Mosaic Therapy

Wow, I can’t believe our Global Navigators have been been here in Rome for almost a week and they've already seen and done so much. 

The activity today definitely offered us a bit of respite from our busy schedules as we got a chance to be artisans and focus on the small details by working on a mosaico at the Stadio di Domiziano. 

Our teachers Cecilia and Giovannina from Officina delle Arti Antiche showed us the ancient techniques of mosaic that have been used for thousands of years, and the types of marble and stone used. 
 

We saw serpentino verde, which is named after the mottled green and grey effect which reminds us of a snake skin - in Italian “snake” is “serpente”! 

We also saw and used a beautiful rosso porfido which is a brownish red, very earthy colour. 

And the other colours we used to set off our mosaics were a shiny black and a white. 

They are cut into tiny pieces called tesserae.

Making the mosaic is quite fiddly so you really have to take your time getting all the pieces in place, and it was extremely therapeutic for our busy students to focus on the process, in a medium quite unfamiliar to most of us. 

We only had one casualty - but it was nothing we couldn’t fix with the help of Giovannina and a bit of extra glue!