THE MICROMOSAIC: AN ALL-ROMAN SOUVENIR!!!

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The “Reverenda Fabrica Sancti Petri” was the firm operating in the Vatican for the management and execution of the building and artistic works of St. Peter’s Basilica. At the end of the 18th century, a number of mosaicists, employed by the same including Giacomo Raffaelli, created a new type of mosaic, made with the same techniques as traditional mosaic but with spun glass paste tesserae, far smaller (about 0.1mm) and thinner than the old tesserae. These, were laid on a substrate that could be of various kinds but the most common was “black marble from Belgium,” an element that was able to bring out the distinct and bright colors of the micro mosaic. It was a lengthy process mainly because of the drying time of the mastic, the adhesive used to support the micro tiles. After the design was made through a long process of interlocking, filing was carried out until the final stage, which was to fill in the small gaps left between the tiny silicon rods.

A difficult technique, requiring patience comparable to that of Carthusian monks, but with a unique result, a result that led the “workshops” of these masters to have a copious productive demand for objects and jewelry from the most important aristocracies of Europe.

The subjects requested were obviously those that were most fashionable at the time. With Neoclassicism, artistic productions recalled Hellenic or Roman elements from the findings at Herculaneum and Pompeii, and the “Grand Tour” left a nostalgia in the hearts of the places visited so much that they longed for a miniature copy. The “animalier” subjects, on the other hand, have different meanings, always taken from depictions of classical antiquity, representing allegories and symbolism with mythological references. One among them is the “CAVE CANEM,” the inscription derives from a famous mosaic found in the archaeological excavations of Pompeii, on the entrance floor of the House of the Tragic Poet, while, among the most reproduced’ is surely the “VASE OF PLINIO,” four doves on the edge of a bronze cantarus filled with water from which one drinks, described in Pliny the Elder’s “Naturalis Historia.” Portraits, bucolic landscapes, and romantic scenes were added to the production, all always due to fervent demand from increasingly important commissions.

 

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