pietra dura

pietra dura

stone
      (Italian: “hard stone”), in mosaic, any of several kinds of hard stone used in commesso mosaic work, an art that flourished in Florence particularly in the late 16th and 17th centuries and involved the fashioning of highly illusionistic pictures out of cut-to-shape pieces of coloured stone. The resulting decorative mosaics were used primarily for tabletops and small wall panels.

      The term pietra dura signifies the requisite hardness and durability of the materials used in this work, officially describing those stones that fall between the 6th and 10th degrees of the Mohs scale of hardness—that is, between feldspar and diamond. The most commonly used of these hard stones were quartzes, chalcedonies, agates, jaspers, granites, porphyries, and petrified woods, all of which are variable in hue and together provide an almost limitless range of colour. lapis lazuli, a semihard stone of brilliant blue, was the only stone regularly used in commesso work that does not fall into the pietra dura classification.

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Universalium. 2010.

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  • Pietra dura — Pi*e tra du ra [It., hard stone.] (Fine Arts) Hard and fine stones in general, such as are used for inlay and the like, as distinguished from the softer stones used in building; thus, a Florentine mosaic is a familiar instance of work in pietra… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • Piētra dura — (Musaico in p. d.), Mosaik in hartem Stein, eine im 17. Jahrh. übliche Art des Florentiner Mosaiks, wobei buntfarbige Steine zu breiten Flächen zusammengesetzt wurden …   Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon

  • Pietra dura —   [italienisch »harter Stein«] die, , das Florentiner Mosaik …   Universal-Lexikon

  • pietra dura — /pyāˈtrə dooˈrə/ noun Inlaid mosaic work with hard stones, such as jasper, agate, etc, or, strictly, with one type of stone only ORIGIN: Ital, hard stone • • • pietre dure /pyāˈtre dŭˈre/ plural noun (used as sing) this type of (usu relief)… …   Useful english dictionary

  • Pietra dura — Pope Clement VIII in pietra dura designed by Jacopo Ligozzi, executed by Romolo di Francesco Ferrucci del Tadda …   Wikipedia

  • Pietra dura — Porträt des Papstes Clemens VIII, 1600 1601 …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Pietra dura — Pi|e|tra* du|ra die; <aus it. pietra dura, eigtl. »harter Stein«> ital. Bez. für Florentiner Mosaik …   Das große Fremdwörterbuch

  • PIETRA DURA —    a name given to the purest kind of Florentine mosaic work, consists of hard stones characterised by brilliancy of colour …   The Nuttall Encyclopaedia

  • pietra dura — [ˌpjɛtrə du:rə] noun pictorial mosaic work using semi precious stones. Origin C19: from Ital. (plural pietre dure), lit. hard stone …   English new terms dictionary

  • Pietra — oder Piètra ist der Familienname folgender Personen: Gaetano Piètra (1879–1961), italienischer Statistiker Minervino Pietra (* 1954), ehemaliger portugiesischer Fußballer Siehe auch: Pietra Ligure, Pietra dura, Ponte Pietra, Pietra Grande, Pietra …   Deutsch Wikipedia

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