Page 8 - Pavimenti cosmateschi _Neat

“SANTA MARIA ANNUNZIATA” in ANAGNI

Cosmati mosaic is a type of mosaic technique that was
practiced by decorators in the 12th and 13th centuries, in which
General Description tiny triangles and squares of colored stone (red porphyry, green
serpentine, and white and other colored marbles) and glass
paste were arranged in patterns and combined with large, stone
disks and strips to produce geometric designs.
This style of ornamental mosaic was introduced into the
decorative art of Europe, by a marble-worker named
Laurentius, a native of Anagni, a small hill-town thirty-seven
miles east-south-east of Rome.

The stone used by the Cosmati artists were salvaged material
from the ruins of ancient Roman buildings, the large roundels
Materials The Cosmati made extensive use of red and green porphyry for
being the carefully cut cross sections of Roman columns.
the floors, which came from marble columns dating from
antiquity, cut in such a way as to produce circles and squares.
These geometric shapes would then have been arranged on the
floor in a frame of white marble which, in turn, consisted of
triangles, stars, lozenges and circles composed of multicolored

marble tiles.

The treasury is housed in a
medieval chapel (c.1105) with
Thomas Becket’s fresco and relics rooms on the upper floor of Frescoes in the vestibule of the Oratory of St.
fresco fragments and other

the cathedral. It contains the
vestments
of
pontifical
Boniface VIII, including two
magnificent copes; a Limoges
casket for relics of St. Thomas
12th-century
Becket;
a
Thomas Becket, c.1237.
bishop's throne made of
Relics of St. Thomas Becket
wood; and other artworks.

Pictures

Crypt of St. Magnus, built c.1100 and decorated with
frescoes in 1237.

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