98 OF WOOD IN GENERAL. 



for clothes-chests. An Italian chest of this wood of the 14th 

 century is preserved at South Kensington, and John of Gaunt 

 bequeaths one in his will in 1397. The Certosina work, or inlay- 

 ing of this wood arid walnut with ivory, so-called from the choir 

 fittings of the Certosa between Milan and Pavia, an art practised 

 at Florence in the 15th century, was perhaps brought by the 

 Venetians from Persia, from which country it also reached 

 Bombay. Sissoo (DalMrgia Sissoo}, possibly the Chittim of Holy 

 Scripture, and other species of Rosewood, Ebony, Teak, and Wal- 

 nut, may have reached Assyria, Syria, and even more western 

 lands from India ; but the Corsican Ebony used by the Romans 

 for veneers was probably the Laburnum, the "Faux Ebenier" of 

 the French. Lotos-wood, said to have been used in Greek 

 sculpture, may have been that of the Nettle-tree (Celtis austrdlix), 

 still much used in Southern Europe. We read of the Romans 

 using Box and Beech for chairs and for veneers ; Beech for chests ; 

 Olive, both wild and cultivated for veneers ; Fig, Willow, Plane, 

 Elm, Mulberry, Cherry, and Cork-Oak, as ground for veneers ; 

 Maple, especially Bird's-eye Maple (probably Acer campestre), for 

 tables ; and Syrian Terebinth (Pistdcia Terebtnthiis), and Poplar for 

 various other purposes. Though Norway Pine was imported by 

 Henry III., in the 13th century, for panelling at Windsor, through- 

 out the Middle Ages, Oak was the main furniture wood as it was 

 the chief building material. As in the timber frame houses of the 

 Chester rows, the 14th century roof of Westminster Hall, or the 

 marvellously carved one of the Palais de Justice at Rouen in the 

 16th : so in the great bed of Ware and other English and Flemish 

 furniture during the Tudor period, Oak alone is employed. It 

 was used as a bed wood for veneering by Boule under Louis XIV., 

 and was painted white and gilt in the time of Louis XVI. 

 Italian Walnut (Juglans rc'gia) was much used in Italy for carving 

 and gilding from the 15th century; and it was at Venice and 

 Florence that the use of the soft white woods of Willow, Linden, 

 and Sycamore for carved and gilt frames for mirrors originated 

 in the IGth. The use of Ebony, especially for inlaying Walnut 

 wardrobes became more general after the Dutch settlement in 



