The artists of that time did this with the object of designing "in character," and special models, such as the old triumphal arches, and sarcophagi, at Rome, were in view in these designs. On both arches and tombs sculptured bas-reliefs abounded. Figures reclined over the arches, and were arranged in square compositions in the panels, for which the upper stories of the arches made provision. The renaissance cabinets fell into modifications of this ideal. A century later they grew into house fronts, and showed doors, arches, and balustrades inside, with imitative paved floors, looking-glasses set at angles of 45°, so as to make reflections of these various parts; and in this humorous fashion the inside of a walnut or ebony cabinet was turned into the model of an Italian villa. Again, in place of the running foliated borders and mouldings having a continuous design, or of compositions of foliage, animals, &c., forming in each arch moulding or cornice line a homogeneous line or circle, the renaissance arabesques introduced an entirely new method of decoration. In arabesque ornament all sorts of natural objects are grafted on a central stalk, or, as in the best work, on something like the stem of a candelabrum. The resources of this method are limited only by the fancy and skill of the artist, who grafts here a mask, there a leaf on his stem, and so on. The temptation is the license and discordance that come in when no unity is needed in a piece of ornament, and no continuous effort of mind required to think out and execute one definite idea in designing it. The central stem leads to an exact balance or reversal of one half of each element in the ornament, so that one half only of a panel or border has to be _designed_. In the hands of great artists this kind of ornamentation has been used with consummate grace. CHAPTER VIII. THE RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND, FLANDERS, FRANCE, GERMANY, AND SPAIN. In the foregoing sketch of the furniture, designs, and manufactures of central Italy, we have described the history of contemporaneous furniture throughout Europe. Pope Leo the tenth gave every encouragement to the reviving arts in Rome, and left that capital the great nursery of art down to our day. To Italy the great princes of Europe sent the most promising artists of their dominions, or encouraged such resort. Most of these men were architects and sculptors.