Mosaici a cielo aperto di Spilimbergo

Spilimbergo is known for its mosaic tradition, represented in public works across the town, from entrance panels to courtyards, roundabouts and church floors.

Why it matters

Three large mosaic panels identify Spilimbergo as Città del Mosaico. Public works across the town include facades, courtyards, a gymnasium, a roundabout, banks, schools and churches. The municipality documents more than twenty works in its "Mosaici a cielo aperto" catalogue, including facades, courtyards, a gymnasium, a roundabout, banks, schools and churches.

The public works document a century of one craft community's output in situ. Everything on it connects back to the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli, founded in 1922 to turn the seasonal stone workers of the Tagliamento and Meduna gravel beds into professional mosaicists. These works show how deeply mosaic is woven into the town's history.

What to notice

Corte Europa has twenty-six mosaic pilasters surrounding a column from Giulio Candussio's "Europa" project of 2001. Piazzetta Walterpertoldo's former dairy has a mosaic sign from 1931, restored in 2005 by Rino Pastorutti. Evelina Della Vedova's "Spengemberg" panel is at the Municipio; the Civic Library in Via Piave holds two works by Fred Pittino, the school's artistic director from the 1940s to the 1970s.

Three-dimensional works include Carlo Ciussi's "Colonne sonore" (1999), Vittorio Basaglia's "Minotauro" (1996), "Testa in 2D" at a roundabout and Stefano Jus's "il Territorio" (2009) in the Banca di Credito Cooperativo. Near the Scuola, the 1928 panel by the war memorial was designed by Umberto Martina and executed by Gino Avon. The Asilo Comunale has a mosaic tree made by children with Candussio and the Eklektic association.

Context and history

The tradition behind these works is riverine. The town portal's mosaic section traces it to the great gravel beds of the Meduna, Cellina, Cosa and Tagliamento, which offered free raw material to Friulian migrant workers, and to the Confraternita de' Terrazzieri recognised by Venice's Council of Ten in 1582. Gian Domenico Facchina of Sequals, working in Paris, patented the reverse mosaic technique in 1858 and carried Friulian skill into buildings from Lourdes to Tokyo.

When the school opened in Spilimbergo in January 1922 — the municipal page records the inaugural lesson given by first director Antonio Sussi to 38 students on 22 January, three weeks after the convention with Milan's Società Umanitaria that set the school up — the town gained a permanent workshop. Major Roman commissions followed, and the school's own history page lists later works from the Foro Italico to the "Saetta Iridescente" mosaic in New York's World Trade Center PATH station and 345 square metres lining the dome of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. These works are local examples of that global practice: schools, sports facilities and offices commissioned panels the way earlier centuries commissioned frescoes.