48 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



and left wings of the triptych offer one beneath the other the 

 busts of ten saints, five on each wing; on the left wing, John 

 the Baptist, St. Paul, St. Stephen, St. Chrysostom, St. 

 Cosmas; on the right wing, Elias, St. Peter, St. Pantaleemon, 

 St. Nicolaus, and St. Damianus. As will be observed, the 

 arrangement is symmetrical, the saints opposite each other 

 being more especially connected historically or otherwise. 

 In each case the name of the saint in Greek characters ac- 

 companies and explains the bust. Indeed, all the figures are 

 thus explained. Beneath the cross is the iambic inscription: 



DX 2APH HEnONGAS 112 02 HAGHN ATEI2 



"x4s man [in the flesh] thou hast suffered, as God, after suffer- 

 ing, thou redeemest."* This triptych is 11 in. high and Oj 

 in. wide. 



A Byzantine carving of the twelfth century in the Biblio- 

 theque de I'Arsenal, Paris, and which forms the centre of 

 the cover of an evangelium exhibits the artist's sense of the 

 overpowering majesty of the Transfiguration, that sense of 

 the almost crushing power of the divine that is manifested 

 in many Byzantine mosaics, and in the early Italian paint- 

 ings produced under Byzantine influence, in the art of 

 Ravenna, as in the pictures of Cimabue. This overmaster- 

 ing faith in the divine power lends a dignity and force 

 that offsets many artistic failings. 



One of the arms of a cross carved out of ivory by a 

 Spanish artist of the twelfth century, and now in the Louvre, 

 shows a curious bordering of birds and animals including a 

 very lifelike parrot and two of the fabled dragons or griffins 

 so dear to medieval fantasy. As a choice bit of bordering 

 the work possesses unquestionable merit, and testifies to 

 the excellence of the Spanish carvers of this period, who 



*M. Digby Wyatt, "Notices of sculpture in ivory," London, 1856, Plate opp. p. 42. 



