Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Musivum

Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary, and Greek Lexicon (Rich, 1849)

MUSI'VUM (μουσεῖον). The original from which our term mosaic is derived; but the ancients employed the word in a somewhat more restricted sense than we attach to our term. Amongst them musivum means a mosaic formed with small pieces of coloured glass or composition in enamel, as opposed to lithostrotum, which was made of natural stones or different coloured marbles. Mosaics of this description were not originally used for pavements, but only in ceilings (Plin. H. N. xxxvi. 4. Inscript. ap. Furnaletti de Musiv. cap. 1. p. 2.), because at first it was feared that the material was not of sufficient durability to bear the wear and tear of footsteps; but when this was discovered to be a groundless alarm, the same materials were employed in making ornamental pavements (Augustin. Civ. D. xvi. 8.), either alone, or with the admixture of real stones, which enabled the artist to make his work more perfect, and his tints more varied and more true; in short, to imitate a picture with considerable precision in all its colours, forms, and varieties; whence this style of the art obtained the name of mosaic painting  — pictura de musivo  — and became the most perfect amongst the different processes employed for works of this nature, each of which had a characteristic name of its own, which will be found in the list of the Classed Index. Plin. H. N. xxxvi. 64. Spart. Pesc. 6. Visconti. Mus. Pio-Clem. vii. p. 236.