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Gemstones from Roman Britain: Recorded in the Portable Antiquities Scheme
25–41Views:84Roman gems have continued to be discovered in Roman Britain and published in archaeological reports and notes since the author completed his Corpus of Gems from British Sites in 1978. A new source of glyptic material can be found in the on-line publication of Portable Antiquities (Portable Antiquities Scheme) which includes intaglios, most of them found without stratigraphical context, by users of metal detectors, though many are set in rings, which provide significant aids in dating. Others were clearly re-used as they are set in seal matrices or medieval rings and were frequently freshly imported at that period from southern Europe. In the High Middle Ages, as in Roman times, intaglios reflect the interests, and patterns of thought of those who wore and valued these beautiful objects.
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Il cavallo vittorioso nelle gemme del Museo Archeologico di Venezia: Vincas, Non Vincas, Te Amamus
105–123Views:41In this paper a small group of engraved gems, kept in the glyptic collection of the Archaeological Museum of Venice, is taken into consideration. It is important to underscore their cultural value and our hope is that researches centring on this precious collection might contribute towards the overall progress on glyptic studies. A few intaglios presented here depict victorious horses. In usual iconography horses drawn in profile with a palm branch placed in various positions is the element that permits classification of the gems, into several groups. In the gems under discussion here there are also some intaglios that belong to the group with the image of racing scenes, a very frequent themes in the roman glyptic. Two red jaspers, depicting the chariot race, are very good examples of the elegant simplification of the well-known iconography, the chariot race set in the Circus Maximus: the drawing presents simple and clear shapes with no internal details but with an accuracy displaying the famous cliché of one circus race. The schematic work and the stylistic and technical characteristics of two gems demonstrate the standardisation of the motif and indicate a serial glyptic production during the second century A.D.
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Oedipus Riddles
131–140Views:46The paper discusses an interesting group of glass intaglios with the motif of Oedipus and the Sphinx. They are known from sites between the Adriatic, the Danube and the Black Sea, and occur in various colors and cuts, which suggests production in different molds or even workshops. Probably modeled on an intaglio made in an Italian officina gemmaria, the glass replicas may have been produced at Aquileia. The style points to the Late Republican or Augustan era, whereas the material of the glass copies and the funerary context from Aquincum show they were in use and probably produced till the 4 th century. The paper also discusses the possible meanings of the motif, from a simple illustration of the famous heroic adventure to a metaphoric depiction representing the mystic message of the key to a blessed afterlife.
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Il dipinto di Teodoro Matteini con Angelica e Medoro nella Glittica
155–184Views:33The difficulty of representing the paintings in the gems has determined their lesser success in the glyptic repertoire compared to the representation of the sculptures. However, the engravers received a successful painting, such as the one painted by Teodoro Matteini in 1786: Angelica and Medoro carving their names on the bark of a tree, scene from the Orlando Furioso of Ariosto. This study analyzes the reproduction of the painting in the glyptic. The image appears on high quality intaglios and cameos by famous engravers, such as Giovanni Beltrami, Clemente Pestrini, Domenico Calabresi, who sometimes make variations to the composition; on anonymous gems, and in shell, cheaper material. A cameo mounted on the lid of a box / snuffbox in Ischia’s lava, a fashionable vehicle for the transmission of messages, testifies to the intense diffusion and circulation of Matteini’s painting.