Frankly, I’d rather see the money spent on this hokum donated instead to the conservation of the 13th century Cosmati Pavement at Westminster Abbey – even though it predicts the end of the world.
Few modern visitors have ever seen it, although since 1268 kings and princes, queens and cardinals have walked across a symbol laden mosaic as intricate as a piece of jewellery. It is made up of rare marbles and gemstones, including some recycled from monuments 1,000 years older, and pieces of coloured glass, set in complex allegorical patterns into a framework of Purbeck marble cut as intricately as a jigsaw puzzle. “When this floor was new it would have blazed with colour,” Vanessa Simeoni, the abbey’s head of conservation said. “The materials were chosen for their brilliance and shine, and the quality of the craftsmanship is actually shocking, the ultimate that could be achieved.”
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