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.
Caradosso made first a wax model of the object which he was to
make; this he cast in copper, and on that he laid his thin gold,
beating and modelling it to the form, until the small hollow bas-relief
was complete. The work was done with wooden and steel tools of
small proportions, sometimes pressed from the back and sometimes
from the front; "ever so much care is necessary," writes Cellini,
"...to prevent the gold from splitting." After the model was brought
to such a point of relief as was suitable for the design, great
care had to be exercised in extending the gold further, to fit
behind heads and arms in special relief. In those days the whole
film of gold was then put in the furnace, and fired until the gold
began to liquefy, at which exact moment it was necessary to remove
it. Cellini himself made a medal for Girolamo Maretta, representing
Hercules and the Lion; the figures were in such high relief that
they only touched the ground at a few points. Cellini reports with
pride that Michelangelo said to him: "If this work were made in
great, whether in marble or in bronze, and fashioned with as
exquisite a design as this, it would astonish the world; and
even in its present size it seems to me so beautiful that I
do not think even a goldsmith of the ancient world fashioned aught
to come up to it!" Cellini says that these words "stiffened him
up," and gave him much increased ambition. He describes also an
Atlas which he constructed of wrought gold, to be placed upon a
lapis lazuli background: this he made in extreme relief, using
tiny tools, "working right into the arms and legs, and making all
alike of equal thickness." A cope-button for Pope Clement was also