Goldsmith in the context of "Barclays"

The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make stone tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years and ended between 4000 BC and 2000 BC, with the advent of metalworking. Because of its enormous timescale, it encompasses 99% of human history.

Though some simple metalworking of malleable metals, particularly the use of gold and copper for purposes of ornamentation, was known in the Stone Age, it is the melting and smelting of copper that marks the end of the Stone Age. In Western Asia, this occurred by about 3000 BC, when bronze became widespread. The term Bronze Age is used to describe the period that followed the Stone Age, as well as to describe cultures that had developed techniques and technologies for working copper alloys (bronze: originally copper and arsenic, later copper and tin) into tools, supplanting stone in many uses.

A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the cloth, paper, or other medium was brushed or rubbed repeatedly to achieve the transfer of ink and accelerated the process. Typically used for texts, the invention and global spread of the printing press was one of the most influential events in the second millennium.

In Germany, around 1440, the goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable-type printing press, which started the Printing Revolution. Modelled on the design of existing screw presses, a single Renaissance movable-type printing press could produce up to 3,600 pages per workday, compared to forty by hand-printing and a few by hand-copying. Gutenberg's newly devised hand mould made possible the precise and rapid creation of metal movable type in large quantities. His two inventions, the hand mould and the movable-type printing press, together drastically reduced the cost of printing books and other documents in Europe, particularly for shorter print runs.

Andrea del Verrocchio (/vəˈroʊkioʊ/ və-ROH-kee-oh, US also /-ˈrɔːk-/ -⁠RAW-, Italian: [anˈdrɛːa del verˈrɔkkjo]; born Andrea di Michele di Francesco de' Cioni; c. 1435 – 1488) was an Italian sculptor, painter and goldsmith who was a master of a workshop in Florence. He was the teacher of Leonardo da Vinci, with whom he painted the Baptism of Christ.

He became known as Verrocchio after the surname of his master, a goldsmith. Few paintings are attributed to him with certainty, but his pupils also included Pietro Perugino and Lorenzo di Credi. His was a sculptor and sculpted the Equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice.

Antonio del Pollaiuolo (UK: /ˌpɒlaɪˈwoʊloʊ/ POL-eye-WOH-loh, US: /ˌpoʊl-/ POHL-, Italian: [anˈtɔːnjo del pollaˈjwɔːlo]; 17 January 1429/1433 – 4 February 1498), also known as Antonio di Jacopo Pollaiuolo or Antonio Pollaiuolo (also spelled Pollaiolo), was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, engraver, and goldsmith, who made important works in all these media, as well as designing works in others, for example vestments, metal embroidery being a medium he worked in at the start of his career.

His most characteristic works in his main media show largely naked male figures in complicated poses of violent action, drawing from classical examples and often centred on a heroic Hercules. He, or possibly his brother, was also an innovative painter of wide landscape backgrounds, perhaps having learnt from Early Netherlandish painting. His two papal tombs were the only monuments to survive the demolition of Old St Peter's in the next century and be reconstructed in the present St Peter's Basilica.

Theodor de Bry (also Theodorus de Bry; 1528 – 27 March 1598) was a Walloon engraver, goldsmith, editor and publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. The Spanish Inquisition forced de Bry, a Protestant, to flee his native, Spanish-controlled Southern Netherlands. He moved around Europe, starting from his birth on the city of Liège in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, then to Strasbourg, Antwerp, London and Frankfurt, where he settled.

De Bry created a large number of engraved illustrations for his books. Most of his books were based on first-hand observations by explorers, even if De Bry himself, acting as a recorder of information, never visited the Americas. To modern eyes, many of the illustrations seem formal but detailed.

A silversmith is a metalworker who crafts objects from silver. The terms silversmith and goldsmith are not exact synonyms, as the techniques, training, history, and guilds are (or were, at least) largely the same but differed in that the end product may vary greatly (as may the scale of objects created).

A forming press, commonly shortened to press, is a machine tool that changes the shape of a work-piece by the application of pressure. The operator of a forming press is known as a press-tool setter, often shortened to tool-setter.