Monday 15 September 2014

Only Illusions and Nothing to Hide

^Marble floor tiling from the Capitoline Museum in Rome. According to the Capitoline Museum's website it's from the first half of the 4th century AD, recovered from the Esquiline Hill in Rome (Basilica lunii Bassi)

Exclusively for Saturated Space, Molly McCormick writes about the complex relationship between coloured marble and Roman Identity.

"Over the course of two centuries, Ancient Rome evolved from red brick backwater town to the coloured marble centre of the western world. However it didn't happen without a fight. To Pre-Imperial Senators, coloured marble was both alluring and dangerous: deathly cold, hotly debated. So how exactly did it become the covering of the Caput Mundi? For that, we look at a history of exoticism, misogyny, public relations and Imperial might that revolved around a seemingly innocuous material. One that was, eventually, essential to the culture of the eternal city. Both then and now."