The expression is: “handed to you on a silver plate”. But a recent breakthrough came to me on a painted ceramic one. Following the clues on that plate led me to solve a small historical puzzle: who once owned a Renaissance manuscript now held in Paris.
Known as a maiolica, the plate features three different imprese: that is, emblems used during the Renaissance as personal badges. Under a coat of arms is a music scroll bearing pauses and rests; on a balustrade in the foreground, the Latin motto Nec spe nec metu (neither by hope nor by fear), and, repeated twice, the most unassuming of all: a Latin numeral, XXVII.
