ROMAN PAVEMENTS ANt) iNTRECCl. 185 



brought hither by Italians, and more particularly that all the 

 intrecci on our Christian monuments were the work of the 

 Comacine Guild. It will already have become clear that this was 

 not the case ; that there was a strong and independent evolution 

 of interlacing designs in the North of Europe. Indeed it may 

 well have been that lacertine decoration spread from the North 

 into Italy. In the III. and IV. centuries B.C. there was a colony 

 of Gauls on the Adriatic, and in their cemetery have been 

 discovered, as Leader Scott herself relates, serpent ornaments 

 connected with a religious cult. 



Attention has been drawn to a cross, or rather to portions of 

 one, that was disinterred from the church of SS. Cosmas and 

 Damian, Rome; and notwithstanding that Cattaneo, p. 190, 

 assigns it to the IX. cent, it has been claimed as the origin of 

 what is called the Irish Cross. 



It is represented in Illustration XXIII. , and it may be seen 

 that it bears no resemblance whatever to any ancient cross in 

 Ireland, Cornwall, or Wales. In a small panel at the base of the 

 lower limb is a twisted withy band or magic knot, common 

 throughout Europe. Above it is a Byzantine decoration not 

 to be matched on any early cross in these islands ; whilst the 

 intreccio on the upper limb, suggesting as it does the Egyptian 

 Apep, and occurring on Assyrian cylinders, is equally foreign. 



There can be no doubt that Augustine and Paulinus and other 

 missionaries brought masons with them, who may have been 

 Italians, though Beda expressly states that Benedict Biscop's 

 masons were Gauls. It is also certain that their object was to 

 introduce the basilican form of church and the Roman manner 

 of construction. 



But as regards decoration, there is no evidence of an exclusive 

 Italian style. 



The Comacine Guild was a receptive school of builders. 

 Greek, Byzantine, and Saracenic art had reached them ; they 

 were doubtless acquainted with the intrecci of Georgian and 



* Illustrated Archaeologist, iv., 1. 



