Il Libro dell' Arte - Cennino D' Andrea Cennini. The Craftsman's Handbook. The Italian "Il Libro dell' Arte." Translated by Daniel V. Thompson, Jr. New York: Dover Publications, Inc. 1933, by Yale University Press.
Notes 1-50 Notes 51-124 Notes 125-162 Notes 163-283
Milanesi [Chapter numbers]
CLXXII Part of a Section Dealing with Mosaic: First, A Fragment from the End of a Chapter Otherwise Lost.[225]
. . . your little figures and tamp them down with something flat, and press them into the gesso, so that the work comes out quite flat. And execute your work in this way.
CLXXII Mosaic of Quill Cuttings.[226]
For this same work quills of feathers are very nice, cut up very small, and stained as I have related.[227] [p. 114]
CLXXII Mosaic of Crushed Eggshells, Painted.[228]
You may likewise work at this mosaic in this way. Take your plain white crushed eggshells, and lay them in over the figure which you have drawn; fill in and work as if they were colored. And then, when you have laid in your figure, you set to painting it, section by section, with the regular colors from the little chest,[229] and tempered with a little white of egg, just as you would do on the regular gessoed one,[230] just using a wash of the colors. And then, when it is dry, varnish, just as you varnish the other things on panel.
CLXXII Mosaic of Paper or Foil.[231]
To lay in these figures as you do on a wall,[232] you must adopt this expedient: take little leaves of gilded or silvered paper, or thick gold or silver foil. Cut it up very small, and lay in with these tweezers, the way you laid in your crushed shells, wherever the ground calls for gold.[233]
CLXXII Mosaic of Eggshells, Gilded.[234]
Likewise, lay the ground with white shells; wet it with beaten white of egg; wet it with the same as that with which you gild on glass; lay your gold while the ground still draws; let it dry, and burnish with cotton. And this must suffice for this mosaic or Greek work. [p. 115]
Copyright
The contents of this site, including all images and text, are for personal, educational, non-commercial use only. The contents of this site may not be reproduced in any form without proper reference to Text, Author, Publisher, and Date of Publication [and page #s when suitable].