Micromosaic of St. Peter's Square, 19th century

Rome, 19th century
View of St. Peter's Square
black marble paperweight with micromosaic

The micromosaic as an artistic language defined in the technical rules and in the field of invention was born in Rome in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. The city is home to the Vatican Mosaic Studio established in 1727 and boasts excellence in the art of mosaic gained with the centuries-old undertaking of the decoration of the Vatican basilica, begun in 1578 and not yet completed. The cultural context favors the study of the ancient both in terms of compositional rules and in terms of figurative contents.
Already at the end of the eighteenth century Piazza di Spagna and the adjacent streets, favorite places for foreign travelers staying in the city, were filled with private studios where minute mosaics in spun enamels were created and sold. Even the Vatican Mosaic Studio, traditionally linked to the creation of works of sacred subjects, began the production of profane subjects from 1795, executed with the new technique, to enter the thriving city market.
As regards the iconography, it follows the taste of the dominant pictorial culture. In the first production phase he looked at an iconography inspired by ancient times. The discoveries of Herculaneum and Pompeii, especially of the pictorial apparatus disseminated through the publication of the eight volumes of the Antiquities of Herculaneum exhibited, published between 1757 and 1792, offer models for the representation of a varied and fantastic repertoire.
Since the early 19th century, the micromosaic has combined classical-mythological themes with an iconography which follows on the one hand the trend of the view of Roman ruins and monuments and, on the other, a series of themes linked to the animal and floral world, to scenes of popular life, to the landscape. The themes on which the micromosaic coherently insists are however those that depict Rome with its countryside and, in particular, the Tiburtino landscape. The imperial city and the Christian city offer suggestive panoramas, as in the present case. The bulk of the Colosseum and the large space in St. Peter's Square with the basilica that stands out against the sky are translated into dimensions so small that they fit into the bezel of this paperweight.
The creation of a minute mosaic began by filling the support with mastic and, subsequently, with a layer of plaster. The subject to be composed was drawn in charcoal on the chalk. The execution was then carried out by removing, one after the other, small portions of plaster and inserting tiles suitable for reproducing the part of the cut-out design into the underlying mastic. The construction time was linked to the hardening which varied with the thickness and size of the work to be created (months or years). Once the seasoning was complete, a very delicate wax finishing job was carried out to close the cracks and then the smoothing with flint and lead polishing began.

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