Four elements on the workbench

Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571) was a Florentine goldsmith and sculptor. At the start of his treatise on goldsmithing he seems to lay four stones on the bench before his reader. To his eye their colours make a whole account of the world visible.

Why earth looks green

Ruby glows like fire and sapphire has the blue of air. With emerald Cellini adds a small landscape. Earth looks green when herbs grow on it. Inside transparent diamond he can even see water move. Colour, lustre and transparency are working together.

and how nature took the greatest care to represent the colours of those elements, painting them into four most excellent jewels, the ruby, the sapphire, the emerald and the diamond. For the glowing ruby shows us the colour of fire, the sky-blue and pale blue of the sapphire that of air, the cheerful colour of the emerald that of the earth as though covered with green herbs, and the transparent diamond that of water, seen in it clear, shining and rippling.^[1]

Through a goldsmith’s eyes

Cellini is writing for readers who set stones. Soon he turns to the question of how a mount can bring out a jewel’s beauty. After his images of fire and water, a reader understands what a craftsman needs to watch for. A stone held securely in its setting can still move in the light.