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Book VII marbles, gems in rings and other applications

Book VII marbles, gems in rings and other applications Page of 251 Book VII marbles, gems in rings and other applications Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
BOOK VII
155
today in Germany for making spoons and goblets since it is supposed to reveal the presence of poison, and the small balls the women use in drying the linen shawls they wear over their heads. It is also used to make the tabular and curved stones with which we warm ourselves in winter, es­pecially those usually placed in beds.9 Tabular stones are used to warm the chest and stomach and arched stones for the side, feet and arms. From early periods to the present, artisans have made the ointment jars they call alabaslra from alabaster and Lygdinan marble. Statues, columns, obelisks, sepulchers, altars, chapels, shrines and temples are made from all varieties of marble. Basins are cut from large thick blocks and gaming boards and table tops from thin tabular pieces. Rough brick and stone walls are some­times covered with thin tabular pieces. This type of work is especially common in Sena where the walls of the temple of the Blessed Virgin are faced with marble both inside and outside as well as the altar floor, the basin for holy water, the floor of the temple, the high altar, the candela­brum and the tower. There are seven varieties of marble on the top of the altar, white, black, green, gray, light brownish red and two mottled varieties. There are marble images of all the Roman priests in the vault of the temple. A most magnificent temple in Florence has marble facings as do the rectangular towers of St. Mark's in Venice and the Temple of Wisdom in Constantinople. The walls of the home of Augustus Tiberius were also faced with marble. Tiles are made from this material and used in floors, for example, the floor in the living quarters of the house used by Caesar in Goslar, Saxony, as well as in the three temples mentioned above. The consecrated portion of the cathedral of Pisa where they have the burial vaults at the Shrine of St. John is paved with these tiles. Marble surpasses all other stones for use in lithostroton (mosaic pavement). A particularly fine example is found in the Temple of St. Agapetus in Pre-neste. This work, done by Sulla, consists of very small pieces put together in such a manner as to depict the exploits of Sulla. There is another mosaic pavement in the shrine of St. John the Baptist which portrays the dome of heaven with twelve images and in the center the sun, shown as a chario­teer. They also make mosaics which picture animals and events by fitting together polished chips of marbles of different colors. Heliogabalus paved streets on Palatine Hill with Laconian marble and porphyrias, covering the Avails of the houses as well. Some of the finest inlay work was done in the time of Nero, according to Pliny, when spots were produced in the marbles by inserting small pieces to relieve the monotony of color and produce an effect similar to the spots in Numidian and the purple in Synnadan marbles. Since there is not a sufficient quantity of naturally tabular pieces found in quarries they must be made by cutting irregular masses. Pliny writes that they were cut with sand and we see them cut with iron. The saw is a very thin wire that picks up sand and when this is
8 This refers probably to a variety of soapstone.
Book VII marbles, gems in rings and other applications Page of 251 Book VII marbles, gems in rings and other applications
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