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Lot Essay
The Vatican Mosaic Workshop (Studio del Mosaico della Fabbrica della Basilica di S. Pietro) was established in 1576 for the embellishment of St. Peter's. Soon after 1757, the mosaicists of the Workshop had completed the decoration of the cupolas at St Peter's and needed new commissions. As a result, they independently began the production of mosaici in piccolo, or micromosaics. Their market consisted of aristocratic travellers, connoisseurs and collectors visiting Rome on the Grand Tour.
This mosaic signed by Vincenzo Verdejo, who worked at the Vatican Mosaic Workshop during the early 1800s, depicts Pope Pius VII (1740-1823), born Barnaba Charamonti and elected Pope in 1800. Pius VII is particularly well-known for his dealings with Napoleon, signing the Concordat of 1801 to re-establish the Church in post-Revolutionary France. It permitted the civil government to nominate bishops and archbishops, but left it to the Pope to confirm them. Napoleon later cancelled parts of the agreement, an act that Pius VII never accepted. In 1804, he traveled to Paris to crown Napoleon emperor, but the French ruler instead took the crown from the hands of the Pope and crowned himself. This scandalous event is recorded in Jacques-Louis David's famous painting which is now at the Louvre.
When Napoleon invaded Italy, taking Rome in 1808 and the Papal States in 1809, he captured and imprisoned Pope Pius VII at Fontainebleau and forced him to sign another concordat, which Pius later disavowed. After Napoleon's losses in 1814, Pius returned to Rome and offered the city as a place of refuge to members of the Bonaparte family.
Another micromosaic of Pius VII and signed by Vincenzo Verdejo is illustrated in Domenico Petochi, I Mosaici Minuti Romani, 1981, p. 127, fig. 53.
This mosaic signed by Vincenzo Verdejo, who worked at the Vatican Mosaic Workshop during the early 1800s, depicts Pope Pius VII (1740-1823), born Barnaba Charamonti and elected Pope in 1800. Pius VII is particularly well-known for his dealings with Napoleon, signing the Concordat of 1801 to re-establish the Church in post-Revolutionary France. It permitted the civil government to nominate bishops and archbishops, but left it to the Pope to confirm them. Napoleon later cancelled parts of the agreement, an act that Pius VII never accepted. In 1804, he traveled to Paris to crown Napoleon emperor, but the French ruler instead took the crown from the hands of the Pope and crowned himself. This scandalous event is recorded in Jacques-Louis David's famous painting which is now at the Louvre.
When Napoleon invaded Italy, taking Rome in 1808 and the Papal States in 1809, he captured and imprisoned Pope Pius VII at Fontainebleau and forced him to sign another concordat, which Pius later disavowed. After Napoleon's losses in 1814, Pius returned to Rome and offered the city as a place of refuge to members of the Bonaparte family.
Another micromosaic of Pius VII and signed by Vincenzo Verdejo is illustrated in Domenico Petochi, I Mosaici Minuti Romani, 1981, p. 127, fig. 53.