312 ON TASTE IN ORNAMENTAL DESIGN. Paet II. 



the original, till the lengthy formal figure quite superseded 

 the classical ; and the Bay eux- tapestry- style of the Normans 

 put an end to all vestiges of the older style. 



In the Anglo-Saxon MSS. the adoption of the colours pre- 

 valent at a late and corrupt Eoman time may also be traced 

 in the quantity of undecided green* then introduced, often 

 with much yellow and a brownish redf; and this is made 

 more obvious by the subsequent change to the blue, red, and 

 yellow (with a rich gold ground), in the MSS. of the 1100 

 and the following century ; corresponding, as they do, with 

 the colouring of the windows of that period, both in England 

 and France. 



85. It has been a question whether the employment of the 

 Byzantine mosaicists gave the first impulse to the revival of 

 art in Italy, or whether it was restored by the unaided efforts 

 of the Italians themselves. Some, like Cicognara $, maintain 

 that the arts were never so debased as to need restoration 

 from abroad ; and he goes so far as to maintain that the 

 mosaics of the early churches of Italy were the work of native 

 artists (Stor. della Sc. i. p. 475,476); though both tradition and 

 the evidence of their style are conclusive respecting their 

 Byzantine origin. Vasari, on the other hand, admits that 

 sculpture and the other arts had fallen to decay in the time of 

 Constantine, and that art was little less than totally lost in 

 the reign of Julian, and was buried completely during the 

 invasions of the Groths and Vandals. He also shows, in his life 



* Of about 1000 a.d.: the same prevalence of green is often found in Ger- 

 man MSS. also of the 1100. 



f See Cott. MS. Tiber. B. 5, and others. 



X Cicognara is apt to claim too much for Italy in those days. He even 

 attributes the Pala d' Oro, at Venice, to Italian, though it is well known to be 

 the work of Byzantine, artificers, and to have been executed at Constantinople, 

 by order of the Doge P. Orseolo I. ; " the portrait of Ordelafo Faliero having 

 been added when it was brought over in his dogeship, in 1102. Its Byzantine 

 origin is also shown by its style and Greek inscriptions. 



