Unlike tessellated mosaic techniques, where the placement of very small uniformly sized pieces forms a picture, opus sectile pieces are much larger and can be shaped to define large parts of the design.

The term opus sectile was introduced in recent centuries, but the Romans used the term sectilia pavimenta.

Origin and evolution

Early examples

It appeared in Rome in the first decades of the 1st c. BC when "stone slab floors came into use, at least in the smaller element

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