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Silverwork Were Paris And Siena: The guild was controlled by a warden or wardens, elected by the members. The guild system lasted everywhere in Europe until the French Revolution. In the 13th and 14th centuries important centers for gold- and silverwork were Paris and Siena. In the 15th century the Burgundian Netherlands and south Germany assumed the front rank in northern Europe.
Cities rivaled one another in the size and height of their cathedrals. The builders of Notre Dame in Paris raised the vaults about 125 feet (38 meters) above the pavement; Amiens, begun somewhat later, reached a height of 137 feet (41 meters), while still later Beauvais topped both of them with vaults 157 feet (48 meters) high. In Italy, both Siena and Florence claimed the special protection of the Virgin. Siena built its sumptuous cathedral in her honor first, only to have the Florentines undertake a much larger project. Thereupon the Sienese made plans to convert their new building into the transept of a new, immensely larger church. They completed little more than the foundations before the wave of cathedral building ebbed, but the civic rivalry is quite clear.
However, the number of surviving examples of gold- and silverwork from the Middle East declines after the triumph of Islam. Only in Christian Europe do examples remain from all periods after the fall of Rome. From before about 1650 A. D., principally religious pieces survive; after that time, sufficient religious and secular pieces survive for the reconstruction of the subsequent history of gold- and silverwork. |
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