Maggie McCracken, Class of 2025, College of the Holy Cross
This mosaic was part of the decoration of a private home. It brought color and design into the room, giving the residents and visitors cause to spend time in the room to admire it. This pictorial floor served as an announcement of wealth and symbolized eternal abundance with its vines, basket of grapes, and peacocks. It was also the flooring in that room. Image walking across it in bare feet and the sensation of the cold stone cooling you -- and the room -- on a warm Mediterranean day. Instead of packed dirt floors, or delicate carpets, mosaic tiles also served as a cleanable surface.
Nearly a millennium later and most of the way around the Mediterranean Sea, the Spanish Paneled Ceiling also witnesses domestic architecture. Both ceilings and floors were commissioned and installed directly into a room. Also, both of these the utilize rhythmic floral motifs that appear in many locations and media around the medieval world.
