Mosaic

====Medieval Italy====
The monastery of [[Grottaferrata]] founded by Greek [[Basilian monks]] and consecrated by the Pope in 1024 was decorated with [[Italo-Byzantine]] mosaics, some of which survived in the [[narthex]] and the interior. The mosaics on the triumphal [[chancel arch]] portray the Twelve Apostles sitting beside an empty throne, evoking Christ's ascent to Heaven. It is a Byzantine work of the 12th century. There is a beautiful 11th-century Deesis above the main portal.

The Abbot of [[Monte Cassino]], [[Pope Victor III|Desiderius]] sent envoys to [[Constantinople]] some time after 1066 to hire expert Byzantine mosaicists for the decoration of the rebuilt abbey church. According to chronicler [[Leo of Ostia]] the Greek artists decorated the apse, the arch and the vestibule of the basilica. Their work was admired by contemporaries but was totally destroyed in later centuries except two fragments depicting greyhounds (now in the Monte Cassino Museum). "The abbot in his wisdom decided that great number of young monks in the monastery should be thoroughly initiated in these arts" – says the chronicler about the role of the Greeks in the revival of mosaic art in medieval Italy.

[[File:Florenca133b.jpg|thumb|[[Florence Baptistry]]]]
In [[Florence]] a magnificiant mosaic of the [[Last Judgement]] decorates the dome of the [[Florence Baptistery|Baptistery]]. The earliest mosaics, works of art of many unknown Venetian craftsmen (including probably [[Cimabue]]), date from 1225. The covering of the ceiling was probably not completed until the 14th century.

The impressive mosaic of [[Christ in Majesty]], flanked by the Virgin Mary and St. John the Evangelist in the apse of the [[Piazza dei Miracoli|cathedral of Pisa]] was designed by [[Cimabue]] in 1302. It evokes the Monreale mosaics in style. It survived the great fire of 1595 which destroyed most of the medieval interior decoration.

Sometimes not only church interiors but façades were also decorated with mosaics in Italy like in the case of the [[St Mark's Basilica]] in Venice (mainly from the 17th–19th centuries, but the oldest one from 1270 to 1275, "The burial of St Mark in the first basilica"), the [[Duomo di Orvieto|Cathedral of Orvieto]] (golden Gothic mosaics from the 14th century, many times redone) and the [[Basilica di San Frediano]] in [[Lucca]] (huge, striking golden mosaic representing the Ascension of Christ with the apostles below, designed by [[Berlinghiero Berlinghieri]] in the 13th century). The [[Cathedral of Spoleto]] is also decorated on the upper façade with a huge mosaic portraying the ''Blessing Christ'' (signed by one Solsternus from 1207).