266 ARIADNE FLORENTINA. 



wood, metal, we shall have three great schools of engraving 

 to investigate in each material. 



35. On tablet of stone, on tablet of wood, on tablet of steel, 

 the first giving the law to everything ; the second true 

 Athenian, like Athena's first statue in olive-wood, making the 

 law legible and homely ; and the third true Vulcanian, having 

 the splendour and power of accomplished labour. 



Now of stone engraving, which is joined inseparably with 

 sculpture and architecture, I am not going to speak at length 

 in this course of lectures. I shall speak only of wood and 

 metal engraving. But there is one circumstance in stone en- 

 graving which it is necessary to observe in connection with 

 the other two branches of the art. 



The great difficulty for a primitive engraver is to make his 

 scratch deep enough to be visible. Visibility is quite as 

 essential to your fame as permanence ; and if you have 

 only your furrow to depend on, the engraved tablet, at 

 certain times of day, will be illegible, and passed without 

 notice. 



But suppose you fill in your furrow with something black, 

 then it will be legible enough at once ; and if the black fall 

 out or wash out, still your furrow is there, and may be filled 

 again by anybody. 



Therefore, the noble stone engravers, using marble to re- 

 ceive their furrow, fill that furrow with marble ink. 



And you have an engraved plate to purpose ; with the 

 whole sky for its margin ! Look here the front of the church 

 of San Michele of Lucca, white marble with green serpen- 

 tine for ink ; or here, the steps of the Giant's Stair, with 

 lead for ink ; or here, the floor of the Pisan Duomo, with 

 porphyry for ink. Such cutting, filled in with colour or with 

 black, branches into all sorts of developments, Florentine 

 mosaic on the one hand, niello on the other, and infinite 

 minor arts. 



36. Yet we must not make this filling with colour part of 

 our definition of engraving. To engrave is, in final strictness, 

 " to decorate a surface with furrows." (Cameos, in accuratest 

 terms, are minute sculptures, not engravings.) A ploughed 





