which are illustratedon the
accompanying plates, that I feel some
apology to be necessaryfor publishing
them at all. My chief reason for doing so is that
the mere description of such pieces in words is
futile; it is, for instance, practically impossible,
from A:rmand'sdescriptions, to visualize the few
inconnuis and inconnues whom he includes in
his list. Hence if any progress is to be made in
the classificationand attributionof such pieces, still
more in the identificationof the persons concerned,
illustrations are necessary. But the Berlin Cata-
logue of Italian Bronzes,where a few such portraits
are included on P1. LXXV,is at present the only
attempt at illustrations of the kind.
I begin with certain pieces 1 of the middle and
latterhalf of the 15th century. The first[PLATE I, F],
which is in the Victoriaand Albert Museum,2 is not
wholly anonymous, for at least we know the lady's
baptismal name, Taddea. The inscription reads
in hexameter . DIVA . HOC . IN . RVTILO . CELATA .
EST. ERE . THAD'A. The lettering is peculiar, the
semi-cursiveD, for instance, being without parallel,
I believe, on medals. The date of this piece, to judge
by its style and by the costume, must be about the
middle of the 15th century. It is the most important
of a group of portraitsmore or less contemporary.
Very close to it, for instance, is the pretty piece,
octagonal with incurved sides, also at South
Kensington [PLATE I, G].8 This shows rathermore
power of modelling than the portraitof Taddea,but
is still primitive enough.
* For previous articles in this series see Burlington Magazine,
Vol. xxvIl:, p. 65 (May 1915).
1 For photographs and casts of the Victoria and Albert Museum
specimens I have to thank Mr. Eric Maclagan. The photographs
on PLATE I, A-G, are slightly reduced; I owe the measure-
ments to Mr. Bedford. The casts of the Berlin and Vienna
specimen's were sent me in happier days by Dr. Regling
and Ritter A. von Loehr.
2514-1864 ; diam. 79"5 mm.
Another specimen, in the col-
517-43-864 ; 62"5 x44mm.
lection of the late M. Gustave Dreyfus, is illustrated by Rodo-
canachi, La femme Italienne, p. 220.
R 235
between the Castle Camps table (where Sutton owned the
manor and often lived at his farm next the church) is
merely suggestive, and I do not think there is any record at
Camps of the date of its being placed in the church, nor yet
of the person who gave it. ...
This is all extremely interesting because of the
probabilityof the two tables having been made by
the same hand. The Castle Camps table may be
more pleasing by reason of its greater simplicity.
The date on the Charterhouse table-1616-is
somewhat perplexing in the light of the above
facts.
The Victoria and Albert Museum possesses two
other members of the same group. Of one
[PLATE I, D] 4 there exist at least three specimens.
Of the other5 [PLATE I, C], I know of but the one
example. These two are very close to each other;
note, for instance, the modelling of the eye with the
ratherheavy lower lid.
The most charming,however,of all these ladies is
one, also at South Kensington, of about the same
date, but by a different hand [PLATE I, A]6. The
portraitis fresh and lively, whereasthose previously
described tend some to angularity, others to heavi-
ness. On the reverse of this piece [PLATE I, B] is a
delightfulrecumbentCupid. Baron de Cosson has
a specimen of the obverse with the field cut away.
Where these pieces were made it is difficult to
say, but they are clearly North Italian. The school
of medallists with which they seem to me to have
most affinityis the Ferrarese; but I should not like
to be asked to give detailedreasonsfor this opinion.
Another group of anonymous portraits, also of
about the same period, say 1450-1475, represents
men. In the Vienna Cabinet is the portrait of a
boy with heavy zazzera and tall conical cap
[PLATEI, J].7 This is close in style to the Victoria
and Albert Museumportraitof a young man with
supercilious expression, zazzera,and cap with edge
turned up all round [PLATEI, E].8 And to the same
group, if not to the same hand, belong two pieces
which are illustratedin the Berlin Catalogue,9also
with busts of men in profile to the left. All this
group, again, recalls the portraits by Ferrarese
medallists of the time of Borso d'Este.
The little group of the Berlin Museum1oof
rectangularplaquettes, which are inscribed on the
backs of the framesin which they are enclosed with
the names and dates of members of the Venetian
4516-1864; x 38 mm. Another in the Dreyfus collection,
50"5Gustave
Les Arts, La Coll.
