In the time of Ferdinand I. the art was carried by Florentines to India, where it was used in decorating some of the palaces. Under Ferdinand II. Pietra Dura reached its climax, there being in Florence at this time a most noted Frenchman, Luigi Siriès, who settled in Florence in 1722. He refined the art by ceasing to use the stone as a pigment in producing pictures, and employing it for the more legitimate purposes of decoration. Some of the large tables in the Pitti are his work. Flowers and shells on a porphyry ground were especially characteristic of Siriès. There was a famous inlayer of tables, long before this time, named Antonio Leopardi, who lived from 1450 to 1525.
The inlay of wood has been called marquetry and intarsia, and was used principally on furniture and choir stalls. Labarte gives the origin of this art in Italy to the twelfth century. The Guild of Carpenters in Florence had a branch of Intarsiatura workers, which included all forms of inlay in wood. It is really more correct to speak of intarsia when we allude to early Italian work, the word being derived from "interserere," the Latin for "insert;" while marquetry originates in France, much later, from "marqueter," to mark. Italian wood inlay began in Siena, where one Manuello is reported to have worked in the Cathedral in 1259. Intarsia was also made in Orvieto at this time. Vasari did not hold the art in high estimation, saying that it was practised by "those persons who possessed more patience than skill in design," and I confess to a furtive concurrence in Vasari's opinion. He criticizes it a little illogically, however, when he goes on to say that the "work soon becomes dark, and is always in danger of perishing from the worms and by fire," for in these respects it is no more perishable than any great painting on canvas or panel. Vasari always is a little extreme, as we know.
The earliest Italian workers took a solid block of wood, chiselled out a sunken design, and then filled in the depression with other woods. The only enemy to such work was dampness, which might loosen the glue, or cause the small thin bits to swell or warp. The glue was applied always when the surfaces were perfectly clean, and the whole was pressed, being screwed down on heated metal plates, that all might dry evenly.
In 1478 there were thirty-four workshops of intarsia makers in Florence. The personal history of several of the Italian workers in inlay is still available, and, as it makes a craft seem much more vital when the names of the craftsmen are known to us, it will be interesting to glance at a few names of prominent artists in this branch of work. Bernardo Agnolo and his family are among them; and Domenico and Giovanni Tasso were wood-carvers who worked with Michelangelo. Among the "Novelli," there is a quaint tale called "The Fat Ebony Carver," which is interesting to read in this connection.
Benedetto da Maiano, one of the "most solemn" workers in intarsia in Florence, became disgusted with his art after one trying experience, and ever after turned his attention to other carving. Vasari's version of the affair is as follows. Benedetto had been making two beautiful chests, all inlaid most elaborately, and carried them to the Court of Hungary, to exhibit the workmanship. "When he had made obeisance to the king, and had been kindly received, he brought forward his cases and had them unpacked... but it was then he discovered that the humidity of the sea voyage had softened the glue to such an extent that when the waxed cloths in which the coffers had been wrapped were opened, almost all the pieces were found sticking to them, and so fell to the ground! Whether Benedetto stood amazed and confounded at such an event, in the presence of so many nobles, let every one judge for himself."
A famous family of wood inlayers were the del Tasso, who came from S. Gervasio. One of the brothers, Giambattista, was a wag, and is said to have wasted much time in amusement and standing about criticizing the methods of others. He was a friend of Cellini, and all his cronies pronounce him to have been a good fellow. On one occasion he had a good dose of the spirit of criticism, himself, from a visiting abbot, who stopped to see the Medicean tomb, where Tasso happened to be working. Tasso was requested to show the stranger about, which he did. The abbot began by depreciating the beauty of the building, remarking that Michelangelo's figures in the Sacristy did not interest him, and on his way up the stairs, he chanced to look out of a window and caught sight of Brunelleschi's dome. When the dull ecclesiastic began to say that this dome did not merit the admiration which it raised, the exasperated Tasso, who was loyal to his friends, could stand no more. Il Lasca recounts what happened: "Pulling the abbot backward with force, he made him tumble down the staircase, and he took good care to fall himself on top of him, and calling out that the frater had been taken mad, he bound his arms and legs with cords... and then taking him, hanging over his shoulders, he carried him to a room near, stretched him on the ground, and left him there in the dark, taking away the key." We will hope that if Tasso himself was too prone to criticism, he may have learned a lesson from this didactic monastic, and was more tolerant in the future.
Of the work of Canozio, a worker of about the same time, Matteo Colaccio in 1486, writes, "In visiting these intarsiad figures I was so much taken with the exquisiteness of the work that I could not withold myself from praising the author to heaven!" He refers thus ecstatically to the Stalls at St. Antonio at Padua, which were inlaid by Canozio, assisted by other masters. For his work in the Church of St. Domenico in Reggio, the contract called for some curious observances: he was bound by this to buy material for fifty lire, to work one third of the whole undertaking for fifty lire, to earn another fifty lire for each succeeding third, and then to give "forty-eight planks to the Lady," whatever that may mean! Among the instruments mentioned are: "Two screw profiles: one outliner: four one-handed little planes: rods for making cornices: two large squares and one grafonetto: three chisels, one glued and one all of iron: a pair of big pincers: two little axes: and a bench to put the tarsia on." Pyrography has its birth in intarsia, where singeing was sometimes employed as a shading in realistic designs.
In the Study of the Palace at Urbino, there is mention of "arm chairs encircling a table all mosaicked with tarsia, and carved by Maestro Giacomo of Florence," a worker of considerable repute. One of the first to adopt the use of ivory, pearl, and silver for inlay was Andrea Massari of Siena. In this same way inlay of tortoise-shell and brass was made,—the two layers were sawed out together, and then counterchanged so as to give the pattern in each material upon the other. Cabinets are often treated in this way. Ivory and sandal-wood or ebony, too, have been sometimes thus combined. In Spain cabinets were often made of a sort of mosaic of ebony and silver; in 1574 a Prohibtion was issued against using silver in this way, since it was becoming scarce.
In De Luna's "Diologos Familiarea," a Spanish work of 1669, the following conversation is given: "How much has your worship paid for this cabinet? It is worth more than forty ducats. What wood is it made of? The red is of mahogany, from Habaña, and the black is made of ebony, and the white of ivory. You will find the workmanship excellent." This proves that inlaid cabinets were usual in Spain.
Ebony being expensive, it was sometimes simulated with stain. An old fifteenth century recipe says: "Take boxwood and lay in oil with sulphur for a night, then let it stew for an hour, and it will become as black as coal." An old Italian book enjoins the polishing of this imitation ebony as follows: "Is the wood to be polished with burnt pumice stone? Rub the work carefully with canvas and this powder, and then wash the piece with Dutch lime water so that it may be more beautifully polished... then the rind of a pomegranate must be steeped, and the wood smeared over with it, and set to dry, but in the shade."