GILDING. - The use of gilding on objects, sculptures and architecture goes back to the most remote antiquity.

The absolutely primordial operation was that of covering objects with very thin sheets of gold; only later did the use of leaf gilding come in, being simpler and less costly. The application or fixing varied according to the material to be covered. With metal, mercury amalgam passed through fire was used; with marble, egg white; and with wood, a rudimentary varnish called leucophorum. In medieval and modern art, as is known from the sources (Theophilus, Schedula diversorum artium; Cennini, Il libro dell'arte, and Cellini and Vasari), the application of gilding did not differ much from that of antiquity.

It was especially in use among painters, who prepared the backgrounds of their panels with gold, among carvers, who gilded frames, tabernacles and other ecclesiastical furnishings, as well as among sculptors, who in this way finished many of their works in bronze. Let the admirable example of Ghiberti's bronze doors for the Florentine Baptistery suffice, recently confirmed by their cleaning.

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: A. de Champeaux, Dictionn. des foudours, ciseleurs, modaleurs en bronze et d'oeufs, depuis le moyen-âge jusqu'à l'époque actuelle, I, Paris-London 1886; F. Rossi, s. v. in Enc. ital., XIII (1932), p. 158; G. Poggi, La ripulitura delle porte del Battistero fiorentino, in Boll. d'arte, 23 (1948), pp. 244-57.

Giovanni Carandente

@incollection{ec4_doratura, author = {Carandente, Giovanni}, title = {Doratura}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {IV}, pages = {1881}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/doratura} }

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Gilding

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