endlessrarities | Gratuitous Mosaics

Well, that's it. The unpleasant sojourn to the dentist has been and gone. The horse-trank strength anaesthetic certainly did the trick, though it meant that what should have been a difficult operation (my poor dentist was impressed by how keen my gag-reflex was...) was made even more so by the fact the anaesthetic had me feeling slight nausea in the first place. She persevered. The filling was filled, and all is well.

Another secondhand book catalogue dropped onto my desk and again I felt obliged to succumb to its lures. This time I acquired my first ever volume in the renowned 'Praehistorische Bronzefunde' series. These are mighty tomes each devoted to a particular category of European Bronze Age metalwork - swords, shields, axes, or whatever. I'm now delighted to report that I've succeeded in acquiring Sabine Gerloff's 'Early Bronze Age Daggers of Great Britain and Ireland' which features endless line drawings of Early Bronze Age daggers (I'm assuming it excludes knives, dirks and rapiers).

I will also be acquiring 'Sparta and War' - a collection of papers from one of the series of International Sparta symposia. Plus a French book on the Late Bronze Age axe hoards of north-west France. Oooh!!! I can't wait!!!! Yet more items to add to my 'To Read' list...

And now, without further ado...

Let's have some mosaics! Pretty mosaics!!!

They're clearly of Arab inspiration, and they're of a style which (my helpful book on Ravello tells me) is called 'cosmateque mosaic decorations. Now that would be a useful term to remember, but I know darned well it's going to float straight out of my brain before it even gets to settle there, Another useful word to remember is the term 'parallelepipedal', which is evidently that given to the multilegged form of the pulpit. And I thought the terminology used in Bronze Age metalwork studies was unmemorable!!!

A religious subject first of all, featuring the Madonna and Child, set in a small circular panel against a complex patterned ground, with the arms of the Rufolo family added for good measure:-

A view beneath the pulpit now, followed by a close-up which shows the corner beast in more detail:-

It's a particularly severe-looking beast - I'd guess from the wings/tail combo, it's probably a wyvern.

A detail of the pulpit walls now, with some incredible patterns present. It reminds me of the Altair Design Books I used to colour in as a child - with the benefit of hindsight, it's so obvious that these little colouring books were inspired by Arabic art. In this particular structure, even the coffering beneath the pulpit floor has been decorated. It's an amazing piece of conspicuous consumption, and of meticulous craftsmanship, too. We even have the name of the artist - Nicola di Bartolomeo, who came from Foggia,