s, while in many
cases names and works cannot be connected, for the carver and
intarsiatori were often, like other craftsmen, content to do the work
without caring about the reputation of doing it; but the cases in which
facts of the lives or work of these men have been preserved are so much
the more interesting from their rarity, and certainly do not show them
to any disadvantage compared with other artists, or those among whom
their lives were passed.

THE PROCESS OF MANUFACTURE

The early mode of working intarsia in Italy, where it is more than 100
years more ancient than in any other country, was by sinking forms in
the wood, according to a prearranged design, and then filling the
hollows with pieces of different coloured woods. At first the number of
colours used was very small--indeed, Vasari says that the only tints
employed were black and white, but this must be interpreted freely,
since the colour of wood is not generally uniform, and there would
consequently often be a difference in tint in portions cut from
different parts of the same plank. A cypress chest of 1350, now in the
Victoria and Albert Museum, shows another mode of decoration standing
between tarsia proper and the mediaeval German and French fashion of
sinking the ground round the ornament and colouring it. In this example
the design is incised, the ground cleared out to a slight depth, and the
internal lines of the drawing and the background spaces filled in with a
black mastic, the result much resembling niello. If dark wood be
substituted for the mastic background we have almost the effect of
the stalls of the chapel of the Palazzo Pubblico at Siena, which, though
an early work of Domenico di Nicolo, are well considered in design, well
executed, and quite satisfactory in point of harmony between material
and design.

[Illustration: Plate 51.--_Antonio Barili at work, by himself._

_To face page 104._]

At the commencement of the Renaissance the fancy of the intarsiatori
overflowed in the most graceful arabesques, which are perfectly suited
to the material and are often executed with absolute perfection, and
these may perhaps be held to be the most entirely satisfactory of their
works, though not the most marvellous. The ambition of the craftsman led
him to emulate the achievements of the painter, and we find, after the
invention of perspective drawing, views of streets and other
architectural subjects, which are not always very suc