Linen strips. Application of an entire canvas (generally linen) or canvas strips onto a panel support, before beginning the ground (v.), in order to in part limit the movements of the support due to thermo-hygrometric variations. The use is widely noted from the 13th to the 15th century and, initially, it was a substitute for the application of parchment. Regarding the use of canvas, Giorgio Vasari (1568) observes that from "before the time of Cimabue and from that time onwards, works done by the Greeks in tempera on panel and occasionally on the wall have always been seen. And these old masters when they laid their gesso ground on their panels, fearing less they should open at the joints, were accustomed to cover them all over with linen cloth attached with glue of parchment shreds, and then above that they put on the gesso to make their working ground."