The practices of painting gilt furniture of all kinds, and of modelling terra-cotta work on the wood, were not altogether new accomplishments or confined to the artists of one city. When, therefore, the French having been driven out of Italy, the popes were in security in Rome and the accomplished Medici family reigned in Florence, those states as well as Urbino, Ferrara, and other independent cities were free from the perpetual attitude of defence against foreign invasion; they could indulge their enthusiasm for classic art, and the impulse given to the study of it found a ready response, as great noblemen while building palaces and digging gardens came upon statues, frescoes, vases, bronzes, and many glorious remnants of antiquity. In the various Italian states were artists well skilled and carefully trained, and there was no difficulty in finding distinguished names with whole schools of enthusiastic admirers behind them who, with these precious objects in their view, formed their style on the old classic models. We are to consider such acquirements here only so far as they came to be applied to secular woodwork (of which this cornice from Venice is an example) and the objects of daily use; to coffers, chests, caskets, mirrors, or cabinets, sideboards of various kinds, seats, tables, carriages and furniture of every description. [Illustration] The best artists of the day did not hesitate to give their minds to the making of woodwork and furniture in various materials and employed every kind of accomplishment in beautifying them. Of this fine renaissance period there are so many examples in the South Kensington collection, and some of them of such excellence, that the student need scarcely have occasion to travel beyond the limits of that museum to illustrate the quattrocento and cinquecento furniture and woodwork. Many materials were employed by the renaissance artists. Wood first and principally in making furniture, but decorated with gilding and paintings; inlaid with agate, carnelian, lapis lazuli and marbles of various tints; with ivory, tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl; and with other woods. They also made many smaller objects, such as mirror cases in iron, damascened or inlaid with gold and silver. For many years, however, mirrors continued to be of polished metal, the enrichment being devoted to the outer case. Glass mirrors were not common till a somewhat later period.