032r - - - - - The body of the cuirass
The high lames of the spaulder in a vambrace @ are like a master’s chef d’œuvre, because these pieces have to be very precisely hollowed and adjusted so that movement may be free. The bodies of cuirasses must be very evenly beaten and worked with a hammer.
Morions from Milan are all in one piece and thus better than which are of two.
Painter
As soon as the colors of panels are well dried, the Flemish varnish them so they do not die any further & remain in that state.
The one who knows to work well in distemper will work well in oil. But, on the contrary, the one who knows how to work well in oil will not work in distemper.
For layering gold in distemper
Common painters & scribes make batture, which is joiner’s glue tempered with water on the fire, moderately clear, mixed with very little honey, that is to say a few drops to make it stick, and with it they they form letters, or that which they want to gild, with a pinceau, and immediately after layer the gold, but they never do their work quite neatly, and if there is a lot of honey it dries only with great difficulty. This layer is undone in the rain.
Others do better, they temper candy sugar in water and mix it with sanguine that they call cocon, thoroughly ground, adding a little soap. This is done neatly, & renders gold beautiful if one uses it as the ground layer.