GARLANDS OF ROSES 89 



Beneath Byzantine influence the rosy 

 wreaths turned to crowns of jewels, and in 

 the period between Constantine and Justinian 

 crowns were considered strictly necessary for 

 the guests at the heavenly feasts. But when 

 the King of Heaven Himself was present all 

 reverently uncrowned, and it is with their crowns 

 in their hands that the twelve apostles stand, 

 and the four-and-twenty elders in the mosaics 

 of Rome and Ravenna. In the Neapolitan 

 mosaics in the Chapel of Santa Restituta eight 

 figures, apparently of martyrs, hold large crowns 

 resembHng a victor's wreath, and the graceful 

 virgin saints on the wall of S. Apollinare Nuova 

 each carries her wreath. 



The tall, grand angels of the mosaics have 

 neither wreaths nor garlands. They have 

 gained no crown because no strife has ever 

 troubled their serenity. They stand tall and 

 straight, haloed, with spear-like wands in their 

 hands. 



After the twelfth century, however, the 

 apostles and martyrs no longer carry the crown 

 of victory, but it is the angels who wear wreaths, 

 usually wreaths of roses, which are the symbol 



