/ 
FLO 
which it is a quarter flood, half flood, and 
and high flood. See Tide. 
Flood mctr/c, the mark which the sea 
makes on the shore, at flowing water, and 
the highest tide : it is also called high- 
water -mark. 
FLOOR. The lower part of a mine is 
called the floor, and the upper the roof, 
FLORENTINE work. \y.hen Italy, 
many years past, enjoyed a state of perfect 
tranquillity, and the minds of all ranks of 
the inhabitants were under the influence of 
religious enthusiasm, the different orders of 
religious, the priests, and the nobles, each 
endeavoured to excel the other in the splen- 
did decorations of churches, altars, and 
shrines ; the arts of the architect, the sculp- 
tor, and the painter were exhausted, and 
the pious almost at a loss how to dispose of 
their riches in honour of their numerous pa- 
tron-saints. Mosaic work had been invent- 
ed many centuries, but some ingenious per- 
son, disdaining the comparative ease of that 
beautiful and expensive manner of imitating 
paintings, thought of Florentine work, which 
is performed by inserting fragments of pre- 
cious stones in cement, so as to represent 
any subject usually treated by the pen- 
cil. 
Keysler mentions a Carthusian monas- 
tery, situated between Milan and Pavia, of 
uncommon magnificence: “the greatest 
part of the altars in the church, are adorned 
with elegant representations of birds, flow- 
ers, &c. in the Florentine manner, perform- 
ed by the artful position of precious stones 
inlaid in the marble. The convent enter- 
tains two excellent artists, a father and son, 
to perform these elegant works. The son, 
Yalieri Sac, is so eminent in these per- 
formances, that the greatest mistress of em- 
broidery would find it difficult to equal 
with her needle and silk, the variety of co- 
lours and shades which he expresses by 
sparks of agate, ruby, amethyst, cornelian, 
jasper, lapis-lazuli, and other precious 
stones. The high altar-piece, together with 
the tables on each side, are entirely of this 
Florentine work." 
The Fabrica Degli Uffici, erected at Flo- 
rence by Cosmo I., was appropriated in 
part for the reception of various artists, who 
worked exclusively for the Grand Duke. 
“ But among all the performances executed 
here,” says Keysler, “ that styled Florentine 
work is the most elegant; sparks of pre- 
cious stones, and particles of elegant mar- 
ble, are so disposed as to represent the ob- 
jects of nature in a very beautiful and sur- 
prising manner ; but works of this kind re- 
FLO 
quire a prodigious time to complete them, 
A flower-piece lately finished, about a foot 
and a half in length, and half a foot in 
breadth, employed the artist above eighteen 
months; and a piece of embossed work, 
about the size of a common sheet of paper, 
representing the adoration of the Eastern 
magi, and a group of angels in the air, has 
already been forty years in hand, and under 
the direction of several masters.” 
The late unhappy state of Italy, and the 
probability of still further changes, has been 
so fatally destructive of the arts, that Flo- 
rentine work will not soon be encouraged ; 
and there is little doubt this laborious art 
will be almost lost. 
FLORIN is sometimes used for a coin, 
and sometimes for a money of account. See 
Coin. 
FLORY, Flowry, or Fleury, in he- 
raldry, a cross that has the flowers at the 
end circumflex and turning down, differing 
from the potence, inasmuch as the latter 
stretches out more like that which is called 
patee. 
FLOTILLA, a name given to a number 
of ships which get before the rest in their 
return, and give information of the depar- 
ture and cargo of the flota and galleons. 
FLOUR, the meal of wheat-corn, finely 
ground and sifted. Flour, when carefully 
analyzed, is found to be composed, 1, of 
fecula, which is insoluble in cold water, but 
soluble in hot water ; 2, of gluten ; 3, of a 
saccharine matter, susceptible of the spi- 
rituous fermentation. 
FLOWER, in botany, By this term, 
former botanists, as Ray and Tournefort, 
&c., evidently meant the petals, or beauti- 
ful coloured leaves of the plant, which ge- 
nerally adhere to the seed-bud, or rudiment 
of the fruit. Since the introduction of the 
sexual method, the petals have lost their 
importance, and are now only considered 
as a finer sort of cover, which is generally 
present, but not essentially necessary to the 
existence of a flower. A flower then, in 
modem botany, is as different in meaning 
from the same term in former writers, as 
from the vulgar acceptations of the word at 
this day. The petals, the calyx, nay, the 
threads or filaments of the stamina may all 
be wanting, yet it is a flower still, pio- 
vided the anthers, or male organ ; and the 
stigma or summit of the style, the female 
organ, can be traced ; and that either imme- 
diately in the neighbourhood of one ano- 
ther, as in most plants ; on different pai ts 
of the same plant, as in the class Monoecia 
or on different plants raised from the same 
