While the Roman mosaics are very well known all over the world, very few know about the Cosmatesque art of ornamental pavements. The Cosmati Family was a Roman family of marble artisans who during the XII and XIII century created a completely new style of marble ornaments. Probably they didn’t invent this style but they adapted the Arabic ornamental art to the needs of the religious buildings in Italy, especially in the Lazio region.

The geometrical perfection of these ornaments are in synchrony with the medieval concept of cosmic order and proportion. It has been thought (with the Pitagora philosophy and after with St Agostino and St Thomas Aquinus), that the arithmetic proportion and numbers would have allowed to the man to get closer to the God.

The Cosmatesque art has been considered as the expression of this thought and the mosaics seems to represent kind of a cosmic harmony through the mathematical study of geometrical proportions. Have a look on this beautiful artworks! You can find a lot of churches in Rome with these ornaments, so start to explore!!