Dreyfus, 1908, p. 77, viii, and a third
in a private collection at Florence (lead, 51 x 38 mm.).
54480-i858
1 ; 49 x 36"5mm.
697-1865 ; 52 x 30'55 mm.
7 72 X 39 mm,
8 696-1865 ; 54 x 49 mm.
9 Ital. Bronzen, Io85 and Io86, Taf. LXXV.
10Ital.
Bronzen, Io79-Io83.
Notes on Italian Medals
family of Amadi, has the appearance of having
been made, or reproduced from pieces made,about
1481, the latest date which any of them bears.
There is, however,so much that is mysteriousabout
these pieces that I prefernot to discuss them until it
is possible to see the originals or casts. I note here
only two points. First, that the original of the
portrait of Angelo Amadi must be the circular
medal-of which there is a specimen in the Brera--
which has the same portraiton the obverse and the
Amadi armsin a formal wreathon the reverse."
Secondly, what Facino da Perugia really had to
do with these pieces, and whether FACINIPERVGINI
OPvs,which is inscribedon the back of the frame of
the portrait of Amado Amadi, means that he made
the plaquette, or some medal from which it is
copied, are points which remain to be determined.
The impression given by the whole group is that of
a series of fancy family portraits. Why, otherwise,
should Angelo Amadi in 1481 be wearing an early
15th-century headdress, and why should Amado
and Giovanni Amadi, whose dates are given as
1366 and 1381 respectively, be in the fashion of
1450-1475 or thereabouts?
Partlyfor its own interest,partlyfor the veryclear
contrastwhich it affordsto the North Italian works
already described, I include here [PLATE I, H] a
little medal of Florentine origin.
Obv. Bust of a youth 1., with long hair; small
round cap ; plain dress.
Rev. A leopard,wearing a collar, seated 1.,with
his r. forepawgraspingthe stem of a laurel-tree; in
the field to 1. a star, to r. a crescent.
39 mm. Vienna.
This-in spite of the sulky expression of the
boy-is a very pleasing example of the Florentine
school of the end of the 15th century; no doubt
some would attribute it to Niccolb Fiorentino
without further ado. The reverse, whatever its
meaning-and it suggests a heraldic origin-has
the advantage,none too common in the Florentine
series, of being not a mere stock design but some-
thing intimately related to the obverse.
One more anonymous medal is figured on
PLATE I, L, and this we are fortunately able to
" Armand, III, 182a. Four specimens were placed by Angelo
Amadi himself in the foundations of the Madonna de' Miracoli
in 1481. See Boni in Archivio Veneto, xxxii (1887), pp. 245,
248. I have to thank the kindness of Comm. Francesco Gnecchi
for a cast of the Brera specimen. It is an ugly, roughly made
medal, so coarse in execution that were it not for the docu-
mentary evidence one would put it down as a 17th-century
forgery. The document quoted by Boni gives an inscription
(the same as that which is found on the back of the frame of the
Berlin plaquette) as occurring on the circular medal ; but neither
the Brera specimen nor the drawing in the document itself bears
this out.
DESCRIPTION OF PLATE I, OPPOSITE
Medals in the Victoria and Albert Museum. North Italian
[A-G]
(Ferrarese ?) school.
H] Florentinemedal in the Vienna cabinet.
] Medal in theVienna cabinet, North Italian (Ferrarese?) school.
J
236
assign to a definite medallist. This is Mr. Rosen-
heim's little oval bronze portrait of an elderly
clean-shaven man (34 x 32 mm.). It is without
doubt by the medallist Mea, who signs MEAF
on the reverseof the strikingmedal of Pietro Pom-
ponazzo, the Mantuan philosopher. The obverse
of the latter medal-hitherto Mea's only known
work-is illustrated on PLATE I, K, to show the
similarity of treatmentin the two busts; one may
observe particularlythe rendering of the hair by a
sort of coarse granulation. At first sight I had
supposed both portraits to represent the same
man, but there are certain differences, as in the
shape of the back of the head, and of the nose,
which weigh in the balance against certain other
extraordinaryresemblances,and force us to assume
that at the nearest the two men are brothers.
