This document discusses and analyzes Cosmati floor panels and mosaics from the Duomo di Santa Maria in Civita Castellana in Italy. It notes that some portions of the current floor may have been rebuilt in the 16th century using remnants of the original Cosmati floor. It highlights several photos of Cosmati panels, mosaics, and decorations from the cathedral, pointing out their geometric and chromatic symmetry in arrangements of tiles, wheels, and other motifs. The document aims to show what the principles of design in original Cosmati floors should look like based on examples that have maintained their symmetrical patterns intact.
This document discusses and analyzes Cosmati floor panels and mosaics from the Duomo di Santa Maria in Civita Castellana in Italy. It notes that some portions of the current floor may have been rebuilt in the 16th century using remnants of the original Cosmati floor. It highlights several photos of Cosmati panels, mosaics, and decorations from the cathedral, pointing out their geometric and chromatic symmetry in arrangements of tiles, wheels, and other motifs. The document aims to show what the principles of design in original Cosmati floors should look like based on examples that have maintained their symmetrical patterns intact.
This document discusses and analyzes Cosmati floor panels and mosaics from the Duomo di Santa Maria in Civita Castellana in Italy. It notes that some portions of the current floor may have been rebuilt in the 16th century using remnants of the original Cosmati floor. It highlights several photos of Cosmati panels, mosaics, and decorations from the cathedral, pointing out their geometric and chromatic symmetry in arrangements of tiles, wheels, and other motifs. The document aims to show what the principles of design in original Cosmati floors should look like based on examples that have maintained their symmetrical patterns intact.
This document discusses and analyzes Cosmati floor panels and mosaics from the Duomo di Santa Maria in Civita Castellana in Italy. It notes that some portions of the current floor may have been rebuilt in the 16th century using remnants of the original Cosmati floor. It highlights several photos of Cosmati panels, mosaics, and decorations from the cathedral, pointing out their geometric and chromatic symmetry in arrangements of tiles, wheels, and other motifs. The document aims to show what the principles of design in original Cosmati floors should look like based on examples that have maintained their symmetrical patterns intact.
Sotheby’s Sale 2018 and their description partial, but works "intact", or "largely original", as often they are defined, without ever advancing the slightest doubt on the authenticity of their facies, from the time they were made, or of the fact that in many cases they are the result of floor portions 9 This news forces me to make a little digression because having recently visited the cathedral of Santa Maria in Civita Castellana, ed having analyzed its Cosmatesque floor, for which I speculated a more or less complete reconstruction, partly arbitrary, can be achieved to the conclusion that a part of today's floor may have been rebuilt in the possible restorations of the late sixteenth century also with those remains of a cosmatesque lithostrate that Ugonio saw in the crypt i which they could also be the two quincuxes that can be seen today in the transept Fig. 41. The slab with an asymmetrical quincunx motif, coming from a dismembered ambo, but clearly not in the style of Lorenzo's family, as can be seen from the other pieces.Fig. 42. Some plates,of which at least thatdefinitely higherattributable to the Cosmatiand that recalls the spiralsdecorative madeon the porch of theCathedral.Fig. 43. One pieceof mosaic plate witha wonderfulpattern of squareswith which yellow stands outancient among the serpentine. Fig. 33. The decoration of the tenth wheel. In the external band hthe triple sequence of squares arranged at the tip. The external onesthey were all yellow, the central ones of porphyry and serpentine on the backgroundWhite. We can imagine its beauty if seenaltogether in its total development.Fig. 34. The motif of oblong lozenges arranged at a point. Let's imagine thatthis platedecorative of the porchof the cathedral, eithera portion of thefloor. The little onescircles are the wheels, therectangular bands lemosaic partitions or ledecorative bands ofquincuxes and guilloche.In this plate it isexpressed the concept ofgeometric harmony echromatic symmetry.The same principlewhich shouldobserve oneself in thefloorsoriginal cosmateschi,but that is not givensee in noneexemplaryhanded down frommedieval times, if not inportions and fragmentsremainedLuckilyintact. Here the starscosmatesche haveall the triangleswhite on backgroundred or blue, whilethe alternation of colorsof the squares issymmetricallyperfect. Thisprinciple is observedin almost the entire workof the facadecosmatesca ofcathedral and thefloor nothad to be fromless An ad quadratum decorative motif, detail of the photo above, whichshows what its counterpart in floors should look likecosmateschi. The octagonal stars in the center also enjoy theprinciple of chromatic symmetry in the sequence of the tiles. AND'It is also interesting to note the symmetrical correspondence of the twoouter side stars which are the only ones to be composed ofmixed colored lozenges, but in the correct alternating colors. Another example of the principle of perfect chromatic symmetryin the arrangement of the tiles in the decorations of the facade of thecathedral, even in the most complex grounds. The central one iseasily found in the curvilinear bands of guilloche or godsquincuxes, but it is almost never seen in a symmetry of colorsas in this case. The Cosmatesque spirals in the triumphal arch and the long epigraph on the sidewith the signature of the masters Iacopo and Cosma.
