Rare Antique Italian Millefiori Art Cross Italy Vintage

Keywords: Rare Old Catholic Antique Italian Millefiori Art Cross Italy Vintage

OBJECTS OF DEVOTION

Very Rare, Old Catholic Antique Italian Millefiori Art Cross Italy Vintage Micro Mosaic Cross showing The Pope in the Vatican in Roma. It represents Pope Pius XI, who reigned from 1929 to 1939

The cross measures almost 4” or 10 cm tall.

It is in very good condition only a few small stones in the mosaic are missing.

A Brief History of Micro Mosaics

Micro mosaic in Salty Filati is a prestigious, antique technique that developed in Rome between the XVI and XVII centuries. Since 1727 it was used by Mosaic Masters from REVERENDA FABBRICA DI SAN PIETRO in Vatican City. It was probably invented by the mosaic master Giacomo Raffaelli, one of the most important mosaic artist living between 1700 and 1800.

Originated in 16th century, it was an attempt to become independent from Venice, which had been the centre of glass mosaic material manufacturing. The Vatican's own glass factory carried out a research program which led to the production of no less than 28.000 glass mosaic colors.

It was however, in Smalto (glass mosaic) manufacturing technique that the Vatican artisans attained their greatest achievements and fostered further developments. This was made it possible because a Roman glass kiln owner, Alessio Mattioli experimented on glass Madritinte (master tints) pancakes, namely colored glass paste, containing a high percentage of coloring agents.

To make " Smalti Filati", depending on the shade of color to be obtained, bits of different master tints are mixed together and then melted over an open flame. The molten mass is the "spun" or drawn by means of tweezers into threads of the desired thickness.

Filato rods, drawn into strings of 20 - 30 inches and varying in thickness between 1 and 4 mm, do not require annealing and are simply allowed to cool for a few minutes before being broken up. With this type of smalto manufacture, a virtually unlimited range of color shades can be obtained simply by mixing a different variety of master tints.

At present, the Vatican Studio, who first took advantage from Mattioli discoveries, has about 28.000 colors in stock.

The "smalti filati" technique made it possible for mosaics makers to execute copies of painted originals on an even smaller scale and eventually even to produce actual "miniature mosaics" with "tesserae", less than 1 mm thick, which gained widespread popularity in the first half of 18th century.

Antique and vintage items by their very nature show normal wear to finish and miscellaneous scratches, nicks, and dings due to age and use.We carry the largest Collection of Old World Religious Antiques on the web. Check it out.

 JE

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On May-17-12 at 11:55:34 PDT, seller added the following information:

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