Murrina Vasa
A Luxury of Imperial Rome
by Dario Del Bufalo
It was Pliny who provided the longest and most detailed description of MURRINA VASA: Their size never exceeds that of a small table, and, in thickness, they rarely are so thick as the drinking cups mentioned above. Their brightness has no intensity, they are shiny rather than brilliant. But what is really valuable is the variety of colours, since their veins repeatedly turn purple, to snow-white and a third shade between the two, just as when the purple gets inflamed in a change of colour or the milk-white goes red. Some people appreciate above all their outlines and certain reflections in the colours, like those observed in the rainbow. Other people, on the other hand, like thicker veins – any transparency or lack of colour is considered an imperfection – as well as grains and warts that, just as in the human body, are not prominent, but are mostly flat. A certain worth can also ascribed to their smell. -(Naturalis Historia 37.21-2)
It was Pliny who provided the longest and most detailed description of MURRINA VASA: Their size never exceeds that of a small table, and, in thickness, they rarely are so thick as the drinking cups mentioned above. Their brightness has no intensity, they are shiny rather than brilliant. But what is really valuable is the variety of colours, since their veins repeatedly turn purple, to snow-white and a third shade between the two, just as when the purple gets inflamed in a change of colour or the milk-white goes red. Some people appreciate above all their outlines and certain reflections in the colours, like those observed in the rainbow. Other people, on the other hand, like thicker veins – any transparency or lack of colour is considered an imperfection – as well as grains and warts that, just as in the human body, are not prominent, but are mostly flat. A certain worth can also ascribed to their smell. -(Naturalis Historia 37.21-2)
- By (author) Dario Del Bufalo
Other Titles in this Series
L’enigma dei vasi murrini / The Enigma of Murrhine Ware
Leggende, storia, letteratura, indagine archeogemmologica. / Legends, History, Literature, an Archaeogeomological Investigation
Volume 59
Architetture dipinte
Decorazioni parietali non figurate nelle tombe a camera dell'Etruria meridionale (VII-V sec. a.C.)
Volume 18
La Castellina a sud di Civitavecchia
origini ed eredita: Origines protohistoriques et evolution d'un habitat etrusque
Volume 47
Studies in Romanesque Architecture and Sculpture
Cluny, Jumieges, Montceaux-L'etoile and Paray-le-Monial
Volume 72
Antike Glaeser
Monumenta Antiquitatis extra fines Hungariae reperta quae in Museo Artium hungarico aliisque museis et collectionibus hungaricis conservantur. Vol. 5
Volume 19
The Brick System of Romanesque Architecture
The Lombard Band and Its Transformation in Catalonia and France
Volume 56
Patrimonio arqueologico espanol en Roma como instrumentos de memoria historica
Le Mostre Internazionali di Archeologia
Volume 61
The Great Civilisations of the Ancient Sahara
Neolithisation and the earliest evidence of anthropomorphic religions
Volume 21
Divagazioni archeologiche Vol. II
Di un pre-arco insussistente. Di quattro colonne di caristio
Volume 4
The Site of the Battle of the Aegates Islands at the end of the First Punic War
Fieldwork, analyses and perspectives, 2005-2015
Volume 60
Case e torri medioevali a Roma
Vol. I. Documentazione, storia e sopravvivenza di edifici medioevali nel tessuto urbano di Roma
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Le Sepolture principesche nel Lazium Vetus
Tra la fine della prima meta del ferro e l'inizio dell'eta orientalizzante
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Excavation of a Roman Villa
And Late Roman Infant Cemetery near Lugnano in Teverina, Italy
Volume 23
Coptic Antiquities I
Stone Sculpture, Bronze Objects; Ceramic Coffin Lids and Vessels; Terracotta Statuettes, Bone, Wood, and Glass Artefacts. (Monumenta antiquitatis extra fines hungariae reperta, vol. II)
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