96 Mr Wilson on the State of the Arts in Italy. 



specimen of this description of pietra dura is an octagonal 

 table in the Gabinetto di Baroccio, in the Florence Gallery. 

 It is valued at L. 20,000 Sterling, and was commenced in 1623 

 by Jacopo Datelli, from designs by Ligozzi. Twenty -two art- 

 ists worked upon it without interruption till it was terminated 

 in the year 1649. Attempts at landscapes, and the imitation 

 of natural objects, were usually failures in former times, — 

 mere works of labour, which did not attain their object ; but 

 of late works have been produced in this art, in which are re- 

 presented groups of flowers and fruit, vases, musical instru- 

 ments, and other compatible objects, with a truth and beauty 

 which excite the utmost admiration and surprise. These pic- 

 tures in stone are, however, enormously expensive, and can 

 only be seen in the palaces of the great. Two tables in the 

 Palazzo Pitti are valued at L.7000, and this price is by no 

 means excessive. These are of modern design, on a ground 

 of porphyry, and ten men were employed for four years on 

 one of them, and a spot is pointed out, not more than three 

 inches square, on which a man had worked for ten months. 

 But Florentine mosaic, like that of Rome, is not merely used 

 for cabinet tables or other ornamental articles ; the walls of 

 the spacious chapel which is used as the burial-place of the 

 reigning family at Florence are lined with pietra dura, real- 

 izing the gem-encrusted halls of the Arabian tales. Roman 

 mosaic, as we have seen, is of great value as an ally to art ; 

 but Florentine mosaic can have no such pretensions, and time 

 and money might be better bestowed. The effect is far from 

 pleasing in the chapel I have alluded to, and I think that the 

 art might be advantageously confined to the production of 

 small ornaments, for which it is eminently adapted. 



An imitation of the pietra dura is now made to a great ex- 

 tent in Derbyshire, where the Duke of Devonshire's black mar- 

 ble, said to be quite equal to the famous Nero Antico-, is inlaid 

 with malachite, Derbyshire spars, and other stones ; but the in- 

 laying is only by veneers, and not done in the solid as at Flo- 

 rence. This, with the softness of the materials, makes the 

 Derbyshire work much cheaper, and yet for a table, twenty to 

 twenty-four inches in diameter, thirty guineas is asked. Were 

 a little more taste in design and skill in execution shewn, the 



