INLAY AND MOSAIC

There are three kinds of inlay, one where the pattern is incised,
and a plastic filling pressed in, and allowed to harden, on the
principle of a niello; another, where both the piece to be set
in and the background are cut out separately; and a third, where
a number of small bits are fitted together as in a mosaic. The
pavement in Siena is an example of the first process. The second
process is often accomplished with a fine saw, like what is popularly
known as a jig saw, cutting the same pattern in light and dark
wood, one layer over another; the dark can then be set into the
light, and the light in the dark without more than one cutting
for both. The mosaic of small pieces can be seen in any of the
Southern churches, and, indeed, now in nearly every country. It
was the chief wall treatment of the middle ages.

[Illustration: MARBLE INLAY FROM LUCCA]

About the year 764, Maestro Giudetto ornamented the delightful
Church of St. Michele at Lucca. This work, or at least the best of
it, is a procession of various little partly heraldic and partly
grotesque animals, inlaid with white marble on a ground of green
serpentine. They are full of the best expression of mediæval art.
The Lion of Florence, the Hare of Pisa, the Stork of Perugia, the
Dragon of Pistoja, are all to be seen in these simple mosaics,
if one chooses to consider them as such, hardly more than white
silhouettes, and yet full of life and vigour. The effect is that
of a vast piece of lace,--the real cut work of the period. Absurd
little trees, as space fillers, are set in the green and white