LAPIDARY Style, denotes the style proper for monumental or other inscriptions.
This is a kind of medium between prose and verse; the jejune and the brilliant are here equally to be avoided. Cicero has prescribed the rules of it: Accedit oportet oratio varia, vehementis, plena spiritu. Omnium sententiarum gravitate, omnium verborum ponderibus, est utendum.
The lapidary style, which was lost with the ancient monuments, has been retrieved at the beginning of this age by Count Emanuel Tesoro: it is now used various ways at the beginning of books; and even epistles dedicatory are composed in it, of which we have no example among the ancients.