Note 294 — Chapter XX · (XXXIV.)

The word ‘Tausia,’ and its connection with ‘Tarsia,’ the term used for wood inlays, has given rise to some discussion. The explanation in Bucher’s Geschichte der Technischen Künste, III, 14, is probably correct, and according to this the Italian ‘Tausia’ comes from the Spanish ‘Tauscia’ or ‘Atauscia,’ which is derived from an Arabic root meaning ‘to decorate.’ The art of inlaying one metal in another is one of great antiquity in the East, and was no doubt brought to Spain by the Moors, from which country, perhaps by way of Sicily, it spread to Italy. The word ‘Tarsia,’ applied as we have already seen to inlays in wood, may have been derived by corruption from ‘Tausia,’ though, as the form ‘Intarsia’ is also common, a derivation (unlikely) has been suggested from the Latin ‘Interserere.’ The ‘in’ is probably only the preposition, that has become incorporated with the word it preceded.