MARBLE SLAB: TOP PHOTO, COSMATESQUE CREST OF NICHOLAS V, C. 1450. BOTTOM PHOTO, ROMANESQUE PLUTEUS FROM A SACRED ENCLOSURE, C9 CE. VATICAN MUSEUMS When this slab was carved for use in a schola cantorum or a presbytery enclosure in the C9, it was undoubtedly already a piece of spolia from some ancient monument. But it was carved with a typical Romanesque design of arches containing crosses, all richly decorated with guilloches, and six birds per arch carrying food in their beaks (a metaphor for the Eucharist), with couples of splendid grimacing wild felines. The reuse of classical motifs like the column, the arch, and the guilloche indicates a desire to associate the authority of the Church with that of the ancient empire. The same impulse can be seen in the 1450 inlay on the other side, which employs the imperial stones, porphyry and serpentine, to assert papal authority.

#SpoliaSunday takes us into the #VaticanMuseums, where visitors to the Stanza della #Segnatura, one of the #Raphael Rooms, walked across a #spolia marble slab inlaid with a #Cosmatesque version of the #crest of #NicholasV which was a reused C9 piece of a schola cantorum. #AncientBluesky 🏺

SPOLIA PAVEMENT, C13. CRYPT OF SS. COSMA E DAMIANO In 1632 pope Urban VIII Barberini ordered the floor of the palaeochristian church of SS. Cosma e Damiano to be raised 7 metres. This created a sort of crypt or lower church at the original ground level, though inconveniently divided by the huge supporting wall holding up the floor of the upper church, which created two parallel naves. None of the original floor of the church, founded in 527, seems to have survived, but some C12 Cosmatesque paving in the naves, itself made of spolia, survives, though badly damaged. The rest of the floor is a chaotic mess unlike any other church floor in Rome, more like something from the C7-C9, though the fragment of Cosmatesque work we see here argues a date no earlier than the C12. Different marbles are thrown together, broken pieces making a messy patchwork. A corner of the C9 altar sits atop the C2 tomb inscription of a child.

For #SpoliaSunday we're descending into the lower church of #SSCosmaeDamiano in the #Roman #Forum to consider the puzzle of the #pavement, partially #Cosmatesque, partially just whatever was lying around. When was this floor made? It's a chaotic mess. #AncientBluesky 🏺