Collection Spotlight: The Medusa Mosaic

Roman, Mosaic Floor: Medusa, 117-138, stone and glass, 500.4 x 1258.1 cm (197 x 495 5/16 in.), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA.

In 1892 an ancient villa was discovered just north of Rome, near the villa of Augustus’s wife Livia. Several well-preserved mosaic floors adorned the baths of the villa. Jack and Isabella Gardner inspected the mosaic in 1895 and purchased this floor in 1897. The delicate tracery of this mosaic resembles those made in Pompei around 25 AD (the late second or third style), but brick stamps indicate that it was laid a century later, during the reign of Emperor Hadrian.

Celebrate 2025, the Year of the Snake, with our Medusa Mosaic collection honoring the crown jewel of the Gardner Museum's world-renowned Courtyard.