CHAPTER VI. OF CARRARA MARBLES.

These marbles are again of several different sorts. Some are coarse-grained with plenty of stains,[275]and spotted with black; these are very difficult to work in because the particular kind of stains they have in them eats into the workman’s chisels. ’Tis bad luck to him if he happens on one of such stained blocks; for many times they deceive you with a lovely surface outside, while within are all these blots. At Carrara and in the mountains round are many different quarries, and here our great Michaelangelo came himself and spent much time and labour in choosing the quarry from which came all the great statues of his hand in the sacristy of St. Lorenzo, that he made for Pope Clement. Let us discuss this marble a bit.

Just as I kept my promise in dealing with the other branches of the art, of illustrating from my own notable works, so will I do likewise with this most noble art of sculpture. Indeed I have always held it to be most wondrous and beautiful, and, what is more, a good deal easier than any of the others; and so I decided to set my hand to a piece of work such as no man before had ever done. The work in question was the Crucified in marble. I fashioned Him in life size, of noble proportions, & set him upon a cross of black marble; this likewise was of Carrara, & is a very difficult marble to work by reason of its being so hard and brittle.

I destined this work for a tomb for myself; and I comforted myself with the reflection that even if the work didn’t quite succeed, at least the intention was good; but so great was the determination that I put into the work, that what with all my previous careful studies, I overcame all the difficulties, and satisfied everybody. So, though of course[276]I have done lots of other works of this kind, I may content myself with instancing this one alone in illustration of marble.

To succeed with a figure in marble the art requires a good craftsman first to set up a little model about two palms high, and in this model he carefully thinks out the pose, making his figure draped or nude as the case may be. After this he makes a second model of the size his marble is to be; & if he wants it tobeparticularly good he must finish the largemodel much more carefully than the small one. If, however, he be pressed for time, or if it be the will of his patron who needs the work in a hurry, it will suffice if he complete his big model in the manner of a good sketch, for this may be quickly done, whereas the working out in marble takes a long time. True it is that many strong men have gone straight for the marble with all the fury of the chisel, preferring to work merely from a small and well designed model, but, notwithstanding, they have been less satisfied with their final piece than they would have been in working from a full size model. This was noticeable in the case of our Donatello, who was a very great man, and even with the wondrous Michaelangelo, who worked in both ways. But it is perfectly well known that when his fine genius felt the insufficiency of small models, he set to work with the greatest humbleness to make models of the size of his marble; and this have we seen with our own eyes in the Sacristy of St. Lorenzo. When you are satisfied with your model you draw the principal views of your statue on to the stone, and mind it be well drawn, for if not you may miscut your block. The best method I ever saw was the one that Michaelangelo used; when you have drawn on your principal view you begin to chisel it round as if you wanted to work a half relief, and thus gradually it comes to be cut out. The best chisels for doing this are those that have got, I might say, very fine points, but the handles of which are at least as small as the little finger. With this chisel,subbia, you approach to within at least half a finger of what is called thepenultima pelle, the last skin but one; then you take a chisel,scarpello, with a notch in the middle of it,[277]and carry on the work further till it be ready for the file,lima, & this file again is called thelima raspa, or roughing file, or occasionallyscuffina. There are ever so many sorts of this tool; there is the blade-shaped file, the semi-circular file, and others of varying sizes, five or six of them, from such as are two fingers thick to such as are the thickness of a very slender penholder. Stone borers,trapani, too, may be employed wherever you have to undercut any difficult piece of drapery, or any pose of the figure that stands free. These borers are of two kinds, one that you turn by means of a thong and a handle with a hole through it; with this you can do all the more delicate and minute interstices in hair or drapery; the other is larger and called thetrapano apetto, which you use in those parts for which the first is inapplicable.

When the chisels, whethersubbieorscarpelli, the files, and the borers have all done their work to the due completing of your figure, you proceed to polish the surface with a fine white, close-grained pumice stone. I must not omit to say for the guidance of those who are unskilled in working marble, that they may strike boldly in with theirsubbie; for the moredelicatesubbia, provided it be not inserted straight into the stone, does not crack the marble, but just chips off as lightly as possible whatever may be necessary; while with thescarpello a taccathe rough edges may then be brought to an even plane, & you go over the work with it just as if you were making a drawing for the surface. And this truly is the right method, and the one which the great Michaelangelo employed. Some have tried other ways, and thinking to have their work done quicker have sought to get their figure out by taking a bit off first in one place and then in another, but it took them all the longer in the end, and wasn’t near so good; and indeed they mightily mistook, for oftentimes they had to piece up their figures, and yet with all their patching and piecing they could not remedy the mistakes which a want of discipline[278]and patience at the outset had led them into.

