Fine embroidery in silk was usually executed in long smooth stitches of irregular length, which merged into each other. This is generally known as satin stitch, for the surface of the work is that of a satin texture when the work is completed. This was frequently executed upon linen, and then, when the entire surface had been hidden by the close silk stitches, it was cut out and transferred on a brocade background, this style of rendering being known as applique. Botticelli recommended this work as most durable and satisfactory: it is oftenest associated with church embroidery. A simple applique was also done by cutting out pieces of one material and applying them to another, hiding the edge-joinings by couching on a cord. As an improvement upon painted banners to be used in processions, Botticelli introduced this method of cutting out and resetting colours upon a different ground. As Vasari says: "This he did that the colors might not sink through, showing the tint of the cloth on each side." But Dr. Rock points out that it is hardly fair to earlier artificers to give the entire credit for this method of work to Botticelli, since such cut work or applique was practised in Italy a hundred years before Botticelli was born! Sometimes solid masses of silk or gold thread were laid in ordered flatness upon a material, and then sewn to it by long or short stitches at right angles. This is known as couching, and is a very effective way of economizing material by displaying it all on the surface. As a rule, however, the surface wears off somewhat, but it is possible to execute it so that it is as durable as embroidery which has been rendered in separate stitches. In Sicily it was a common practice to use coral in embroideries as well as pearls. Coral work is usually called Sicilian work, though it was also sometimes executed in Spain. The garments worn by the Byzantines were very ornate; they were made of woven silk and covered with elaborate devices. In the fourth century the Bishop of Amasia ridiculed the extravagant dress of his contemporaries. "When men appear in the streets thus dressed," he says, "the passers by look at them as at painted walls. Their clothes are pictures, which little children point out to one another. The saintlier sort wear likenesses of Christ, the Marriage of Galilee, and Lazarus raised from the dead." Allusion was made in a sermon: "Persons who arrayed themselves like painted walls" "with beasts and flowers all over them" were denounced!