rks may be considered as a new style of painting without colours, a
thing much to be wondered at. And what adds to the marvel is, that
though these works are executed with inlaid pieces the eye cannot even
by the greatest exertion detect the joints." He then goes on in the same
grandiloquent strain--"This good father in dyeing woods in any colour
that you may wish, and in imitation of spotted and marbled stones, as
he has been unique in our century, so I think that he will be without
equal in the future; it is certain that our Lord God has lent him grace,
as I believe, because he wished so much that things might be well ended,
to put his final work on the work of S. Domenico of Bologna. I think,
indeed I am certain, that it will be called the eighth wonder of the
world; and as the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, and the
Greeks boasted of their temples, pyramids, colossi, and sepulchres, thus
happy Bologna will be able to glory in and to boast of the choir of S.
Domenico. And because I do not wish that the love and affection that I
bear to my most excellent father should make me to be considered a
flatterer (!), a thing far from me, and especially with friends about
whom I always speak the truth, I say no more; yet all that which I could
say would be little enough on the merit of his rare and singular virtue,
and on the goodness of his religious and holy life." Fra Leandro
Alberti, in his description of Italy, speaks in something the same
manner--"Frate Damiano, lay brother of the Order of Preachers, has
become a man of as much genius as is to be found in the whole world at
present, in putting together woods with so much art that they appear
pictures made with a brush."

[Illustration: Plate 34.--_Panel from door in Choir of S. Pietro in
Casinense, Perugia._

_To face page 74._]

A few stalls made by him are now in the church of S. Bartolommeo,
Bergamo, which were brought from the Dominican church of S. Stefano,
destroyed for the fortifications in 1561. The designs were made by Trozo
da Monza, Bernardo da Trevi (? Treviglio), and Bramantino. As Locatelli
says, they preceded the famous choir at Bologna, and show the master
trying his wings. Some think that his best works are those in which he
did not employ colour, but only shading, but general opinion considers
his highest point was reached in the doors of S. Pietro in Casinense.

Another Dominican intarsiatore was Fra Antonio da Viterbo, who, in 1437,
mad