Gladly would I go on to describe the various kinds ofsubbie,scarpelli, andtrapani, and likewise the mallets, all of which are of iron tempered, or of the very finest steel; but as everybody in Italy, nowadays, knows all about these things it really isn’t necessary. Had I been writing in France I should have described another sort of stone which is very soft to work in, & also white, but not the brilliant white of marble, rather a dull white. This stone, after it is first quarried, is so soft and easy to work, that some masters, especially those of Paris, and I too, while there, wrought it with wooden chisels, only we notched them in various ways in order the easier to cut the work out according to the sketch. After this it was finished with delicate and close chisels, pointed tools[279]andscarpelliof all sorts. This stone, in course of time, hardened almost like marble, especially its external surface, but I never saw any that came up to marble when it was cleaned.

The ancients, you know, had so great a joy in things of this kind that they paid their sculptors with fine liberality, and so they came to investigate the most difficult things; amongst others they wrought in a sort of green stone, often nowadays called Greek stone, of the hardness of agate orchalcedony. Now though I have seen fair sized figures in this stone, I have never been able to imagine how it was worked, for, though it admits of being smoothed with lead[280]and emery for the purpose of pavements and such things, I can only conceive that for carving figures out of it the ancient masters must have had some secret of tempering their steel, and so were enabled to overcome the stone’s tremendous hardness.

There are yet other kinds of stone of which I have in Rome seen statues, both many and great, serpentine and porphyry, but more of porphyry,for the stone is somewhat softer. Up to our own day there was no one who worked in this stone, till one of our Fiesolé carvers took it up, his name was Francesco del Tadda. This man with a fine cunning found out the way of working in porphyry. His patience was great, & he used little hammers,martelleti, sharpened like chisels,subbie, and otherscarpelletti, which he tempered by a special process of his own.[281]Francesco made Porphyry busts just as fine as the ancients. Had he been equally strong in designing he might have done over life size work too, but let it suffice that he has the credit of being the first among moderns to practise this art. Would that his example might inspire all who have great work at heart, princely patrons as well as artists!

We have yet another kind of stone which is called granite. It is somewhat softer than porphyry and there are two kinds, the one is red and comes from the East, the other is white or black & comes from the quarries at Elba; it is very hard to work. The column of Santa Trinita that came to Florence from Rome is of this sort. Moreover it is durable and beautiful, but no statues have been made from this stone in our time.

There are still some other stones that must not be passed over, stones that we get from near Florence, Fiesolé, Settignano and other places. Of these, there is one of a blue colour, very delicate, & as charming to work in as to look at, the country folk call itpietra serena. Great columns are made of it, because it is found in large masses in the quarry, statues are made of it too; but it is no good for open-air use, for though it is beautiful it has no durability. Another sort & a veritable quarry stone[282]is the tan-coloured. It is soft to work in, statues are made of it, and it is so durable that it will resist all effects of wind and weather. Yet another sort, and this likewise a tan-coloured variety, is called thepietra forte, the ‘strong stone,’ & strong it is indeed, for it is desperately hard to work in, statues, weapons, masks, & many other things are made of it. You cannot, however, quarry it in very great pieces as you can the Fiesolé or Settignano varieties. I have mentioned these three sorts of stone because statues may be made in them. There are many others in and around Florence, beautifully marked stones, some hard, some soft, but as they are not used for figure work, I shall have no more to say about them.

FOOTNOTES:[275]Smerigli.[276]See ‘Vita,’ p. 475, etc., and note. This crucifix is in the Church of S. Lorenzo, in the Escurial. I give an illustration of it opposite.[277]Con una tacca in mezzo.[278]Ubbidienzia.[279]Gorbie.[280]Il piombe.[281]Altri scarpelletti pur fatti con sue tempere.[282]Pietra morta.

[275]Smerigli.

[276]See ‘Vita,’ p. 475, etc., and note. This crucifix is in the Church of S. Lorenzo, in the Escurial. I give an illustration of it opposite.

[277]Con una tacca in mezzo.

[278]Ubbidienzia.

[279]Gorbie.

[280]Il piombe.

[281]Altri scarpelletti pur fatti con sue tempere.

[282]Pietra morta.

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