The history of Italian tarsia work takes a new start with the beginning of the Renaissance, and it became as Bode has termed it ‘a true child of the art of the Quattrocento’ or fifteenth century. The earliest examples seem to be in geometrical schemes, influenced by the so-called ‘Cosmati’ work, or inlays of small pieces of coloured stones and gilded pastes, so common in Italy from the twelfth to the fourteenth century. The painted borders to the frescoes of Giotto and other pre-Renaissance masters imitate this kind of work and show how familiar it must have been. Next come conventional ornaments in the so-called ‘Italian’ manner, consisting in acanthus scrolls, swags of fruit and flowers, with classical motives such as horns of plenty and candelabra, among which are soon introduced ‘putti’ or Cupids, terminal figures, etc. As the fifteenth century advanced there was developed the curious penchant, noticed ante, p. [264], for introducing perspective delineations of buildings and articles of furniture into the tarsia designs. Vasari in his Life of Filippo Brunelleschi Opere, ed. Milanesi, II, 333 (see also the text ante, p. [262]), distinctly intimates that this was due to the influence of this artist, whose enthusiasm for perspective studies is well known. The only existing works in wood inlay which might claim to be designed or inspired by Brunelleschi are those in the old sacristy of S. Lorenzo at Florence, but these do not display perspectives, and the subjects comprise only ‘putti’ with candelabra, rosettes, and other simple ornaments. The influence of Brunelleschi on the advancement of the study of perspective was however so great, that Vasari’s view of his general responsibility for the perspectives is credible.

With the perspective designs of the latter part of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century, was developed the elaborate delineation of objects of still-life, as well as more ambitious work in the representation of the human figure, alone or in groups. These inlays were abundantly displayed in wall panelling and on the doors of presses, and more especially on the backs and frames of choir stalls in the churches. It is characteristic of Italian decoration as opposed to that prevailing at an earlier date north of the Alps, to find choir stalls, which in northern churches are made the occasion of the most splendid display of wood carving in the boldest architectural and plastic styles which the world has to show, decorated in Italy for the most part in a pictorial style with flat inlays.

The number of extant examples, both in the case of presses and of choir stalls, is so great that no enumeration is possible, and the reader is referred for a critical account of the chief monuments of the art to the small book by Dr Scherer, Technik und Geschichte der Intarsia, Leipzig, 1891. The artists who fostered the work were also very numerous, and represent many centres in the northern parts of Italy. We learn for instance that in Florence alone in the year 1478 there were no fewer than 84 botteghe where tarsia work was in full practice. The names actually mentioned by Vasari will suffice to represent the chief phases of the craft. If Brunelleschi may have started the idea of perspective designs, these were carried out to great perfection by Fra Giovanni da Verona, whose master-works, the stalls and presses in S. Maria in Organo at Verona, dating from about 1500 onwards, are among the most famous examples of the kind. Here are perspectives of buildings and furniture, objects of still-life, and the like, with geometrical patterns in the framings and on the dado. In figure work Benedetto da Majano, whom Vasari mentions, and more especially his brother Giuliano da Majano, were masters of the very first rank, and the examples left by the latter on the presses of the sacristy of the Duomo at Florence, and on the door leading to the Sala d’ Udienza in the Palazzo Vecchio, are masterpieces of technique and style. At a later date near the middle of the century, the artist mentioned by Vasari towards the end of his chapter XVII, Fra Damiano of Bergamo, a pupil of the same Venetian school from which proceeded Fra Giovanni of Verona, executed at S. Domenico in Bologna a series of works in tarsia that represent the furthest development in a pictorial direction that the craft ever attained.

Plate XVI
EXAMPLE OF TARSIA WORK
S. Zenobi, by Giuliano da Majano, in Opera del Duomo, Florence

Of this display however Dr Scherer aptly writes (p. 80) that, ‘whoever demands from wood an effect similar to that of a picture, sets it in ignorance of its nature to tasks that are beyond its capabilities, and constrains material and technique to exaggerated efforts which are contradictory to their character. This is the fundamental error that clings to all the works of the much-belauded Fra Damiano and is calculated seriously to obscure his greatness.’ The development of tarsia work was in the direction of pictorial effects. Though purely decorative patterns of a geometrical or conventional kind were always used, they tended as the art advanced to be confined to borders and subsidiary parts of a design, while the principal fields were pictorially treated. The introduction of perspectives naturally led to the accentuation of the third dimension of objects, and in still-life compositions modelling and shading were deemed essential. The human figure, the use of which increased greatly as the fifteenth century advanced, was given its plastic roundness which it was assuming in the contemporary frescoes. Conventional leafage, etc., was no longer treated for the effect of a mere flat pattern. In the latter part of the century the figure work of Giuliano da Majano shows how far in this direction the art could be carried while still preserving its sincerity as a mosaic of natural woods. In this work the utmost advantage is taken of the varieties shown by woods in colour and texture, without dependence on artificial colouring matters, and those pictorial refinements over which Vasari sings his usual paean, but which really prefigure the decline of the art. A close examination of a specimen of Giuliano’s inlays of about 1470–80, such as the S. Zenobi now in the Opera del Duomo at Florence (see Plate XVI), shows extraordinary skill and patience in the laborious work. The outlines are marked by thin strips of black wood; the staff which the Saint holds in his hand, though it is not half-an-inch broad, is modelled in light and shade with no fewer than six parallel strips of wood varying in light and dark. The hands are carefully modelled in inlays. The mouth of the figure on the right of the Saint has one piece for the upper lip and a lighter piece for the lower in which the two lights on the lobes are let in with separate pieces. The shadow between the lips and the light on the lower edge of the lower lip are inserted with strips of dark and light tinted wood. In one of the most interesting works of the da Majano brothers, the two portrait figures of Dante and Petrarch, on the door leading into the Sala d’ Udienza in the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence, the face of the older poet is deeply furrowed, and in order to prevent the inlaid streaks appearing too hard and ‘liney’ they are made up of an infinite number of little morsels of wood the size and shape of millet grains, each one glued down into its place. Such work impresses the spectator by its sincerity and earnestness as well as by its technical mastery.

The use of artificial colouring matters, over and above the burning which was the first device employed to give an effect of shading in special places, destroys for us this aspect of sincerity. The material is no longer allowed to express itself in its own character, and taste revolts from the work as it does from tapestry in which pigments have been used to give details for which stitches should in the theory of the work suffice. The case is different from that of the coloured wax medallions noticed ante, p. [188] f., where the scale is so small, and the detailed representation of nature so essential a part of the work, that waxes coloured in the piece could hardly be made to avail.

THE STAINED GLASS WINDOW.

[§ 101, Stained Glass Windows, their Origin and History, ante, p. [265].]

This is not a specially Italian form of the decorative art, but belongs rather to France and north-western Europe. A proof of this may be found in the fact that in 1436 the Florentines have to send for a worker in glass from Lübeck in Germany to make windows for their Duomo (Gaye, Carteggio, II, 441 f.), while at the beginning of the next century Pope Julius II summons French verriers to supply coloured windows for the Vatican (see ante, p. [266], note). The art was differently regarded north and south of the Alps, and Vasari in his account of it gives, in § 102, the tradition of the northern schools, but lets us see at the same time, in § 101, how the Italians were accustomed to envisage the craft.