Verd antique (obsoleteFrench, fromItalian,verde antico, "ancient green"), also calledverde antique,marmor thessalicum, orOphite, is aserpentinitebreccia[1] popular since ancient times as a decorative facing stone. It is a dark, dull green, white-mottled (or white-veined)serpentine, mixed withcalcite,dolomite, ormagnesite, which takes a high polish.[2] The termverd antique has been documented in English texts as early as 1745.[citation needed]
It is sometimes classed, erroneously, as a variety ofmarble ("Thessalian marble", "serpentine marble", "Moriah stone", etc.). It has also been called and marketed as "ophicalcite" or "ophite".[3]
Non-brecciated varieties of a very similar serpentinite, sometimes also called "verd antique", have been quarried atVictorville, California;[4]Cardiff, Maryland;[5]Holly Springs, Georgia;[6] and Rochester inAddison County, Vermont.[7]
Verd antique is used like marble especially in interior decoration and occasionally as outdoor trim, although the masses are frequently jointed and often only small slabs can be secured.
The ancient Romans quarried it especially atCasambala, near Larissa,Thessaly, inGreece.[8] This variety was known asmarmor thessalicum or Thessalian marble. In Diocletian'sEdict on Maximum Prices, Thessalian marble was priced at 150denarii per cubicfoot - more expensive than the valuable Egyptian grey granite ofMons Claudianus, known asgranito del foro, and red granite ofAswan, calledlapis syenites, higher priced thancipollino fromCarystus, and exceeded only in value bySynnadic or Docimaean marble fromDocimium, porphyritic greenlapis Lacedaemonius fromLaconia, andimperial porphyry fromMons Porphyrites. GreenThessalicum was three times the price of grey-white marble fromThassos.
Verd antique was much used by the monumental builders of theByzantine Empire and by theOttomans after them; columns and revetments ofverde antico are common inIstanbul's monuments, many inherited from the city's time asConstantinople. TheJustinianicHagia Sophia,Church of SS. Sergius & Bacchus,Church of Hagios Polyeuctus, theMonastery of Saint John Prodromos'at Stoudios', and theChurch of the Holy Apostles all usedmarmor thessalicum extensively, including large monolithic columns.[9] The JustinianicSan Vitale at Ravenna also employs Thessalian columns.[9]
Verd antique from Larissa was used in the fifth-century churches ofThessaloniki. Columns,ambons,iconostasis, andfonts of verd antique are found in theChurch of the Acheiropoietos,Hagios Demetrios, andHagia Sophia, Thessaloniki.Evliya Çelebi described the green ambo of Hagia Sophia was a ‘rare admirable artistic piece of construction’ ... ‘one of the monuments of the whole world’.[9] This ambo of Hagia Sophia in Thessaloniki is now in theIstanbul Archaeology Museum. Another, smaller such ambo exists in the church of Hagios Minas in Thessaloniki, with another sixth-centuryThessalicum ambo discovered among other ecclesiastical stonework in the "Marzamemi shipwreck" offSicily.[9]
Thessalian marble appeared in theMonastery of Hosios Loukas inBoeotia, atPhilippi in the A and B Basilicas and the ‘Octagon’, and inbasilicae atAmphipolis, onThasos, inDion, in the cathedral atStobi, atKato Milia inPieria, atStagoi, andSaint John's at Ephesus. In ancientNeapolis, a Thessalian stone outside a church dedicated toSaint Nicholas is said to mark where theApostle Paul disembarked for Philippi.[9]
ʿAbd al-Malik'sDome of the Rock,ʿAbd ar-Raḥman I'sGrand Mosque of Córdoba, andCharlemagne'sPalatine Chapel at Aachen all used Thessalian verd antique. TheCappella Corsini ofSanta Maria del Carmine, Florence, andSanta Maria Maggiore andSanta Susanna in Rome all have verd antique decoration.[9]
Thirteen Roman imperialsarcophagi of the Byzantine period were of verd antique, according to thePatria Constantinopoleos and the works ofConstantine VIIPorphyrogenitus. Nine emperors and eight other imperial figures, mostly empresses, are known to have been buried in such sarcophagi.Zeno,Justin II,Constantine V,Michael IRangabe,Theophilus and his co-emperor sonConstantine,Michael III,Basil I, andAlexander were all entombed in this way. Such sarcophagi are found today in Hagia Sophia and in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum.[9]
Subsequently, many Ottoman mosques incorporated verd antique columns and other material, as at theSüleymaniye Mosque.
Verd antique is very similar in colour to the national gemstone ofIreland,Connemara marble. Connemara marble differs from the verd antiques in that it is an actual marble, rather than aserpentinite breccia, despite also having a very high serpentine content. It is named after the region in the western part of the country in which it is quarried (includingLissoughter inRecess, County Galway, and inClifden).[10]