June 28. 1851.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



521 



called Sonday, throughout eu'y yere of the said terme 

 [40 years or thereabouts], fowre and twenty loaves of the 

 said bread, w'*' the inhread alloned by the baker for 

 those twoe iloseus of bread, to be timely brought and 

 sett vpon a forme towards the vpp' end of the chancell 

 of the said p'ish church of St. Marie, and .... the 

 same twoe dosens of bread to be giueii and distributed 

 .... to and amongst fowre and twentie poore people 

 .... the p'ish cl.iike and sexton of the said chiiicli, 

 and the beadle of the said p'ish of St. Alarie for the time 

 then being, shall alwaies be tliree w'='^ from time to time 

 shall haue their shares and parts in the said bread. 

 And they, tlie said clarke, sexton, and bedell, shall al- 

 waies haue the inhread of all the bread aforesaid ov'' and 

 besides their shares in the said twoe dosens of bread 

 from time to time " 



And William Fiske, of Pakenham, Gent, by 

 will, dated Mai'ch 20, 1648, provided twelve- 

 pence a week to pay weekly ibr one dozen of 

 bread which his mind was, should " be weekly 

 given vnto twelue or t/urtcene" persons therein 

 referred to. J. B. Colman. 



Eye, June 16. 1851. 



MOSAIC. 



(Vol. iii., p. 389.) 



Among the various kinds of picturesque repre- 

 sentation, practised by the Greeks and Romans, 

 and transmitted by them to after times, is that of 

 Mosaic, a mo<le of execution which, in its dura- 

 bility of form, and permanency of colour, ])0ssesses 

 distinguished advantages, being unaffected by heat 

 or cold, drought or moisture, and perishing only 

 with the building to which it has been originally 

 attached. This art has been known in Rome since 

 the days of the Republic. The severer rulers of 

 that period forbade the introduction of foreign 

 marbles, and the republican mosaics are all in black 

 and white. Under the Empire the art was greatly 

 improved, and not n]erely by the introduction of 

 marbles of various colours, but by the invention 

 of artificial stones, termed by the Italians Smalti, 

 which can be made of every variety of tint. This 

 art was never entirely lost. On the introduction 

 of pictures into Christian temples, they were first 

 made of OT06'aiC ." remaining specimens of them are 

 rude, but profoundly interesting in an historical 

 point of view. Wlien art was restored in Italy, 

 mosaic also was improved ; but it attained its 

 greatest perfection in the last and present century. 

 lioniun mosaic, as now practised, may be described as 

 bein-f the production of pictures by connecting together 

 numerous minute pieces of coloured marble or arti- 

 ficial stones. These are attached to a ground of 

 copper, by means of a strong cement of gum mastic, 

 and other materials, and are aftericurds ground and 

 polished, as a stone would be, to a perfectb/ level 

 surface. 15y this ai't not only are ornaments made 

 on u small scale, but picture* of the largest size are 



copied. The most remarkable modern works are 

 the copies which have been executed of some of 

 the most important works of the great masters, for 

 the altars in St. Peter's. These are, in every re- 

 spect, perfect imitations of the originals ; and when 

 the originals, in spite of every care, must change 

 and perish, these mosaics will still convey to dis- 

 tant ages a perfect idea of the triumphs of art 

 achieved in the fifteenth century. Twenty years 

 were employed in making one of the copies 1 have 

 mentimied. The pieces of mosaic vary in size from 

 an eighth to a sixteenth of an inch, and eleven men 

 were employed i'w that time on each picture. A 

 great improvement was introduced into the art in 

 1775, by Signor Raffaeli, who thought of prepar- 

 ing the smalti in what may be termed fine threads. 

 The pastes or smalti are manufactured at Venice, in 

 the shape of crayom, or like sticks of sealing-wax, 

 and are afterwards drawn out by the ivorkman, by a 

 bloivpipe, into the thickness he requires, often almost 

 to an hair, and a?-e seldom thicker than the finest 

 grass stalk. For tables, and large articles, of 

 course, the pieces are thicker ; but the beauty of 

 the workmanship, the soft gradation of the tints, 

 and the cost, dejiend upon tiie mimdeness of the 

 pieces, and the skill displayed by the artist. A 

 ruin, a group of flowers or figures, will employ a 

 good artist about two months, when only two 

 inches square ; and a specimen of such a descrip- 

 tion costs from 51. to 20.'., according to the execu- 

 tion : a landscape, six inches by four, would re- 

 quire eighteen months, and would cost from -iOl. 

 to 501. For a picture of Pfestum, eight feet long 

 by twenty inches broad, on which four men were 

 occupied for three years, 1000^. sterling was asked. 

 The mosaic work of Florence differs entirely from 

 Roman mosaic, being composed of stones inserted 

 in comparatively large masses. It is called work 

 in pietra dura ; the stones used are all of a more 

 or less precious nature. In old specimens, the most 

 beautiful works are those in which the designs are 

 of an arabesque cliaracter. The most remarkable 

 specimen of this description of pietra dura, is an 

 octagonal table, in the Gubinetto di Baroccio, in 

 the Florence Gallery. It is valued at 20,000/. 

 sterling, and was conmienced in 1623 by Jacopo 

 Detelli, from designs by Ligozzi. Twenty-two 

 artists worked iqion it without interruption till it 

 was terminated, in the year 1649. 



One principal distinction between the ancient 

 and modern mosaic is, I believe, that the ibrmer 

 was arranged in pattei'ns, the latter coloured in 

 shades. I shall not take up your columns by 

 dwelling on the ancient mosaic, which, as all know, 

 was in use among the Orientals, especially the 

 Persians and Assyrians; and from the Easterns 

 the Greeks received the art. In the Book of 

 Esflier, i. G., we have an allusion to a mosaic pave- 

 ment; and Schleusner understands the Aid/xTTpwrov 

 of St. John, xix. 13., to mean a sort of elevated 



