An Italian micromosaic table by Cesare Roccheggiani on a giltwood tripod base, Rome, last quarter 19th century

the central panel depicting St. Peter's Square surrounded by eight views of Roman monuments within lapis lazuli, malachite and Greek key borders, the underside bearing remnants of three original trade labels C. ROCCHEGGIANI / ARTIST / SOLE MANUFACTORY / OF / ROMAN MOSAICS / Via Condotti, 14-15 / ROME (Italy) 

Collection of Janet Mitchell, Wilmette, Illinois

Cesare Roccheggiani was the leading purveyor of micromosaics in late 19th-century Rome, catering particularly to visiting English and American Grand Tourists.  He presumably descended from a dynasty of mosaicists including Lorenzo and Nicola Roccheggiani who worked in the Vatican workshops in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and Antonio Roccheggiani, who participated in the International Exhibitions of London in 1851 and Paris in 1855.  Little is known of Cesare's activities before he opened his shop in the Via Condotti in 1874, but it is possible he may have worked in the celebrated workshop of Michelangelo Barberi (d. 1867), as he based many of his compositions on Barberi's designs. In addition to the Vatican, the other monuments depicted are the Pantheon,the Arch of Titus, the Campidoglio, the Forum with the Temple of Castor and Pollux, the Colosseum, the Tomb of Caecilia Metella, The Temple of Hercules Victor, and the Castello Sant'Angelo.