HISTORYCAL
OUTLINES
OF
XVIIIth
AND XIXth
ROMAN MICROMOSAIC
" Hen with four chicks "
- Vatican Musems -
The micromosaic is integral
part of Rome culture.
Romans used to decorate walls and floors of their villas, tops of table and
other with the
micromosaic.
This tradiction was handed down the following centuries until
XVIIIth , period
in which increased the exigency to preserve the pictorial works reproducing it in
micromosaic
otherwise they shall be destroyed by moisture. It' s just in the half of
XVIIIth
century that the Vatican Study of Mosaic, even called Saint Peter' s Reverend
Mill created this new kind of mosaic, made by the same techniques of classical
roman mosaic but with tesseras in spuned oxides of enamel, much smaller and
thiner than the old tesseras in stone or marble. To have an idea of the difference
in size between these two kind of making the mosaic It' s enough thinking about
the
dimensions of classic mosaic ( about 1 cm of side in section ) compared to the
micromosaic, which has a section even of 0.1 mm. Born this new art that gave the
possibility to do works in miniature, immediately it spreaded to all the fields
which were suitable. So began a thriving trade (
not for who made it ) of goldsmith's objects like brooches,
bracelets, necklaces, earrings etc.; snuff-boxes, little pictures, paper-weights,
tables and all else possible, at the most destined to become souvenirs for the tourists
of Gran Tour. Considered at that time craftsmanship works instead of real art,
finally today it is recognized the just artistic value. Today there are also in
Vatican Musems ( besides in other important musems in the world ) two rooms
where there are high quality micromosaics which is worth visiting. Because of
various reasons linked to multifarious factors, this refined production stopped in the
end of XIXth
century.
Saint Peter' s Reverend
Mill never stops to work and still exists : here are produced mosaics even very little, but that without
fail doesn' t correspond to the old ones for proportions, dimensions of the tesseras
and techniques of finish.