Niente è come sembra. I ‘mosaici’ neomedievali di S. Secondiano a Chiusi

The rediscovery of early Christian and medieval mosaics during the XIX-XX centuries produced not only new mosaics but also paintings on walls, i.e. frescoes, that wanted to create the illusion of being mosaics. We can find several of these false mosaics throughout Europe, in new buildings as well as in medieval buildings restored in the modern age. The use of false mosaic instead of real mosaic was not only for economic reasons, since we can find false mosaics used as gold background also in very important and expensive Renaissance artworks. But sometime, during the XIX-XX centuries, not only the backgrounds of the figures, but the figures themselves were painted like false mosaics. It happened, for example, in the Cathedral of Chiusi, where the “mosaics” are still visible on-site. Here, during the restoration of the church, the baroque decoration was replaced with a cycle of frescos, painted by Arturo Viligiardi, that looks like a mosaic, more coherent, in their opinion, with the medieval origins of the building. The iconographic program (focused on the Christian history of Chiusi and on the Marian cult) follow scenes, figures, decoration of authentic mosaics from early Christian monuments at Ravenna and from the gothic decoration of the Basilica of S. Maria Maggiore and S. Maria in Trastevere in Rome, copied exactly, mixing various details, in a sort of patchwork.