House and Garden 
Besides its fanlights, Lucca should be famed for 
its lanterns, which are also relatively numerous and 
so original in form and dissimilar from one another. 
I'he lanterns of the Palazzo Boccella, formerly 
Conti, may per¬ 
haps he thought 
a hit bizarre. 
A thin stem, 
o r n a m e n t e d 
with foliage 
and buds, sup¬ 
ports a species 
of iron cage, 
riie twisted 
uprights are 
c u s p e d a n d 
hear as hnials 
a number of 
irises cut out of 
sheet iron, 
while in the 
space enclosed 
between the 
uprights and 
the cusps is 
inserted a fish bone design. An interesting work 
of the sixteenth century, it may also claim to be 
important for the elegance of its outline and espe¬ 
cially for the rare union of opposing styles. In it, in 
fact, can be recognized the Gothic and the Renais¬ 
sance manner, a circumstance that certainly detracts 
from its general effect. 
Truly artistic is the lantern of the Palazzo Baroni 
nel Fillungo. On the stem that issues from the wall, 
decorated with large leafage, rise eight bars, also 
enfoliaged, which after spreading somewhat are 
united by a hoop of iron and finally expand upwards, 
finishing in lilies, thus producing an ensemble that 
bears the profile of a tulip. 
It certainly can¬ 
not be compared 
with the Strozzi and 
Piccolomini lan¬ 
terns, yet for dainty 
elegance and charm, 
as well as for origi¬ 
nality of design, it 
may be deemed one 
of the best master¬ 
pieces in wrought 
iron made in Tus¬ 
cany in the XVII 
century. Rare, on 
the other hand, 
are screens. The 
o n 1 y o n e o f some 
merit is perhaps the 
quatrefoil one which 
XVII CENTURY RAILING IN THE CASA CELLESI, AREZZO 
encloses the little temple of the Volto Santo, a 
genial work of Matteo Civitali that can be admired 
in the Cathedral. In this case the quatrefoils 
have secondary bars, but a curious and novel 
point; instead 
of finishing in 
trefoils, as is 
customary, 
they end in 
small pyra¬ 
mids, a some¬ 
what happy 
innovation 
which renders 
the whole 
lighter of 
aspect. 
Arezzo can 
show an inter- 
esting and 
pretty work of 
the XVIII cen¬ 
tury in the 
shape of the 
banister of the 
and nature are 
ensemble of deco- 
DOOR GRILLE IN THE PALAZZO BONVISI, LUCCA, XVI CENTURY 
Palazzo Cellesi, where convention 
ingeniously coupled, presenting an 
ration in good taste and of much grace. 
And now let us recapitulate. The use of iron, that 
came from the East, extended over Europe. Then 
with the advent of the Middle Ages a new current, 
descending from the North, carried the renovating 
form of decorative art to the blacksmith’s forge, a 
germ which, planted upon the generous hillsides of 
Italy, produced a crowd of masterpieces. Flowered 
and severe in the fourteenth century, elegant in the 
fifteenth, perfect in the sixteenth, gay and graceful 
in the seventeenth, massive in the eighteenth,—such, 
concisely, the chief phases of decorative iron work in 
Tuscany, such the 
history of many 
monuments, till now 
but little known and 
still less appreciated, 
that whisper names 
of long - forgotten 
artists, and record to 
us of the present the 
great things achieved 
by past genera¬ 
tions, and how much 
greater progress 
ought to be accom¬ 
plished by the gener¬ 
ations of the future 
if they will but give 
due heed to the les¬ 
sons of the past. 
