Prof. Dario Del Bufalo
Specialist in stone sculpture , colored marbles , glyptics , restoration and Geoarchaeology
English
ItalianoArchivio
Roman marble craftsmen
“BUFALE ARCHEOLOGICHE” Column in Il Giornale dell’Arte – November 2014
Bank suppositories Have you ever wondered how many masterpieces are hidden away in bank vaults? There are hundreds, works of art delivered for safe-keeping by private individuals for security against theft but also, and perhaps more, works of art owned by the banks themselves or bank foundations who have acquired them for investment, as many...
The ancient marbles in the cosmati reuse
The lecture by Prof. Dario Del Bufalo looks at the beginnings of the taste for coloured marbles in the Roman Empire: their use, origins, quarries and colours, and in particular the symbolic, political and religious values of some of the key colours in the iconographical transition from Pagan to Christian Rome. Other aspects covered are the re-use of coloured...
An Egyptian Porphyry bust of Cavour
Rome. An Egyptian Imperial Red Porphyry bust portraying Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour is conserved in the Blue Room in the Palazzo Senatorio on Capitoline Hill. This portrait is circa 82 cm high and depicts a fairly young Cavour, about 45 years old and certainly after 1856, the year in which he received the medal that he wears around...
Magister Vitellius Setinus at “Spoleto Arte”
The series of lectures presented at Spoleto on remarkable characters closes with one on Franco Vitelli, a man of uncertain age, although he was known to be active between 1282 and 1299. He is the last member of the Cosmati family who has created marvellous inlaid geometric stone ‘carpets’ with classical taste and oriental patterns that defy time. Not...
Marmorari Magistri Romani
...the Roman Magistri developed a language that was appropriate to the new liturgical values of the Christian religion. Like this, the divine word remained camouflaged in the fractal geometry of Arabic mathematics...
Marbres de couleur. Pierres et architecture de l’Antiquité au XVIII siècle
Les marbres de couleur sont des pierres pnécieuses enchâssées dans les joyaux de I'architecture. Cet ouvrage entend suivre une trace à la fois historique et chronologique de l'utilisation des différentes pierres dans l'architecture italienne, de l'époque romaine au baroque.
L’Università dei Marmorari di Roma
The Università dei Marmorari in Rome is extremely grateful to the National Committee for the Celebrations of the Sixth Centenary of its foundation, for having made the publication of this small volume possible...
Marmi Antichi e Pietre Dure
Coloured marbles are inseparable from Roman civilisation. No culture has searched for and loved these coloured marbles as much as the Romans did...
Signature of a Magister identified in Santo Stefano Rotondo
During an inspection in the Basilica of Santo Stefano Rotondo, we photographed a (seemingly unpublished) inscription that was engraved on the footrest of the throne of Gregory the Great that reads: Magister Iohannis. This marble chair is certainly a reuse from antiquity and appears to be from the 2nd century. The uncertain nature of the letters of the signature...
The Four Crowned Saints at Luxor
The Four Crowned Saints in a probable overpainting of the tetrarchic fresco in the apse of the Temple of Amun in Luxor. Download PDF (in italian, 582 KB) Text from Marmorari Magistri Romani di Dario Del Bufalo. Roma, L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2010.
