9 architectural scenes with malachite borders in black marble with a brick red band, 14" diameter, 19th century, stunning detail! Excellent........................History of Micro MosaicsIn the early 18th century, a roman glass kin owner named Alessio Mattioli experimented on colored glass paste and developed a high percentage of coloring agents. He made what were called " Smalti Filati". Depending on the shade of color to be obtained, bits of different his master tints were mixed together and then melted over an open flame. The molten mass was then "spun" or drawn by means of tweezers into threads of the desired thickness. The "smalti filati" technique made it possible for artisans to fashion pieces on very small scale, and eventually even to produce actual "miniature mosaics", with glass tiles called "tesserae", which were less than 1 mm thick, and which gained widespread popularity in the first half of 18th century.There are several types of Italian mosaics: Venetian, Roman and Florentine. In Venetian designs, the artisans used a wide variety of shapes in the glass tiles to form the design. In the Roman design very tiny pieces of colored glass, call tesserae, were pieced together to form a picture, and were held in place with cement in a glass or stone background.