But bronze is not limited altogether to the production of statues or bas-reliefs on a large scale. Many of the artists quoted by us further back, are known only by works of very small dimensions. Moderni, and V. Locrino, on whom history is silent, have earned a reputation by "plaquettes" or little plates, some not more than an inch in length, inscribed with their name, and impressed with the seal of their genius. In these cast medallions of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, we find not only interesting portraits of all the contemporary celebrities, but also the embodiment of the wonderful vigour of the rising schools of regenerate Italy. We remember the brilliant display exhibited by M. Dreyfus in the Corps legislatif (Exposition four les Alsaciens-Lorrains), a display in which there were jostled together the medallions and plaquettes of Pisanello, Sperandio, Matteo di Pasti, Pollajuolo, Francia, Riccio, Pastorino, Benvenuto Cellini, Tuzzo. Some few specimens were again seen in the galleries of the history of costume, side by side with the bas-reliefs of Donatello, the "Entombment" of Andrea Riccio of Padua, the "Virgin" of Donatello, and the portrait of Leone Alberti, works belonging to the same amateur, and to M. Edouard Andre. To sec these wonders is to understand their finding a place among all men of refined taste. And for those who do not possess private collections, how much more interesting becomes a Florentine bronze statuette, when its pedestal of jasper, rare marble, or carved ebony, is encrusted with plaquettes of the same epoch, or with those rare reproductions in bronze, made by Valerio Belli of Vicenza on the intaglios engraved by him in rock crystal. And what a fine effect is produced by the spirited effigies of Isotta da Rimini, Alfonso and Lionello of Este, Lucrezia Borgia, Alfonso of Aragon, king of Naples, in a glass case, when alternating with coloured wax portraits, miniatures in oil, or the delicate enamels of Limoges.

Here, as among the statuettes, we must separate the productions of France. It is certainly no Italian artists who imagined to perpetuate, by imperishable castings, the memory of the horrors of St. Bartholomew, or who have represented the entry of Henry IV. into Paris in the midst of an intoxicated multitude, hurling headlong into the Seine those suspected of having upheld the League, or favoured the Spaniard. In all such works we recognise, if not the hand, at least the influence of such artists as : -

Michel Colombe, 1430-1512. Richier, 1525-1544. Jean Goujon, 1541-1562. Jean Cousin, 1500-1589. Fremyn, 1540-1550. Roussel Germain Pillon, 1535-1590. Barthelemy Prieur. ob. 1611. Martin Fremiet, 1567-1619. Simon Guillain, 1581-1658. Guillaume Berthelot, ob. 1648. Guillaume Dupre, ob. 1642.

Jacques Sarrazin, 1588-1660. Francois Anguier, 1604-1669. Michel Anguier, 1612-1686. Gaspard Marsy, 1624-1681. Balthazar Marsy, 1628-1674.

This galaxy of artists, encouraged by the Court, must have produced much over and above the masterpieces in our museums, besides forming rivals who, though less renowned, are yet worthy to live in posterity, just as John of Bologna had found, in the Susini, artists capable of making reductions of his great works, the artists above named have reduced in bronze the marble groups of the palaces, and the most distinguished salons of our days are proud to possess these reduced copies.

From bas-reliefs and medallions to medals properly so called, the transition is imperceptible, and if science has drawn a line of demarcation between the (monetarii) mint-masters and the strikers of medallions, there comes a time when the processes of casting and stamping produce works so allied, that it seems almost arbitrary to separate them.

It is far from our purpose to sketch in this place, a manual of numismatics, and we shall merely remark that, thanks to the researches of the learned, the list of engravers on medals and coins has of late years been greatly extended. For antiquity alone, since the labours of the Due de I.uynes, we have arrived at the following names: -

Apollonius.

Aristippus.

Aristobulus.

Aristoxenes.

Bo'iscus.

Choeceon.

Choirion.

Cimon.

Heraclides.

Hippocrates.

Isidotes.

Micyllus.

Molossus.

Nenantus.

Nonclides.

Olympis.

Parmenides.

Cleodorus.

Cratesippus.

Euclidas.

Eumenes.

Euphas.

Euthymos.

Euaenetes.

Exacestidas.

Philistion.

Philon. Phrygillus.

Procles

Solites.

Sosis.

Sosos.

Theodotus.

Zoilus.

The names of old French mint-masters are far from numerous. From the time of Doccion, who signed a medal of Clovis and St. Eloi, whose name appears on an example of the Dagobert period, there occur:-

1326. Jehan de Tournay, seal engraver.

1349. Jehan de Lathom, seal engraver, Angouleme.

1420. Guiot de Hanin, coiner; Jehan Lepere, goldsmith, author of the medal of Louis XII. and Anne of Brittany, the precursor, in a sense, of the illustrious Guillaume Dupre, who struck the medals of Henry IV. and Mary de Medicis. and formed the school of the seventeenth century.