DISCOVER ROMANESQUE: Materials and techniques

Materials and techniques

Stone connotes the whole architecture of the Upper Tyrrhenian, laid in increasingly large and regular ashlars as excavation and working skills were being recovered. Almost to highlight the executive accuracy and the preciousness of the material employed – in the lack of marble, using white or pearl-grey limestones, or golden sandstones – wall faces often renounced any sophistication or sculptural decoration. At the same time, the great construction of Pisa cathedral – a crossroads of Mediterranean, Arab and Byzantine echoes – spread a different taste for colour: blind arcades, sometimes resting on columns or pilasters, at times including smaller arcades, gave surfaces a movement effect; they were run through by brickbands, obtained in each territory by using local green, reddish, grey stones, with the insertion of coloured inlays and lozenge decorations.

 

THE ROMANESQUE CHURCHES

The time of Romanesque