CORAL. — The working of coral for artistic uses was characteristic of the peoples of the Mediterranean basin from the earliest times. Although there is insufficient data to establish where it first appeared, it can nonetheless be observed, at least from literary references, that it was practiced in Greece in the Alexandrian period, and in Italy during the indigenous civilizations and the Roman period (proof of this is found in some discoveries near Bologna, at Arna, in Campania, and even in Rome itself).
In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance it was not much used, since there is no surviving trace of it in excavations or in the testimony of sources. In the Baroque age, however, it was widely employed, its particular decorative possibilities suiting the prevailing taste, especially in the so-called minor arts.
A school of particular note is that of Trapani, which produced works of undoubted interest, such as rich altar frontals, crucifixes, reliquaries, monstrances, chalices, and Baroque ciboria, finely decorated with coral, which are preserved in the Pepoli Museum of that city, in the National Museum of Palermo, and in Monreale. Recently, there has been an increase in the artisan schools of Torre del Greco (Naples) for the production of coral work, both for religious objects and for the decoration of goldsmithery.
See pls. XXI–XXII.