Our tour of Mosaics and Icons with Eric started at Santa Maria Maggiore. This cathedral was built in the 5th century response to the council of Trent decision affirming Mary as mother of God. It was a medieval and renaissance amalgam with many mosaics.
Our experience there, however, was frustrating. The mosaics line the nave in the area between the top of columns and the ceiling—way above eye level—and each block is divided horizontally, so two stories are depicted in each. In addition, the renaissance facelift blocked half the windows so light was at a premium—and the church installed metered lights giving tourists 2 minutes of illumination for a euro. The upshot was that we couldn’t see them; it became almost comedic as our guide whispered in the dark the scene we would see (we couldn’t hear him), runs back and feeds the light meter, returns to us and whispers for another minute before the lights go out. No other tour leaders were paying for the lights, so poor Eric, clearly a grad student, is paying for about 100 tourists to see these darn things while we didn’t really learn what they were.
We left there a bit weary, but the next stop proved to be much more interesting. The basilica of St Praxedes (who ever heard of her?) had some wonderful mosaics and much better light, so we appreciated them a lot. We saw some interesting early conventions; for example, these mosaics marked living people with a square around there heads and halos indicated people had died—not that they were holy.
Our final stop was a 4th century church with fabulous mosaics. All showed the glorious vision of Christ, a much easier conversion tool than the suffering Christ, Marty observed. We all left with a deep appreciation of mosaics.
Our experience there, however, was frustrating. The mosaics line the nave in the area between the top of columns and the ceiling—way above eye level—and each block is divided horizontally, so two stories are depicted in each. In addition, the renaissance facelift blocked half the windows so light was at a premium—and the church installed metered lights giving tourists 2 minutes of illumination for a euro. The upshot was that we couldn’t see them; it became almost comedic as our guide whispered in the dark the scene we would see (we couldn’t hear him), runs back and feeds the light meter, returns to us and whispers for another minute before the lights go out. No other tour leaders were paying for the lights, so poor Eric, clearly a grad student, is paying for about 100 tourists to see these darn things while we didn’t really learn what they were.
We left there a bit weary, but the next stop proved to be much more interesting. The basilica of St Praxedes (who ever heard of her?) had some wonderful mosaics and much better light, so we appreciated them a lot. We saw some interesting early conventions; for example, these mosaics marked living people with a square around there heads and halos indicated people had died—not that they were holy.
Our final stop was a 4th century church with fabulous mosaics. All showed the glorious vision of Christ, a much easier conversion tool than the suffering Christ, Marty observed. We all left with a deep appreciation of mosaics.
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