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pittori, scultori, architetti ed intagliatori (Rome, 1642),Vasanzio ‘made cabinets of ebony and ivory, and some mounted with jewels and assembled them with the greatest diligence.’ The pair of similar ebony-veneered cabinets at Castle Howard (fig 1), dating from about 1610, were possibly acquired in Rome by the 4th Earl of Carlisle during his Grand Tour of 1738-9.The inlaid decoration is simpler than that on the Stourhead Cabinet: the plaques that cover the drawers consist mainly of repeated cartouches of lapis lazuli on red stone backgrounds (jasper or coral, perhaps) and vice versa. A similar decoration is used on a Roman cabinet of about the same date at Syon Park, possibly acquired in Rome by Sir Hugh Smithson Bt in 1733-4 (fig 4).The Castle Howard cabinets are supported by crowned eagles, the Borghese emblem, and may have originally belonged to a member of that family. CARDINAL DEMAND There was a demand for inlaid stone decoration and specialists to do the work in Rome, but no papal manufactory in that city. However, among the cardinals who greatly admired antique marbles was Ferdinando de’ Medici, the younger son of Grand Duke Cosimo I (r. 1569-74). On the death of his elder brother, Grand Duke Francesco I (r. 1574-1587), he returned to rule Florence his native city until he died in 1609 and, in 1588 he established a grand-ducal factory, known as the Galleria dei Lavori in the Uffizi Palace. His elder brother had been no less enthusiastic about marbles and precious stones.Within his father’s life time, in 1572 he summoned two gem carvers, the brothers Ambrogio and Stefano Caroni from Milan, and their compatriot Giorgio Gaffurri three years later. Milan, it should be remembered was an important centre for stone inlay decoration. One of finest surviving examples of Milanese pietre dure decoration is the Jewelled Spinet made in 1577 by Annibale Rossi (V&A Museum), and described by Paolo Morigi in la Nobilità di Milano as being ‘of uncommon beauty and excellence, with all the keys of precious stones …’. The Galleria was staffed with a superintendent, designers, modelers, founders, gilders, and cabinetmakers, as well as specialist carvers and cutters, and it would stay at that location until 1859, when it became the Opificio and moved close to the Accademia. GRAND TOUR At the beginning, the main designers were Bartolomeo Buontalenti (1536-1608) and Iacopo Ligozzi (1547-1626).Their role was to supply designs and cartoons, from which specialist craftsmen assembled their pietre commesse, the main tool being a bowed saw, which cut the stone with help of water mixed with emery.Throughout the centuries, a range of hand-worked skills developed, but Fig 3 Giovan Battista Foggini’s lesser work includes a pietre dure cabinet, which can be seen at The Vyne, image courtesy of the National Trust. 36
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Fig 4. Cabinet, ebony mounted in gilt, bronze and pietre dure. Rome about 1600, possibly acquired by Sir Hugh Smithson Bt in 1733-34. (Syon Park) the process of cutting remained painfully slow, as various foreign visitors observed. Richard Lessels (The Voyage of Italy … Paris, 1670) noted, ‘there I saw a great round table made of inlaid precious stones, polished neatly … it was fifteen years in making, and yet thirty men wrought it daily’. John George Keysler (Travels through Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Switzerland, Italy and Lorrain … (London, 1756) wrote, ‘A festoon-piece just finished, which is not above a foot and a half in length, and half a foot in breadth, employed the artists eighteen months to complete it. Another piece of embossed work, about the bigness of a middling sheet of paper, representing the adoration of the magi, and a host of angels in the air, has been forty years in hand, under several masters.’ However, he also noted that ‘the more industrious find time to make toys to dispose of to foreigners which are sold at a great price.’ The technique was a closely guarded secret.When Nicholas Stone, the son of the English sculptor of that name, visited Florence with his brother Henry on a study tour in 1637, they were forbidden access to the pietre dure workshops on the first floor. The focal point of the Galleria dei Lavori was an octagonal room, known as the Tribuna, where visitors could see the finest products of pietre dure decoration and admire inlaid tables and two cabinets, veneered with ebony and covered with precious stones, the studiolo nuovo (new cabinet) and the studiolo grande (large cabinet), completed respectively in 1588 and 1593 to the designs of Buontalenti. Admirers of the Galleria included John Evelyn (1620-1706), who paid his first visit in October 1644. ‘Here’, he wrote, ‘were divers incomparable tables of Pietra Commessa, which is a marble ground with several marbles and stones of divers colours, in the shape of flowers, trees, beasts, birds and Landskips like the natural.’ ROYAL GIFTS Much of the work centred on court furnishings and diplomatic gifts. Fernando I’s son, Cosimo II (r. 1609-24) continued with enthusiastic patronage, with Iacopo Ligozzi acting as his chief designer. Ligozzi largely created the Florentine style - naturalistic birds 37

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pittori, scultori, architetti ed intagliatori (Rome, 1642),Vasanzio ‘made cabinets of ebony and ivory, and some mounted with jewels and assembled them with the greatest diligence.’ The pair of similar ebony-veneered cabinets at Castle Howard (fig 1), dating from about 1610, were possibly acquired in Rome by the 4th Earl of Carlisle during his Grand Tour of 1738-9.The inlaid decoration is simpler than that on the Stourhead Cabinet: the plaques that cover the drawers consist mainly of repeated cartouches of lapis lazuli on red stone backgrounds (jasper or coral, perhaps) and vice versa.

A similar decoration is used on a Roman cabinet of about the same date at Syon Park, possibly acquired in Rome by Sir Hugh Smithson Bt in 1733-4 (fig 4).The Castle Howard cabinets are supported by crowned eagles, the Borghese emblem, and may have originally belonged to a member of that family.

CARDINAL DEMAND There was a demand for inlaid stone decoration and specialists to do the work in Rome, but no papal manufactory in that city. However, among the cardinals who greatly admired antique marbles was Ferdinando de’ Medici, the younger son of Grand Duke Cosimo I (r. 1569-74). On the death of his elder brother, Grand Duke Francesco I (r. 1574-1587), he returned to rule Florence his native city until he died in 1609 and, in 1588 he established a grand-ducal factory, known as the Galleria dei Lavori in the Uffizi Palace.

His elder brother had been no less enthusiastic about marbles and precious stones.Within his father’s life time, in 1572 he summoned two gem carvers, the brothers Ambrogio and Stefano Caroni from Milan, and their compatriot Giorgio Gaffurri three years later. Milan, it should be remembered was an important centre for stone inlay decoration. One of finest surviving examples of Milanese pietre dure decoration is the Jewelled Spinet made in 1577 by Annibale Rossi (V&A Museum), and described by Paolo Morigi in la Nobilità di Milano as being ‘of uncommon beauty and excellence, with all the keys of precious stones …’. The Galleria was staffed with a superintendent, designers, modelers, founders, gilders, and cabinetmakers, as well as specialist carvers and cutters, and it would stay at that location until 1859, when it became the Opificio and moved close to the Accademia.

GRAND TOUR At the beginning, the main designers were Bartolomeo Buontalenti (1536-1608) and Iacopo Ligozzi (1547-1626).Their role was to supply designs and cartoons, from which specialist craftsmen assembled their pietre commesse, the main tool being a bowed saw, which cut the stone with help of water mixed with emery.Throughout the centuries, a range of hand-worked skills developed, but

Fig 3 Giovan Battista Foggini’s lesser work includes a pietre dure cabinet, which can be seen at The Vyne, image courtesy of the National Trust.

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