284 General Discussion of the Crosses 



as the souls of the blessed.^ Much later, the grapes, sometimes 

 associated with ears of wheat, represented the Eucharist, by which 

 the souls of Christians were refreshed on earth. ^ 



As for the animals sometimes interspersed with the birds, they 

 perhaps were originally intended to represent ' the little foxes that 

 spoil the vines,' ^ the evil agencies which are intent upon destroying 

 Christianity — not in all innocence, like the birds, enjoying the fruits 

 of it. Of course in many instances the vine, with or without its birds 

 or animals, must have been used as a merely decorative feature, with 

 no thought of symbohsm. The frequency with which birds are 

 introduced as architectural decorations has been noted b}' Ruskin. 



Half the ornament, at least, in Byzantine architecture, and a third 

 of that of Lombardic, is composed of birds, either pecking at fruit or 

 flowers, or standing on either side of a flower or vase, or alone, as 

 generally the symbolical peacock.^ 



The vine itself is not always distinctly recognizable as a grapevine, 

 and for this reason writers sometimes speak of it merely as a ' scroll 

 of fohage.' Occasionally it is replaced by the acanthus. 



The vine-leaf [is] used constantly both by Byzantines and Lombards, 

 but by the latter with especial frequency, though at this time they were 

 hardly able to indicate what they meant. It forms the most remark- 

 able generaUty of the St. Michele decoration ; though, had it not luckily 

 been carved on the fa(,-ade, twining round a stake, and with grapes, 

 I should never have known what it was meant for, its general form being 

 a succession of sharp lobes, with incised furrows to the point of each. 

 But it is thrown about in endless change ; four or five varieties of it might 

 be found on every cluster of capitals : and not content with this, the 

 Lombards hint the same form even in their griffin wings. They love 

 the vine very heartily.^ 



1 Martigny, Diet, des Antiqq. Chret., pp. 796 ff. ; Kraus, Realencyclopcidie 

 der Christl. Alterthilmer 2. 982 ; Handbook L 394 ; cf. pp. 402, 404. 439. 



2 Handbook 1. 394. 



3 Song of Sol. 2. 15; cf. p. 63, above. 

 * Stones of Venice \. 20. 35. 



^ Ibid., Vol. 1, App. 8. In the preceding paragraph Ruskin says: ' The 

 Lombard animals are all alive, and fiercely alive too, all impatience and 

 spring : the Byzantine birds peck idly at the fruit, and the animals hardly 

 touch it with their noses. The cinque cento birds in Venice hold it up dain- 

 tily, like train-bearers ; the birds in the earher Gothic peck at it hungrily 



(72) 



