Of Tausia,[294] that is, work called Damascening.
§ 106. _Metal Inlays._
In imitation of the ancients, the moderns have revived a species of
inlaying in metals, with sunk designs in gold or silver, making surfaces
either flat or in half or low relief; and in that they have made great
progress. Thus we have seen works in steel sunk in the manner of tausia,
otherwise called damascening, because of its being excellently well done
in Damascus and in all the Levant. Wherefore we have before us to-day
many bronzes and brasses and coppers inlaid in silver and gold with
arabesques, which have come from those countries; and among the works of
the ancients we have observed rings of steel, with half figures and
leafage very beautiful. In our days, there is made in this kind of work
armour for fighting all worked with arabesques inlaid with gold, also
stirrups and saddle-bows and iron maces: and now much in vogue are such
furnishings of swords, of daggers, of knives and of every weapon that
men desire to have richly ornamented. Damascening is done in this way.
The worker makes undercut sinkings in the iron[295] and beats in the
gold by the force of a hammer, having first made cuttings or little
teeth like those of a slender file underneath, so that the gold is
driven into these hollows and is fixed there.[296] Then by means of
tools, he enriches it with a pleasing design of leaves or of whatever he
fancies. All these designs executed with threads of gold passed through
the wire-drawing plate[297] are twined over the surface of the iron and
beaten in with the hammer, so as to be fixed in the method mentioned
above. Let care however be taken that the threads are thicker than the
incised outlines so as to fill these up and remain fixed into them. In
this craft numberless ingenious men have executed praiseworthy things
which have been esteemed marvellous; and for this reason I have not
wished to omit mention of it, for it depends on inlaid work and so,
partaking of the nature of both sculpture and painting, is part of the
operations of the art of design.