"Pietra-durá," as an ornament, was first introduced into Italy during the sixteenth century and became a fashion. This was an inlay of highly-polished rare marbles, agates, hard pebbles, lapis lazuli, and other stones; ivory was also carved and applied as a bas-relief, as well as inlaid in arabesques of the most elaborate designs; tortoise-shell, brass, mother-of-pearl, and other costly materials, were introduced, as enrichments in the decoration of cabinets and of caskets. Silver plaques embossed and engraved were pressed into the service as the native princes of Florence, Urbino, Ferrara, and other independent cities vied with Rome, Venice, and Naples in sumptuousness of ornament, and lavishness of expense, until the inevitable period of decline supervened in which exaggeration of ornament and prodigality of decoration gave the eye no repose.
ITALIAN COFFER WITH MEDALLIONS OF IVORY. 15TH CENTURY.
(South Kensington Museum.)
Edmond Bonnaffé, contrasting the latter period of Italian Renaissance with that of sixteenth century French woodwork, has pithily remarked: "Chez eux, l'art du bois consiste à le dissimuler chez nous à le fair valoir."
Mr. Ruskin, in his "Stones of Venice," alludes to this over-ornamentation of the later Renaissance in severe terms. After describing the progress of Art in Venice from Byzantine to Gothic, and from Gothic to Renaissance, he sub-divides the latter period into three classes:—1. Renaissance grafted on Byzantine. 2. Renaissance grafted on Gothic. 3. Renaissance grafted on Renaissance; and this last the veteran Art critic calls "double darkness," one of his characteristic terms of condemnation which many of us cannot follow, but the spirit of which we can appreciate.
Speaking generally of the character of ornament, we find that whereas in the furniture of the Middle Ages, the subjects for carving were taken from the lives of the saints or from metrical romance, the Renaissance carvers illustrated scenes from classical mythology and allegories, such as representations of the elements, seasons, months, the cardinal virtues, or the battle scenes and triumphal processions of earlier times.
CARVED WALNUT WOOD ITALIAN CHAIRS. 16TH CENTURY.
(From Drawings of the Originals in the South Kensington Museum.)