Stucco Extraordinaires

Stuccowork, in architecture, fine exterior or interior plasterwork used as three-dimensional ornamentation, as a smooth paintable surface, or as a wet ground for fresco painting. In modern parlance, the term is most often applied exclusively, especially in the United States, to the rougher plaster coating of exterior walls.Every building tradition in the history of humankind has produced stuccowork. The ingredients, usually some combination of lime, portland cement, and fine sand, may vary greatly in type and proportion, but the material used is less significant than the manner in which it is used. Examples of stuccowork occur in the Aztec architecture of Mexico and the Islamic architecture of North Africa and Spain. In ancient Greece, stucco was applied to both interior and exterior temple walls as early as 1400 BCE. Architects of ancient Rome stuccoed the rough stone or brick walls of huge monuments, such as the baths at Hadrian’s Villa, erected at Tivoli about 120–130 CE. They also favoured it for low-relief modeling. Tombs dating from the 1st and 2nd centuries CE have extensive stuccowork.