Page:EB1911 - Volume 18.djvu/919

 Besides the countless churches in Italy possessing these beautiful pavements, such as S. Lorenzo, S. Marco, S. Maria Maggiore, and S. Maria in Trastevere, in Rome, there are in England, in the Chapel of the Confessor, and in front of the high altar at Westminster, very fine specimens of this work, executed about 1268 by a Roman artist called Odericus, who was brought to England by Abbot Ware, on the occasion of a visit made by the latter to Rome. Another English example is the mosaic pavement in front of the shrine of Becket at Canterbury; this is probably the work of an Englishman, though the materials are foreign, as it is partly inlaid with bronze, a peculiarity never found in Italy. Palermo and Monreale are especially rich in examples of sectile mosaic, used both for pavements and walls—in the latter case generally for the lower part of the walls the upper part being covered with the glass mosaics. Fig. 4 gives a specimen of this mosaic from Monreale cathedral. Its chief characteristic is the absence of curved lines, so largely used in the splendid opus Alexandrinum of Italy, arising from the fact that this class of Oriental design was mainly used for the delicate panelling in wood on their pulpits, doors, &c.—wood being a material quite unsuited for the production of large curves.

3. Glass mosaic, used to ornament ambones, pulpits, tombs, bishops’ thrones, baldacchini columns, architraves, and other marble objects, is chiefly Italian. The designs, when it is used to enrich flat surfaces, such as panels or architraves, are very similar to those of the pavements last described. The white marble is used as a matrix, in which sinkings are made to hold the glass tesserae; twisted columns are frequently ornamented with a spiral band of this glass mosaic, or flutings are suggested by parallel bands on straight columns. The cloisters of S. Giovanni in Laterano and S. Paolo fuori le mura have splendid examples of these enriched shafts and architraves.

This style of work was largely employed from the 6th to the 14th centuries. One family in Italy, the Cosmati, during the whole of the 13th century, was especially skilled in this craft. The pulpit in S. Maria in Ara Coeli, Rome, is one of the finest specimens (see fig. 5), as are also the ambones in S. Clemente and S. Lorenzo, and that in Salerno cathedral. The tomb of Henry III. (1291), and the shrine of the Confessor (1269) at Westminster are the only examples of this work in England. They were executed by “Petrus civis Romanus,” probably a pupil of the Cosmati.

4. Mosaics in wood are largely used in Mahommedan buildings, especially from the 14th to the 17th centuries. The finest specimens of this work are at Cairo and Damascus, and are used chiefly to decorate the magnificent pulpits and other woodwork in the mosques. The patterns are very delicate and complicated, worked in inlay of small pieces of various coloured woods, often further enriched by bits of mother-of-pearl and minutely carved ivory. This art was also practised largely by the Copts of Egypt, and much used by them to ornament the magnificent iconostases and other screens in their churches.

Another application of wood to mosaic work, called “intarsiatura,” was very common in Italy, especially in Tuscany and Lombardy, during the 15th and early 16th centuries. Its chief use was for the decoration of the stalls and lecterns in the church choirs. Very small bits of various coloured woods were used to produce geometrical patterns, while figure subjects, views of buildings with strong perspective effects, and even landscapes, were very skilfully produced by an inlay of larger pieces. Ambrogio Borgognone, Raphael, and other great painters, often drew the designs for this sort of work. The mosaic figures in the panels of the stalls at the Certosa near Pavia were by Borgognone, and are extremely beautiful. The stalls in Siena cathedral and in S. Pietro de’ Casinensi at Perugia, the latter from Raphael’s designs, are among the finest works of this sort, which are very numerous in Italy. It has also been used on a smaller scale to ornament furniture, and especially the “Cassoni,” or large trousseau coffers, on which the most costly and elaborate decorations were often lavished.