«Eh, Benvenuto! What can I tell you about Benvenuto? That he is a young Florentine and he is a hothead, even if he is proving to be an excellent chiseller!»
Many were enchanted to hear his deep, almost authoritarian voice. Lucagnolo was a tall, robust man in his fifties. His long graying hair, gathered in a long tail behind his shoulders, and his manicured beard made him look more like a noble warrior than a skilled goldsmith.
Looking at his big, stumpy hands, no one would have ever said that he could make small jewels, so finished that they looked as if they had come out of an illuminator’s workshop. For the finer works, he helped himself with a monocle that, inserted into his eye, allowed him to see the object he was making enlarged by several measurements. The crucible, above the benc
