Medusa en los mosaicos romanos: de la mirada que petrificaba a una mirada apotropaica

When we speak of the role of the gaze in myth, Medusa – and the legend of her gaze, which changes the viewer into stone – has a special significance among the various embodiments of the gaze in various mythological periods, for it expresses the view of the ancient Greeks and their regard of the “other” as a key to the mythological. In this way much is also unveiled through the episode about the transformation through the gaze, which transforms into stone, into a new, apotropaic gaze.Thereafter, given myth's symbolism, representations of Medusa resounded through the Roman world, in various media, and very significantly in mosaics. Thanks to the conditions of conservation of mosaics in their original context, the analysis of representations of Medusa on pavements – in an exchange that today actualises the crossing of gazes which is thereby established between Medusa and the inhabitants of villas and their guests during the time of Antiquity – shows that in this apotropaic gaze there was a clear conscience choice linked to beliefs in private and domestic domains, be it in context of the domus, be it in within the villa