Sant Lovis
Denys' (1646) this ring is thus described: 'L'anneau du mesme glorieux Roy Sainct Louis qui est précieux : il est d'or, semé de fleurs de lys, CEST-LE-SINET-OVROL garny d'un grand saphir quarré sur lequel est gravée l'image du mesme sainct avec les lettres S. L., qui veulent dire Sigillum Lodovici. Sur le rond de l'anneau par le dedans sont gravez ces mots, " C'est le Signet du Roy S. Louis," qui y ont esté adjoustez après sa mort.' A representation of FIC VROT Ring of St. Louis. this remarkable ring is here given. It is now in the Musée des Souverains at the Louvre. 'The wedding-ring,' remarks the Rev. C. W. King, 'of the same prince is said to have been set with a sapphire engraved with the Crucifixion; the shank covered with lilies and marguerites, allusive to his own name and his wife's. This attribution is a mere custode's story. Mr. Waterton, who examined this gem, puts it down to a much later age : the King, a full length, has the nimbus, showing the figure to be posterior to his beatification. It probably belongs to Louis XII.'s time.' In the Braybrooke Collection is a cameo portrait of Madame de Maintenon, on a very large and fine ruby, three eighths of an inch by half an inch wide, in a most beautiful gold ring, contemporaneous setting; presented to Louis XIV. when she retired into the convent of St. Cyr. In the same collection is a cameo portrait of Queen Elizabeth, by Valerio Vicentini, on a sardonyx of three strata, in a fine gold setting of the period; also a cameo portrait of Charles I. on black jasper, a splendid work of art, in a beautifully-enamelled gold ring of his time. The Rev. C. W. King describes the famous signet-ring of Michael Angelo, preserved in the Paris Collection. 'It is a sard engraved with a group representing a Bacchic festival, quite in the Rénaissance style. In the exergue is a boy fishing, the rebus upon the name of the artist Gio Maria da Pescia. Many connoisseurs, however, hold the gem to be an undoubted antique. Of this relic the following curious story is told :- In the last century, as the Abbé Barthelemy was exhibiting the rarities of the Bibliothèque to a distinguished antiquary of the day, he suddenly missed this ring, whereupon without expressing his suspicions, he privately despatched a servant for an emetic, which, when brought, he insisted upon the savant's swallowing, and the ring came to light again.' 1 The celebrated gem representing Apollo and Marsyas, which belonged to Lorenzo de' Medici, and formed one of the magnificent collection of the Grand-Duke of Tuscany, 1 In Montfaucon's 'L'Antiquité Expliquée' there is a fine illustration of this beautiful seal. My edition of the work is in English (1721), and the engraving is in vol. i. page 145. It is thus described the child Bacchus is in the arms of his nurse. She is generally thought to have been Ino, called also Leucothea, or the daughters of Ino (according to others) brought him up. A nymph, or perhaps another nurse, is sitting by. The old man is either Silenus, or it may be Athamas, Ino's husband. Several other nymphs have on their heads baskets full of flowers and fruits. Two Cupids, or Genii, stretch a canopy over Bacchus and the company that are about him. A nymph presents a cup to one of the Cupids. On the side of the figure is an old satyr leaning against a tree. He is playing on a kind of crooked hautboy. At the end, behind the tree, is a young boy, holding with both hands a bason, in which a goat seems to be going to drink. It is not easy to say who a naked man is with the crown on, and holding a cup in one hand, and in the other the bridle of a horse that is prancing. Some have taken it for Apollo.