Page:Anecdotes of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects, and curiosities of art (IA anecdotesofpaint01spoo).pdf/38

 Mosaic, covering the whole side of a wall, representing, as some suppose, the Battle of Platea; as others, with more probability, one of the Victories of Alexander, was discovered in Pompeii. This work, now in the Academy of Naples, is the admiration of connoisseurs and the learned, not only from its antiquity, but from the beauty of its execution. The most probable supposition is, that it is a copy of the celebrated Victory of Arbela, by Philoxenes.

Vasari says that the art of Mosaic work had been brought to such perfection at Venice in the time of the Bianchini, famous mosaic painters of the 16th century, that "it would not be possible to effect more with colors." Lanzi observes that "the church and portico of St. Mark remain an invaluable museum of this kind of work; where, commencing with the 11th century, we may trace the gradual progress of design belonging to each age, up to the present, as exhibited in many works in mosaic, beginning from the Greeks, and continued by the Italians. They consist chiefly of histories from the Old and New Testaments, and at the same time, furnish very interesting notices of civic and ecclesiastical history." There are a multitude of mosaic pictures in the churches, galleries, and public edifices of Italy, especially at Venice, Rome, Florence, Milan; and some of the greatest artists were employed to furnish the designs. In delicate ornamental work, the pieces are multiplied by sawing into thin slabs. Some spe