Valentina Cantone
University of Padua, Italy
I propose a critical survey on the mosaic of the main porch of San Marco in Venice, in terms of style, chronology and conservation.
The first part of the paper focuses on the historiographical tradition, based on the study of Otto Demus, published thirty years ago.
The second part of the paper discusses the recent publications which confirm the connection between the mosaic of the main porch of San Marco, The Last Judgment of Torcello, the glass tesserae from the church of San Nicola di Lido. All this studies demonstrate the relation between the mosaics in the Venetian lagoon and the mosaic decoration of the Katholikon of Hosios Loukas, in Greece.
In the third part I will talk about the new possibilities offered by the technical analysis of glass mosaics and by the mortar dating, already used in the study of Byzantine mosaics in North Italy, with a destructive methodology.
As case-study I will propose the methodology used in the laboratories of the University of Padua during the last ten years on the 6th century mosaics of Padua and Vicenza (San Prosdocimo Chapel and Santa Maria Mater Domini Chapel), showing the results of the non-destructive methods of technical analysis realized.