Chapter CLVII

. is entitled, “How You Must do Miniature-Painting and Put Gold on Parchment.” It is quoted in full. “First, if you would paint miniatures you must draw with a leaden style figures, foliage, letters, or whatever you please, on parchment, that is to say in books; then with a pen you must make the delicate permanent outline of what you have designed. Then you must have a paint that is a sort of gesso, called asiso, and it is made in this manner; namely, a little gesso sottile and a little biacca, never more of this than equals a third part of the gesso; then take a little candy, less than the biacca; grind these ingredients very finely with clear water, collect them together, and let them dry without sun. When you wish to use some to put on gold, cut off a piece as large as you have need of, and temper it with the white of an egg, well beaten, as I have taught you. Temper this mixture with it; let it dry; then take your gold, and either breathing on it or not, as you please, you can put it on; and the gold being laid on, take the tooth or burnishing-stone and burnish it, but hold under the parchment a firm tablet of good wood, very smooth. And you must know that you may write letters with a pen and this asiso, or lay a ground of it, or whatever you please--it is most excellent. But before you lay the gold on it, see whether it is needful to scrape or level it with the point of a knife, or clean it in any way, for your brush sometimes puts more on in one place than in another. Always beware of this.”

The next chapter is also quoted, as it gives another method of laying gold on parchment. “If you would like another kind of asiso--but this is not so good, but may be used for putting on gold grounds, though not to write with--take gesso sottile, and a third part biacca, a fourth part Armenian bole, with a little sugar; grind all these very finely with the white of an egg; lay on the ground in the usual manner, and let it dry; then with the point of a knife scrape and clean the gesso. Put the previously mentioned tablet under the parchment, or a very flat stone, and burnish it; and should it by chance not burnish well when you put on the gold, wet the gesso with clean water with a small minever brush, and when it is dry burnish it.”

Gesso sottile was plaster of Paris that had been thoroughly slaked by long soaking in water so that it had lost all its setting properties. As mentioned in a previous chapter, biacca was white lead. The white of egg is prepared by beating it thoroughly to a thick froth and letting it stand one night to clear itself. Armenian bole is a red earth colour which seems to have been used a great deal to give colour to the ground for gilding. In some of the MSS. where the gold has been slightly rubbed off, the red colour of the raising preparation plainly indicates that is one of the ingredients used.

In