Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Emblema

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

EMBLE'MA (ἔμβλημα). Inlaid; but especially applied to mosaic work (Varro, R. R. iii. 2. 4. Lucil. ap. Cic. Brut. 79.), which is composed with a number of small pieces of coloured stone, glass, or enamel set in a bed of cement. As this art was practised in various ways, we meet with several names in reference to it, each of which discriminates some one of the particular methods, such as tessellatum, sectile, vermiculatum, and others enumerated in the classed Index. If the present one, emblema, is not a generic, but specific term, it may have been used to designate a description of mosaic little known, but practised in the villa of Hadrian, near Tivoli, some fragments of which have been published by Caylus (Recueil, vi. 86.), and consisting of bas-reliefs modelled in very hard stucco, which are inlaid with small pieces of different coloured stones and enamels, so as to have the appearance of being painted. The second meaning attached to the word emblema supports such a conjecture.

2. A raised ornament or figure not cast nor cut out of the solid, but affixed to some other substance as an ornamental mount; such, for instance, as a figure in gold rivetted upon bronze. (Cic. Verr. ii. 4. 17. 22. 24.) This art was much practised and highly esteemed by the ancients; and several specimens of it have been discovered at Pompeii.