The lapidary technique of cutting pietre dure (hard stones) is akin to that of cutting gemstones, and was highly developed in the ancient world. It was revived in Renaissance Italy, especially in Florence, where a Grand Ducal workshop specialising in this work, later called the Opificio delle Pietre Dure was established in 1588. Sculptures, relief carvings for reliquaries and altar pieces, and other works of art, often extravagantly mounted, were modelled from pietre dure. The use of laminae of the stones for mosaics, incorporated into panels for cabinets (generally ebonised), such as the present examples, became known as commesso di pietre dure or Florentine mosaic. See Annamaria Giusti (editor) Splendori di Pietre Dure, Giusti, Firenze 1988.