To return, however, to what I was saying about that large portion of the
works of art and art-industry every year exported from Italy, mainly by
individual buyers for the gratification of their own taste, which
consists of _imitations_. It may be remarked, especially as regards the
objects belonging to the latter category, that these imitations, if
bought as such, are not undesirable purchases. In many instances,
particularly in those of iron- and bronze-work, intarsia, and carving in
wood, the modern Italian artists, who began as imitators, have attained
a degree of excellence which entitles them to take rank as the founders
of a new artistic _renaissance_, while their familiarity with
cinque-cento art and the loving study of it have led them to produce
work in each of the above-named branches which is calculated to improve
the taste of both workers and purchasers in countries beyond the Alps.
As regards metal-work, whether in iron or bronze, avowedly modern, but
of the true cinque-cento type and style, the amateur would do well to
visit the foundries and workshops of Venice; for intarsia he may go to
Milan; for wood-carving to Florence, Siena and Perugia; to the last also
for intarsia. He will find in Perugia work both in carving and intarsia
on which he might spend his money very much more advantageously than in
buying second-rate bits of really old wood-work, or indeed any such bits
as he is at all likely to meet with.
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