Pietro Pomponazzo, Mantuan poet and philo-
sopher, was born in 1462, and taught philosophy
at Padua, Ferrara and Bologna. He died 18 May
1525, and Mea's medal, since it shows him to be
well advanced in age, can hardly be earlier than
1520. Mr. Rosenheim's anonymous medal may
accordingly be given to about the same time.
Nothing, I believe, is known of Mea except what
his work allows us to conjecture. Milanesi sug-
gested that he was the Florentine painter, Giov.
Mazzinghi,called Mea, who is mentioned in 1488
and 1493 ; but the workmanship of the two medals
is in no way Florentine. The late Mr. Talbot
Ready was inclined to attribute to him the medal
of the Mantuan, Battista Spagnoli. There is
sufficient likeness between the two medals to
warrantthe presumption that they were produced
in the same place, if not by the same hand ; and
accordingly we are justified in regarding Mea as
belonging to the small group of Mantuanmedallists
of the early i6th century.
The medals illustrated on PLATE II are all of
the i6th century. In Mr. Maurice Rosenheim's
collection is the oval piece [PLATEII, M] 12with the
bust of a curly-haired boy, wearing cuirass and
mantle, and the reversedesign of Innocence seated
beneath a tree (olive ?), laying a wreath over the
horn of a unicorn which, seated on its haunches,
places its forelegs on her lap. The boy has been
identified as Garcia de' Medici, and indeed the re-
semblance to Bronzino's portraitin the University
Galleriesat Oxford representinghim at about the
same age is close enough to warrant the identifica-
tion. Garcia, the son of Cosimo I, was born in I1547.
In 1562 he happened to kill his brother Giovanni
the Cardinal while hunting, and his father, believing
1259 X49mm. Bronze. There is another specimen in the
Simon Collection at Berlin (No. 373, 57'5 x 48 mm.).
K Pietro Pomponazzo, by Mea. British Museum.
L Anonymous portrait in collection of Mr. Maurice Rosen-
heim. Attributed to Mea.
 A B G D

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NOTES ON ITALIAN MiEDALS-XX

PLATE I
 N

0 O

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NOTES ON ITALIAN MEDALS-XX

PLATE II

him to be guilty of deliberate fratricide,punished
him by stabbing him on the same day. The portrait
is that of a boy of about thirteen or fifteen years.
It may have been made about I56o ; or, again, the
Innocence on the reverse may be an allusion to
his unhappy fate; in which case the medal is
posthumous.
Among the numerous anonymous portraits of
ladies of the second half of the I6th century it is
possible to pick out certain groups. One of these
groups belongs to the school of the highly skilled
wax-modellers of the Emilia, of which Alfonso
Ruspagiari of Reggio (1521-1576) was the chief.
I note the following pieces:--
Bust of a woman to 1.; hair bound with a broad
band; drapery confining lower back hair and
forming wimple; dress of thin material, with a
cloak fastened by a strap and brooch on left
shoulder. No reverse.
51 mm. Bronze gilt. Mr. MauriceRosenheim's
collection [PLATE II, S].
Another in the Wallace Collection (No. 366) has
a raisedborder. There is a reproduction of a third
specimen in the Victoria and AlbertMuseum. This
is probably similar to the portrait described by
Armand, III, p. 255 h, as being sometimes found
attachedto a portraitof Ottavio Farnese. Armand
has noted that it is much in the style of Alfonso
Ruspagiariand the medallist (probably Signoretti)
" S." An oval piece at Berlin (141o), if
who signs
one may judge from a photograph,also belongs to
the same group; but in this the draperyis very
slight, leaving the left shoulder, arm and breast
quite bare,and there is no drapery on the head or
wimple under the chin.
It is instructive to compare these with the
following piece of the Emilian school:--
Bust of woman 1.; hair elaboratelydressed,with
light veil depending from the back hair; necklace
of large beads; dress of thin material, leaving I.
shoulder bare, but held up by a cord passing over
the shoulder, with pendants.
67 mam. Bronze. Mr. Maurice Rosenheim's
collection [PLATE II, R].
