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| Theresa (far left) and group in the Vatican Mosaic Workshop |
With guest blogger Theresa Potenza
One of the most
popular tours I lead within the
Vatican is to an area off limits to the general public, where only Vatican City employees
and church clergy are allowed.
Visitors
must pass through security several times;
first being checked by Italian police, then getting saluted by the illustrious
Swiss Guards in their colorful stripped uniforms. Finally the Vatican City
police hand over entrance badges which allow us inside the Vatican mosaic
studio and gallery space.
Security is on
high alert here since the studio workshop has a new next door neighbor: Pope Francis.
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| Vatican mosaic artist at work |
Just after the
Pope was elected he made the unprecedented decision not to live in the Vatican
palaces, but rather in a hospice building designed for the Cardinals’ accommodations during the papal election. It is an unassuming building compared to the
rest of the Vatican complex, as is the exterior of the mosaic workshop.
The interior of the workshop instead is a
wonderland where a handful of privileged
craftsmen painstakingly work to create
mosaic masterpieces. They spend
their time chiseling color compounds and delicately applying colored marble and glass tiles onto a canvas
with a putty base.
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| Reproducing a famous Vatican mosaic |
Next to their
workspace a gallery displays the masterpieces that are for sale. There are mosaic reproductions of Impressionist paintings like Vincent Van
Gough’s Sunflowers as well as religious themed Renaissance paintings such as
Raphael’s Madonna of the Goldfinch.
Prices for mosaic panels can cost from
$6,000 to $50,000 depending on the size
of the panel and the size of the mosaic tiles used.
The Vatican’s mosaic
artists have been well known for
centuries, making masterpieces for the
Pope to bestow as gifts to foreign heads of State. The studio walls are hung
with photos of popes throughout modern
history presenting diplomatic gifts. We see Pope John Paul II with Fidel Castro and Pope
Benedict XVI with President Obama and the First Lady and meet the artist who made the landscape scene with Christ the
Redeemer that Pope Francis recently presented to the President of Brazil during
World Youth Day.
Less than a
dozen artists work in this studio that was founded in the 18th
Century. The artists are more
accurately called “painters in mosaic” and their main task is to preserve and
restore the 10,000 square meters of mosaics that decorate the interior
of St. Peter’s Basilica. They also
craft mosaic portraits that make up the Chronological Series of Popes located
inside the Basilica of St. Paul’s Outside the Walls.
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After watching
the artists burn, smolder, chisel, and polish tiles (tessere )from the vast array of 26,000
different colored tiles, one of the craftsmen, wearing a long white tunic, escorts us
through a back door to visit the Basilica. Here inside St. Peter’s we are able to admire
their creations on site, for the 11 huge interior domes and all the 45 altar pieces are works created by Vatican’s mosaicists over the centuries.
Theresa
Potenza is an art historian and tour guide in Rome. For more information see her website:
More stories about the Vatican here and here
More stories about the Vatican here and here
