page_title: Mosaic
section_title: Late Antique and Early Medieval Rome
hierarchical_section_title: Mosaic / History / Christian mosaics / Late Antique and Early Medieval Rome
caption_attribution_description: English: Triomphal Arch Mosaics in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, right side, fourth register from up (bottom) Italiano: Roma, Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, mosaici dell'arco trionfale, lato destro, quarto registro dall'alto (registro inferiore)
context_page_description: The traditional definition of a mosaic is a coherent pattern or image in which each component element is built up from small regular or irregular pieces of substances such as stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, entirely or predominantly covering a plane or curved surface, even a three dimensional shape, and normally integrated with its architectural context.
  Mosaics were traditionally used as decoration for floors and walls becoming very popular across the Ancient Roman World.
  In modern times mosaic has come to be defined as any pattern or image made from many multiple pieces. Mosaic can be found in a range of forms from traditional murals and pavements, to contemporary artworks, hobby craft items and industrial and construction forms.
  Mosaics have a long history, starting in Mesopotamia in the 3rd millennium BC. Pebble mosaics were made in Tiryns in Mycenean Greece; mosaics with patterns and pictures became widespread in classical times, both in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Early Christian basilicas from the 4th century onwards were decorated with wall and ceiling mosaics.
context_section_description: Christian mosaic art also flourished in Rome, gradually declining as conditions became more difficult in the Early Middle Ages. 5th century mosaics can be found over the triumphal arch and in the nave of the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. The 27 surviving panels of the nave are the most important mosaic cycle in Rome of this period. Two other important 5th century mosaics are lost but we know them from 17th-century drawings. In the apse mosaic of Sant'Agata dei Goti (462–472, destroyed in 1589) Christ was seated on a globe with the twelve Apostles flanking him, six on either side. At Sant'Andrea in Catabarbara (468–483, destroyed in 1686) Christ appeared in the center, flanked on either side by three Apostles. Four streams flowed from the little mountain supporting Christ. The original 5th-century apse mosaic of the Santa Sabina was replaced by a very similar fresco by Taddeo Zuccari in 1559. The composition probably remained unchanged: Christ flanked by male and female saints, seated on a hill while lambs drinking from a stream at its feet. All three mosaics had a similar iconography.
  6th-century pieces are rare in Rome but the mosaics inside the triumphal arch of the basilica of San Lorenzo fuori le mura belong to this era. The Chapel of Ss. Primo e Feliciano in Santo Stefano Rotondo has very interesting and rare mosaics from the 7th century. This chapel was built by Pope Theodore I as a family burial place.
  In the 7th–9th centuries Rome fell under the influence of Byzantine art, noticeable on the mosaics of Santa Prassede, Santa Maria in Domnica, Sant'Agnese fuori le Mura, Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, Santi Nereo e Achilleo and the San Venanzio chapel of San Giovanni in Laterano. The great dining hall of Pope Leo III in the Lateran Palace was also decorated with mosaics. They were all destroyed later except for one example, the so-called Triclinio Leoniano of which a copy was made in the 18th century. Another great work of Pope Leo, the apse mosaic of Santa Susanna, depicted Christ with the Pope and Charlemagne on one side, and SS. Susanna and Felicity on the other. It was plastered over during a renovation in 1585. Pope Paschal I (817–824) embellished the church of Santo Stefano del Cacco with an apsidal mosaic which depicted the pope with a model of the church (destroyed in 1607).
  The fragment of an 8th-century mosaic, the Epiphany is one of the very rare remaining pieces of the medieval decoration of Old St. Peter's Basilica, demolished in the late 16th century. The precious fragment is kept in the sacristy of Santa Maria in Cosmedin. It proves the high artistic quality of the destroyed St. Peter's mosaics.
caption: 5th century mosaic in the triumphal arch of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome
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