it, and grave upon them dragons or animals or birds, or leaves--in
whatever manner you may wish. But on the top of each handle place a
little wax, round like a slender candle, half a finger in length,...
this wax is called the funnel.... Then take some clay and cover
carefully the handle, so that the hollows of the sculpture may
be filled up.... Afterwards place these moulds near the coals,
that when they have become warm you may pour out the wax. Which
being turned out, melt the silver,... and cast into the same place
whence you poured out the wax. And when they have become cold remove
the clay." The solid silver handles are found inside, one hardly
need say.

In casting in the "cire perdu" process, Benvenuto Cellini warns
you to beware lest you break your crucible--"just as you've got
your silver nicely molten," he says, "and are pouring it into the
mould, crack goes your crucible, and all your work and time and
pains are lost!" He advises wrapping it in stout cloths.

The process of repoussé work is also much the same to-day as it
has always been. The metal is mounted on cement and the design
partly beaten in from the outside; then the cement is melted out,
and the design treated in more detail from the inside. Theophilus
tells us how to prepare a silver vessel to be beaten with a design.
After giving a recipe for a sort of pitch, he says, "Melt this
composition and fill the vial to the top. And when it has become
cold, portray... whatever you wish, and taking a slender ductile
instrument, and a small hammer, design that which you have portrayed
around it by striking lightly." This process is practically, on a
larger scale, what Cellini describes as that of "minuterie." Cellini
praises Caradosso beyond all others in this work, saying "it was just