The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

NOTICES OF RECENT NUMISMATIC PUBLICATIONS. 279
has been found necessary in some cases to reduce them by
photography.
Among the medals represented on the plates are the large
pieces of Alfonso V., King of Aragon, by Pisano. The one with
the reverse, VENATOR INTREPID VS, and the king as a naked
youth hunting the boar, upon the back of which he is leaping,
is grandly conceived. The reverse of No. 8, LIBERALITAS
AVGVSTA, is also one of Pisano's most famous works. Here
we see the royal eagle seated on the stump of a tree encircled
by vultures and other inferior birds of prey, to whom he is
magnanimously yielding up his share of the spoil.
Pisano's portraits of Sigismondo di Malatesta (No. 4), of
Malatesta Novello (No. 6), that of Lorenzo de' Medici (the
Magnificent), by Nicolo Fiorentino, and of Savonarola, by an
unknown artist, are some only among many which are equally
deserving of notice.
Among the best medals of the sixteenth century, Pomedello's
charming portrait of Jacoba Corregio, with the inscription,
IACOBA . CORRIGIA . FORME AC MORVM DOMINA, is
a work of the highest excellence.
Benvenuto Cellini's two medals of Clement VII., CLAV-
DVNTVR BELLI PORTAE (No. 86) and VT BIBAT POPV-
LVS, Moses striking the rock (No. 87), are both mentioned by
Cellini himself in his Trattati sopra Voreficeria e la ecultura.
No. 94, of Paul III., reverse, Ganymede watering lilies, by
II Greco, is a striking type, sculpturesque in style. No. 93, by
the same artist, representing Alexander the Great kneeling before
the High Priest of Jerusalem, is, unfortunately, not one of those
selected for illustration. This is the medal of which Vasari
relates that Michelangelo declared, when he saw it, that the hour
for the death of art had arrived, since it was not possible that a
better work could be seen.
Mr. Grueber's Guide to the English Medals, if less interesting
to the artist, will be found invaluable as a companion to the
history of England from the beginning of the sixteenth century
to the end of the eighteenth.
The series of English Medals may be said to commence with
the reign of Henry VIII., whose portrait after Holbein (No. 8) is
a work of some merit. Other medals of this time bear the
portraits of Sir Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, Anne Boleyn,
&c., &c.
The medals of Philip and Mary are by the Spanish artist,
Trezzo, of whom Vasari says, " This master has no equal for
portraits from life, and is an artist of the highest merit in other
respects."