Agemina (Da Agiam = Persia, in Arabic)

AGEMINA (from Agiam = Persia, in Arabic). - It is a synonym for work "à la damascene" and indicates a

technique of metal inlay, in which the metal is hollowed out in a design and filled with threads or sheets of another cold-hammered metal; it is often confused, though improperly, niello (v.). Already known in Egyptian and Cretan-Mycenaean art, it was very widespread in antiquity; its great fortune in Byzantine and Muslim civilization is due to the progressive decline of plastic taste, which was replaced by a taste for color that this technique can satisfy with a refined preciousness of effects and materials. It was often used together with niello for church furnishings (candlesticks, caskets) and also for the partial cladding of sacred buildings (Church of the Apostles and Oratory of the Savior in Byzantium); it found wide use in bronze church doors. Those of the Lateran Baptistery in Rome with silver crosses (5th century) are perhaps of Eastern manufacture; and those of Salerno, Amalfi, Monte S. Angelo, and the richer ones for the Roman basilica of S. Paolo, all from the late 11th century, were imported directly from Byzantium through the Pantaleoni of Amalfi. Our artists, following the example of the Byzantines, later executed the doors for the tomb of Bohemund in Canosa and the two doors of the cathedral of Troia (1119-21). Later, agemina was used predominantly for weapons and secular objects; among sacred items, a "pax" (v.) in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan (16th century) is notable. - See Pl. XXXI.