Conversazione at the Town Kail. 9 



and the Norman artists — exhibiting many drawings lately made in 

 Ireland, and mentioning amongst other points in Saxon work that 

 both in sculptures and in illuminations St. Peter was represented as 

 a young man and beardless, contrary to the usual custom in post- 

 Saxon art. She contended that in the sculptures in the south porch 

 of Malmesbury Abbey St. Peter was so represented and that this 

 pointed to those sculptures being of considerably earlier date than 

 is commonly assigned to them — a conclusion with which, however, 

 all her audience were not inclined to agree. 



The Peesidekt next read a paper on Recent Roman Finds in 

 Cirencester, chiefly in a part of the town now known as Ashcroft — 

 lately built over, probably for the first time since the Roman 

 occupation. Here the line of a Roman road running north and 

 south had been laid bare, with portions o£ tessellated pavements and 

 here and there the foundations of buildings, but the whole ground 

 appeared to have been dug over before in order to get out the wrought 

 stones of the Roman buildings — a fact which accounted for the 

 pavements everywhere being found alone without the walls which 

 originally surrounded them, for the tesserae, being of no use to the 

 searchers for building stone, were left undisturbed. The various 

 objects already exhibited in the afternoon were then described, and 

 the most curious find of all — an article in jet, apparently consisting 

 of a group of a nude torso and part of a clothed figure with a pointed 

 hood hanging on its shoulders, but without either heads or limbs — 

 was commented on and handed round. It had puzzled even Mr. 

 Franks and other authorities of the British Museum; and nobody 

 present would hazard a conjecture as to what it was. 



Mr. Christopher Bowly then gave an account of what he 

 described as probably the most important find, in the way of Roman 

 inscriptions, made in the South of England for some years — a four- 

 sided base, 17in. square, of a memorial column: which was lately 

 discovered in a garden in Victoria Road. The inscription is as 

 follows on three sides of the stone, the fourth side being blank. 

 The letters in black type now exist, those in italics are supposed to 

 have been erased or broken ofi", or are the filling up of contractions. 

 The principal face of the stone contains a dedication to Jupiter. 