It would appearfrom Armand's description that
this is the same portrait as exists in a different
form, signed A. R., i.e. by Ruspagiari."3
There is another oval portrait at Berlin (1399),
in which the bust is all but nude, a slight drapery
being supported on the shouldersby a brooch and
strap arrangement; the back hair is confined in a
"aArmand,I, p. 216, No. 4. Collectionof the late M. Gustave
Dreyfus; 70 x53 mm. There is no trace of the signature on
Mr. Rosenheim'sspecimen.
DESCRIPTION OF PLATE II, OPPOSITE
[M] Don Garciade' Medici? Collectionof Mr. MauriceRosen-
heim.
[N] Reproductionin Victoriaand AlbertMuseum. By A. A. (?)
[o] Collectionof Mr. MauriceRosenheim. Mannerof Antonio
Abondio(?).
[P] Berlin (Simoncollection). North Italian school.
Notes on Italian Medals
sort of kerchief. The effect is simpler than in the
pieces above described, but it may well be by the
same hand as some of them.
Apart from the treatment of the dress, with its
insistence on rather fantastic detail, of which
Ruspagiariis so fond, all these medals, with the
exception of the last mentioned, have the common
characteristicof a rather unintelligent, not to say
stupid, expression. In this they differ altogether
from another medal which belongs to about the
same date :-
Bust of a lady I., wearing light veil falling from
a coif which confines her lower back hair; dress
fastened down the front, turn-down collar, puffed
and slashed sleeves. She holds in her r. a book, in
her 1. the end of her veil.
65 mm. British Museum. Lead.
64mm. Berlin Cabinet(Simon collection). Lead.
"Ital. Bronzen ", No. 1402, Taf. LXXV [PLATE II, P].
It would doubtless be easy, from almost any large
collection of medals, to add to these anonymous
portraits of the Emilian group. And there are a
good numberof others which aremore or less allied
to those alreadydescribed. Of some of these repro-
ductions are exhibitedat South Kensington,and by
Mr. Maclagan's kindness I am able to photograph
casts of two of them [PLATE II, T (71 mm.) and N
(84 mm.)]. In the latterwe see, as in PLATE II, P,
one of the hands represented loosely holding
drapery; but the pretentiousconception combined
with the coarsenessof treatmentis quite foreign to
the delicate style of Ruspagiariand "S." It is, on
the other hand,just in the manner of the medallist
who signs his medals A A. This medallist, who
derives his methods but not his qualities from the
Emilian artists already mentioned, and whom Mr.
Max Rosenheim first distinguished from Antonio
Abondio, was perhapsone of the Ardenti,Agostino
or Alessandro.'4 We may place this anonymous
portrait beside the medal of the sculptor Andrea
Fosco of Faenza,'" which shows all the same
qualities.
The remainderof PLATEII is occupied with two
finely executed pieces which I find it difficult to
place, and which I illustrate-as indeed all the
others-in the hope of obtaining light from some
better informed reader. The first is :
Obv. Bust of a bearded man 1.,wearing mantle,
cuirass and small ruff.
Rev. Diana,with light drapery,standing to front,
resting 1. elbow on a tree-stump; she wears a
14Burlington Magazine, Dec. 1907, pp. 141 f.
15Hill, Portrait Medals of Italian Artists, p. 66, No. 46,
P1.xxvii.
[Q] Collectionof Mr. MauriceRosenheim.
[R] Collection of Mr. Maurice Rosenheim. By Alfonso Rus-
pagiari.
Collectionof Mr. MauriceRosenheim. Emilian school.
[s]
T] Reproductionin Victoria and Albert Museum. North
Italian school,
241
Notes on Italian Medals
crescent on her forehead, holds bow in 1.,arrow in
r., and looks down at a hound seated beside her.
55 mm. Bronze. Collection of Mr. Maurice
Rosenheim [PLATEII,
O].
On both sides are incised
compass rules for the
inscriptions which were to be added after this trial
proof was made. The modelling is very delicate
and recalls, though not too closely, the work of
Antonio Abondio. Possibly the medal is known in
a complete form and I shall easily be convicted of
a wild suggestion.
