Biography

Italian goldsmith. Benvenuto Cellini, the Florentine sculptor and goldsmith, furnished unprecedented biographical and technical accounts of the creation of seal matrices in his autobiography and a treatise entitled De' Suggelli Cardinaleschi (On Cardinals' Seals). He mentions one Lautizio de' Meo di Rotelli, a Perugian goldsmith also known as Lautizio da Perugia, who was allegedly unique in the world in practicing seal engraving professionally in Rome. Over the last 150 years, several extant matrices, impressions, and casts of cardinals' seals from the first quarter of the Cinquecento have been assigned to the Perugian, despite the fact that archival and stylistic evidences does not always support these attributions.

Lautizio di Meo de' Rotelli was listed as a member of the company of goldsmiths of Perugia in 1511 and was associated with the city's mint. He executed gold and silver chalices, seals, and portrait medals. He appears to have moved to Rome before 1523, and in 1524-25 he operated there as a partner to a printer working for the papacy.