Geometry and Art in Decorative Panels of Salerno Cathedral’s Floor

The paper dwells on an interesting Norman-era artistic episode that is in the San Matteo cathedral, in Salerno. Specifically, it is the mosaic floor of the church, stylistically attributable to the “Cosmatesque” art that, between the XII and XIII century, spread in the regions of central-southern Italy culturally influenced by the Byzantine world. After deepening the stylistic implications of the Cosmati, attention is paid to the geometries of the inlaid floor drawing, that define the aesthetics of the multiform motifs made by artisans of different cultural backgrounds. Leaving aside the intellectual, psychological or religious reasons that inspired the realization of the floor decorations, the paper traces and analyses, through considerations of a mainly graphic nature, the logic underlying the drawing of the inlaid marble pavement. The vast repertoire of shapes is therefore examined and, with the help of drawing, the harmonic synthesis between geometry and mathematics in the various modular compositions is highlighted. The aim is to identify the compositional structure and the geometric rules of the decorative patterns that define its overall image.