REVIEWS
CATALOGUE OF THE NATIONAL TREASURES OF PAINTING AND
SCULPTURES IN JAPAN; ICHISABURO NAKAMURA ; with preface
BELL; VIII,I70 pp., 10 illust., native binding.
by E. HAMILTON
Kyoto. London (Quaritch), 7s. 6d.
The student of the arts of the Far East owes a
deep debt of gratitudeto Mr. IchisaburoNakamura,
of the Japanese Imperial Museums,for the pains
and scholarship he has devoted to the production
of this most important catalogue. For lack of it,
or any work corresponding to it in Japanese,I had
to waste much valuable time in finding out the
whereabouts of the treasuresof art I had come so
far to see; only too often to discover, when I had
ascertained that a certain painting or statue was
the property of a certain temple, that it was not to
be seen there at all, but had been removed for safe
keeping to one of the three Imperial Museums.
To compile the catalogue, Mr. Nakamura had
searched through the records of various State
departments extending over nearly twenty years,
and themselves not easy of access even to a
Japanese. As his officialposition would indicate,he
is extremelywell equipped by his knowledge of the
subject to treat it with authority,and his acquaint-
ance with the English language enables him to
present his information to us in an accomplished
and agreeable form. The result is a handy little
volume at an extremely moderate price which will
prove indispensable, not merely to every serious
student of Oriental art throughout the world, but
even to the average tourist who wishes to under-
stand something of the great arts of the inscrutable
East. As is well known to students of the subject,
the splendid arts of Chinese painting and sculp-
ture are only to be studied in Japan,since social
and political upheavals together with convulsions
of nature have almost exterminated them on the
continent which gave them birth. Japan with
great good taste has for many centuries, certainly
since the sixth of our era, continually acquired,
accumulated and stored up these masterpieces in
palace and temple, until to-day she possesses a
treasureof Chinese art such as exists nowhere else
in the world. Add to these the triumphantachieve-
ments of her own artist sons, and it is not too
much to say that nowhere except perhaps in Italy
is such a banquet spread for the connoisseur as in
24.2
Finally we have :-
Obv. Bust of bearded man I., wearing cloak
over doublet "with up-and-down" collar.
Rev. Bust of woman r., her head covered with
a kerchief, wimple under chin; low-necked dress
and light draperyover shoulders.
Oval. 48 x 37 mm. Bronze.
Mr. Maurice Rosenheim's collection [PLATE II,
Q]. Another at Berlin (1386) 47 x 35 mm. Ex-
tremely delicate and charming work, about I550
or earlier.
the museums and temples of Japan. Nothing
more than a superficial acquaintance with these
can be acquired even in the United States,
where a far greater effort has been made to
gather and preservethe masterpiecesof China and
Japan than has been attempted as yet in Europe.
This grave lapse can never now be repaired,since
Japan, wealthy and proud of her past, is with
eminent good sense holding on to her own artistic
achievements and to those of her master and
teacher, China. As soon as the stress of recon-
struction was past, in the year 1897 the enlightened
government of the Island Empire dedicated all
the most importantworks of art remaining in her
temples, together with many of the sacred edifices
themselves, as Kokuh6-National Treasures,there-
by insuring their inalienability and safe keeping
for the benefit of posterity for all time to come.
Additions are made to this store from time to time,
and Mr. Nakamura promises to keep his valuable
little record up to date as need shall arise. An
idea of the judgment with which the selection
of national treasures has been made may be
gathered from the fact that they are divided into
four classes according to their artistic merit; of
the many hundreds listed in this catalogue only
nineteen, eleven works of sculpture and eight of
painting, are considered worthy of place in the
first class. It is true that in most of the temples
the work of art which constitutes the principal
object of worship is for religious reasons placed
hors concoursand is not classed with the others;
but this indicates no artistic rank, so that the
proportion of absolutely first-class works would
probablynot be greatlyincreasedby theirinclusion.
It gives one a very exalted respect for Japanese
connoisseurship to find such masterpieces as the
Five Great Deities of Toji or Nobuzane's famous
Makemono of Kitano Jinsha rated in the second
class. Many hundreds of the works of art so
preserved have been reproduced in the pages of
"Kokka"and other works,periodicaland otherwise,
which the Japanese produce with a skill which far
excels that shown in any Western work of the
kind. To these books also this catalogue will
serve as an index and guide. A word of advice