286 ARIADNE FLORENTINA. 



And it is one piece of large engraving. White substance, 

 cut into, and filled with black, and dark-green. 



No more perfect work was afterwards done ; and I wish 

 you to grasp the idea of this building clearly and irrevocably, 

 first, in order (as I told you in a previous lecture) to quit 

 yourselves thoroughly of the idea that ornament should be 

 decorated construction ; and, secondly, as the noblest type of 

 the intaglio ornamentation, which developed itself into all 

 minor application of black and white to engraving. 



69. That it should do so first at Florence, was the natural 

 sequence, and the just reward, of the ancient skill of Etruria 

 in chased metal- work. The effects produced in gold, either 

 by embossing or engraving, were the direct means of giving 

 interest to his surfaces at the command of the ' auri faber,' or 

 orfevre : and every conceivable artifice of studding, chiselling, 

 and interlacing was exhausted by the artists in gold, who were 

 at the head of the metal-workers, and from whom the ranks 

 of the sculptors were reinforced. 



The old French word ' orfroiz,' (aurifrigia,) expresses essen- 

 tially what we call ' frosted ' w r ork in gold ; that which resem- 

 bles small dew or crystals of hoar-frost ; the ' frigia ' coming 

 from the Latin frigus. To chase, or enchase, is not properly 

 said of the gold ; but of the jewel which it secures with hoops 

 or ridges, (French, e?ichasser *). Then tho armourer, or cup 

 and casket maker, added to this kind of decoration that of 

 flat inlaid enamel ; and the silver-worker, finding that the 

 raised filigree (still a staple at Genoa) only attracted tarnish, 

 or got crushed, early sought to decorate a surface which 

 would bear external friction, with labyrinths of safe inci- 

 sion. 



70. Of the security of incision as a means of permanent 

 decoration, as opposed to ordinary carving, here is a beautiful 

 instance in the base of one of the external shafts of the Cathe- 

 dral of Lucca ; 1 3th-century work, which by this time, had it 

 been carved in relief, would have been a shapeless remnant of 

 indecipherable bosses. But it is still as safe as if it had been 

 cut yesterday, because the smooth round mass of the pillar is 



* And 'chassis,' a window frame, or tracery. 



