194 SUPPOSED INSCRIPTION UPON THE FONT AT WILNE. 
vessels) without noticing the resemblance they bear to these cir- 
cular columns. There is a tenth century s¢w/a in the treasury of 
the Duomo at Milan, cylindrical, but contracting downwards, with 
a Romanesque arcade and a Scripture subject in each arch, the 
rim at the bottom carrying a well designed key pattern. A cylin- 
drical German sv/w/a of the eleventh century has two tiers of Scripture 
subjects, running continuously round with no arcade. These 
interesting vessels are only seven or eight inches high by about 
five inches across, but they look strangely like a piece of a great 
column in miniature. The same may be said of the pyxes, some 
of which are much earlier than the dates mentioned. They are 
exceedingly like circular fonts in miniature, or portions of cylin- 
drical columns. This is particularly the case with an Italian pyx 
of the fifth or sixth century at the Vatican, representing the 
miracles of our Lord, while the very early pyx in the treasury of 
the Cathedral of Sens has a lion hunt, in which a shield, a fallen 
man, and a lion’s head with the paws on a branch, might have 
served as a copy for a sculptured fragment at Jarrow. 
