decoration of it are well known. Instead of fine curls or volutes of gold thread, the Irish filigree is varied by numerous designs in which one thread can be traced through curious knots and complications, which, disposed over large surfaces, balance one another, but always with special varieties and arrangements difficult to trace with the eye. The long thread appears and disappears without breach of continuity, the two ends generally worked into the head and the tail of a serpent or a monster. The reliquary containing the “Bell of St Patrick” is covered with knotted work in many varieties. A two-handled chalice, called the “Ardagh cup,” found near Limerick in 1868, is ornamented with work of this kind of extraordinary fineness. Twelve plaques on a band round the body of the vase, plaques on each handle and round the foot of the vase have a series of different designs of characteristic patterns, in fine filigree wire work wrought on the front of the repoussé ground. (See a paper by the 3rd earl of Dunraven in Transactions of Royal Irish Academy, xxiv. pt. iii. 1873.)
Much of the medieval jewel work all over Europe down to the 15th century, on reliquaries, crosses, croziers and other ecclesiastical goldsmiths’ work, is set off with bosses and borders of filigree. Filigree work in silver was practised by the Moors of Spain during the middle ages with great skill, and was introduced by them and established all over the Peninsula, whence it was carried to the Spanish colonies in America. The Spanish filigree work of the 17th and 18th centuries is of extraordinary complexity (examples in the Victoria and Albert Museum), and silver filigree jewelry of delicate and artistic design is still made in considerable quantities throughout the country. The manufacture spread over the Balearic Islands, and among the populations that border the Mediterranean. It is still made all over Italy, and in Malta, Albania, the Ionian Islands and many other parts of Greece. That of the Greeks is sometimes on a large scale, with several thicknesses of wires alternating with larger and smaller bosses and beads, sometimes set with turquoises, &c., and mounted on convex plates, making rich ornamental headpieces, belts and breast ornaments. Filigree silver buttons of wire-work and small bosses are worn by the peasants in most of the countries that produce this kind of jewelry. Silver filigree brooches and buttons are also made in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Little chains and pendants are added to much of this northern work.
Some very curious filigree work was brought from Abyssinia after the capture of Magdala—arm-guards, slippers, cups, &c., some of which are now in the South Kensington Museum. They are made of thin plates of silver, over which the wire-work is soldered. The filigree is subdivided by narrow borders of simple pattern, and the intervening spaces are made up of many patterns, some with grains set at intervals.
A few words must be added as to the granulated work which, as stated above, some writers have classed under the term of filigree, although the twisted wires may be altogether wanting. Such decoration consists of minute globules of gold, soldered to form patterns on a metal surface. Its use is rare in Egypt. (See J. de Morgan, Fouilles à Dahchour, 1894–1895, pl. xii.) It occurs in Cyprus at an early period, as for instance on a gold pendant in the British Museum from Enkomi in Cyprus (10th century B.C.). The pendant is in the form of a pomegranate, and has upon it a pattern of triangles, formed by more than 3000 minute globules separately soldered on. It also occurs on ornaments of the 7th century B.C. from Camirus in Rhodes. But these globules are large, compared with those which are found on Etruscan jewelry. Signor Castellani, who had made the antique jewelry of the Etruscans and Greeks his special study, with the intention of reproducing the ancient models, found it for a long time impossible to revive this particular process of delicate soldering. He overcame the difficulty at last, by the discovery of a traditional school of craftsmen at St Angelo in Vado, by whose help his well-known reproductions were executed.
For examples of antique work the student should examine the gold ornament rooms of the British Museum, the Louvre and the collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The last contains a large and very varied assortment of modern Italian, Spanish, Greek and other jewelry made for the peasants of various countries. It also possesses interesting examples of the modern work in granulated gold by Castellani and Giuliano. The Celtic work is well represented in the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin.
FILLAN, SAINT, or Faelan, the name of the two Scottish
saints, of Irish origin, whose lives are of a purely legendary
character. The St Fillan whose feast is kept on the 20th of June
had churches dedicated to his honour at Ballyheyland, Queen’s
county, Ireland, and at Loch Earn, Perthshire. The other,
who is commemorated on the 9th of January, was specially
venerated at Cluain Mavscua, Co. Westmeath, Ireland, and so
early as the 8th or 9th century at Strathfillan, Perthshire, Scotland,
where there was an ancient monastery dedicated to him, which,
like most of the religious houses of early times, was afterwards
secularized. The lay-abbot, who was its superior in the reign
of William the Lion, held high rank in the Scottish kingdom.
This monastery was restored in the reign of Robert Bruce, and
became a cell of the abbey of canons regular at Inchaffray.
The new foundation received a grant from King Robert, in gratitude
for the aid which he was supposed to have obtained from a
relic of the saint on the eve of the great victory of Bannockburn.
Another relic was the saint’s staff or crozier, which became
known as the coygerach or quigrich, and was long in the possession
of a family of the name of Jore or Dewar, who were its
hereditary guardians. They certainly had it in their custody
in the year 1428, and their right was formally recognized by
King James III. in 1487. The head of the crozier, which is of
silver-gilt with a smaller crozier of bronze inclosed within it, is
now deposited in the National Museum of the Society of Antiquaries
of Scotland.
The legend of the second of these saints is given in the Bollandist Acta SS. (1643), 9th of January, i. 594-595; A. P. Forbes, Kalendars of Scottish Saints (Edinburgh, 1872), pp. 341-346; D. O’Hanlon’s Lives of Irish Saints (Dublin), n.d. pp. 134-144. See also Historical Notices of St Fillan’s Crozier, by Dr John Stuart (Aberdeen, 1877).
FILLET (through Fr. filet, from the med. Lat. filettum, diminutive
of filum, a thread), a band or ribbon used for tying the hair,
the Lat. vitta, which was used as a sacrificial emblem, and also
worn by vestal virgins, brides and poets. The word is thus
applied to anything in the shape of a band or strip, as, in coining,
to the metal ribbon from which the blanks are punched. In
architecture, a “fillet” is a narrow flat band, sometimes called
a “listel,” which is used to separate mouldings one from the other,
or to terminate a suite of mouldings as at the top of a cornice.
In the fluted column of the Ionic and Corinthian Orders the fillet
is employed between the flutes. It is a very important feature
in Gothic work, being frequently worked on large mouldings;
when placed on the front and sides of the moulding of a rib it
has been termed the “keel and wings” of the rib.
In cooking, “fillet” is used of the “undercut” of a sirloin of beef, or of a thick slice of fish or meat; more particularly of a boned and rolled piece of veal or other meat, tied by a “fillet” or string.
FILLMORE, MILLARD (1800–1874), thirteenth president of
the United States of America, came of a family of English stock,
which had early settled in New England. His father, Nathaniel,
in 1795, made a clearing within the limits of what is now the town
of Summerhill, Cayuga county, New York, and there Millard
Fillmore was born, on the 7th of January 1800. Until he was
fifteen he could have acquired only the simplest rudiments of
education, and those chiefly from his parents. At that age he
was apprenticed to a fuller and clothier, to card wool, and to dye
and dress the cloth. Two years before the close of his term, with
a promissory note for thirty dollars, he bought the remainder
of his time from his master, and at the age of nineteen began to
study law. In 1820 he made his way to Buffalo, then only
a village, and supported himself by teaching school and aiding
the postmaster while continuing his studies.
In 1823 he was admitted to the bar, and began practice at Aurora, New York, to which place his father had removed. Hard study, temperance and integrity gave him a good reputation and moderate success, and in 1827 he was made an attorney
