Specimens Of The Geometrical Mosaic Of The Middle Ages - With A Brief Historical Notice Of The Art Founded On Papers Read Before The Royal Institute Of British Architects The Royal Society Of Arts And The Archaeological Institute Of Great Britain And Ireland - By Matthew Digby Wyatt Architect.
London,: Published For The Proprietor At 17 Gate St. Lincoln's Inn Fields., (1848.)
Physical Description
[2], 26 p., 21 pl. (incl. t.pl.); 482 mm. (Folio.)
General Note
Pl. 13 is numbered '13A', but there is no other pl. 13, nor is one called for in the Description Of The Plates. Plate 17 is misnumbered as '16'.
Contents
[T.pl., dedic.] - A Brief Historical Essay On The Art Of Mosaic - Description Of The Plates; [colophon] - [Plates].
Responsibility Note
All plates except the title-plate are signed as drawn by (M.) Digby Wyatt. All are signed as lithographically printed by Day & Son.
The text printers are named in the colophon: 'Savill And Edwards, Printers, 4, Chandos-Street, Covent-Garden.'
The work is dedicated by the Author to the Marquis of Northampton, President of the Royal Society.
References
J.M. Friedman, Color Printing in England 1486 - 1870 [exhibition catalogue] (1978), no. 144, p.50.
On the 'Romanesque Revival' see C. Mignot, Architecture of the nineteenth century in Europe (1984). A study of Wyatt was N. Pevsner, Matthew Digby Wyatt (1950).
Summary Note
No publication-date is given on the title-plate. The dedication carries the date of 1848.
The book is an example of a growing interest in Romanesque art in the first half of the 19th century. (At first the term 'Romanesque' was used to describe art and architecture produced between the decline of the 'classical' Greco-Roman styles in the 5th century and the rise of the 'Gothic' in the 13th, but was later applied more narrowly to the period between the 10th and 12th or 13th centuries.) The plates are based on drawings which Wyatt made when travelling in Europe between 1844 and 1846; and led to his designing tiles for Herbert Minton and advising Prince Albert on floor-tiles for Osborne House. They show examples of 'opus Alexandrinum' as used in pavements and pulpits and 'glass tesselation' as used on pulpits and walls, between the 8th and 13th centuries - chiefly in Rome (churches of SS. Lorenzo fuori le mura, Maria in Aracoeli, Marco, Maria maggiore, Maria in Trastevere, Bartolommeo, Giovanni in Laterano, Giovanni e Paolo, Maria in Cosmedino, Costanza and Nereo ed Achille), but also in Palermo (Martorana, duomo, la Ziza), Monreale (cathedral), Civita Castellana (cathedral), Naples (cathedral), Salerno (cathedral) and Venice (cathedral of S. Mark). Plate 20 shows not mosaics but designs drawn in a Greek manuscript of the Acts of the Apostles kept in the Vatican Library. All are lithographed in color. Up to eight colors were printed on each plate.
Provenance
Purchase ordered 1848 (RAA Council Minutes, X, 1848 Dec 14).
Binding Note
19th-century cream papered boards, upper and lower covers printed with elaborate grey and gold border, upper cover lettered 'The Geometrical Mosaic Of The Middle Ages By Digby Wyatt Architect'; rebacked with red calf in 20th century, spine lettered 'Wyatt - Geometrical Mosaic Of The Middle Ages - 1848'.
Subject
Mosaics - Pavements - Mural painting and decoration - Churches - Palaces - Italy - Lazio - Rome - Cività Castellana - Campania - Naples - Salerno - Sicily - Palermo - Monreale - Veneto - Venice - History - Romanesque
Art history - Great Britain - 19th century
Pictorial works - Colour printing - Lithographs - Chromolithographs - Great Britain - 19th century