down the staircase, and he took good care to fall himself on top of him, and calling out that the frater had been taken mad, he bound his arms and legs with cords... and then taking him, hanging over his shoulders, he carried him to a room near, stretched him on the ground, and left him there in the dark, taking away the key.”  We will hope that if Tasso himself was too prone to criticism, he may have learned a lesson from this didactic monastic, and was more tolerant in the future.

Of the work of Canozio, a worker of about the same time, Matteo Colaccio in 1486, writes, “In visiting these intarsiad figures I was so much taken with the exquisiteness of the work that I could not withold myself from praising the author to heaven!” He refers thus ecstatically to the Stalls at St. Antonio at Padua, which were inlaid by Canozio, assisted by other masters.  For his work in the Church of St. Domenico in Reggio, the contract called for some curious observances:  he was bound by this to buy material for fifty lire, to work one third of the whole undertaking for fifty lire, to earn another fifty lire for each succeeding third, and then to give “forty-eight planks to the Lady,” whatever that may mean!  Among the instruments mentioned are:  “Two screw profiles:  one outliner:  four one-handed little planes:  rods for making cornices:  two large squares and one grafonetto:  three chisels, one glued and one all of iron:  a pair of big pincers:  two little axes:  and a bench to put the tarsia on.”  Pyrography has its birth in intarsia, where singeing was sometimes employed as a shading in realistic designs.

In the Study of the Palace at Urbino, there is mention of “arm chairs encircling a table all mosaicked with tarsia, and carved by Maestro Giacomo of Florence,” a worker of considerable repute.  One of the first to adopt the use of ivory, pearl, and silver for inlay was Andrea Massari of Siena.  In this same way inlay of tortoise-shell and brass was made,—­the two layers were sawed out together, and then counterchanged so as to give the pattern in each material upon the other.  Cabinets are often treated in this way.  Ivory and sandal-wood or ebony, too, have been sometimes thus combined.  In Spain cabinets were often made of a sort of mosaic of ebony and silver; in 1574 a Prohibtion was issued against using silver in this way, since it was becoming scarce.

In De Luna’s “Diologos Familiarea,” a Spanish work of 1669, the following conversation is given:  “How much has your worship paid for this cabinet?  It is worth more than forty ducats.  What wood is it made of?  The red is of mahogany, from Habana, and the black is made of ebony, and the white of ivory.  You will find the workmanship excellent.”  This proves that inlaid cabinets were usual in Spain.