# Vault decoration \(detail\) [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [MOSAIC ARTIST, Italian]() - Date: 0351-0400 - Technique: Mosaic ## Commentary The decoration of the Early Christian churches was mostly with mosaics. One of the most elaborate series of mosaics is in Santa Costanza, a domed circular building reputed to have been used as the burial chapel of Constantine's daughter. The mosaics are ambivalent in their imagery; the probably late Antique ones in the vaulting of the ambulatory are only Christian in that some of the motifs, such as birds pecking grapes, luxuriant foliage and birds in a garden amid vases, the grape harvest, with putti pressing the grapes, later acquired Christian meanings. The picture shows a detail of the mosaics decorating the vault of the ambulatory of Santa Costanza. The motifs of the decoration are similar to those in Late Roman profane mosaics. ## Related artworks - [Apse calotte mosaic \(detail\)]() - [Apse calotte mosaic \(detail\)]() - [Apse calotte mosaic \(detail\)]() - [Apse calotte mosaic \(detail\)]() - [Apse decoration \(detail\)]() - [Apse decoration]() - [Apse decoration]() - [Apse decoration]() - [Apse mosaic \(detail\)]() - [Apse mosaic \(detail\)]() - [Apse mosaic \(detail\)]() - [Apse mosaic \(detail\)]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()