dorata

Updated: May 24, 2025

They were favourite materials with the ancient Roman decorators; but they do not occur in large masses in the city. A beautiful pair of Roman Ionic columns under the pediment of the altar of the third chapel in the Church of Ara Coeli are made of a valuable breccia called Breccia dorata, distinguished by its small light-golden fragments on a ground of various shades of purple.

Hugh Macmillan - Roman Mosaics: Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood