inion of
tarsia, which, he said, "was practised chiefly by those persons who
possessed more patience than skill in design," and goes on to say that
the subjects most suitable to the process are "perspective
representations of buildings full of windows and angular lines, to which
force and relief are given by means of lights and shades"; that although
he had seen some good representations of figures, fruit, and animals,
"yet the work soon becomes dark, and is always in danger of perishing
from the worms or by fires." He adds that it was first practised in
black and white alone, but Fra Giovanni da Verona improved the art by
staining the wood with various colours by means of liquors and tints
boiled with penetrating oil in order to produce light and shadow with
wood of various colours, making the lights with the whitest pieces of
the spindle tree; to shade, some singed the wood by firing, others used
oil of sulphur, or a solution of corrosive sublimate and arsenic. The
"most solemn" masters of tarsia in Florence were the Majani, La Cecca,
Il Francione, and the da San Gallo. The first name which he gives is
that of Giuliano da Majano (1432-90), architect and sculptor, who
executed as his first work the seats and presses of the sacristy of S.
S. Annunziata at Florence, with Giusto and Minore, two masters in
tarsia. He also did other things for S. Marco. In the archives of the
Duomo, Giuliano di Nardo da Maiano is named in a contract for ornamental
wood-work in the sacristy, to be finished in 1465. There is still
existing in the Opera del Duomo a panel of S. Zenobio standing between
two deacons, executed by him from cartoons by Maso Finiguerra, who
designed five figures for the panels of the sacristy. The heads were
painted by Alessio Baldovinetti. There are also several subjects in the
sacristy, a Nativity, resembling Lippino Lippi's picture in the
Accademia; a Presentation in the Temple, not without a reminiscence of
Ghirlandajo's manner; and an Annunciation. The whole scheme of the
decoration of this wall was Giuliano's, but it was the completion of
work begun in 1439 by Angelo di Lazzero of Arezzo, Bernardo di Tommaso
di Ghigo, Giovanni di Ser Giovanni detto Scheggione, painter and brother
of Masaccio, and Antonio Manetti. Milanesi says his father was Leonardo
d'Antonio da Majano, master of wood and stone work. He entered the Arte
del legnajuolo in company with his younger brother Benedetto, and the
first mention of his w