go 



[Proc. B.N.F.C., 



interior was completely encrusted with Mosaics, and it was quite 

 impossible to give any idea of the lovely shades of colouring in 

 these fadeless pictures. The Baptism of Christ was represented 

 in the centre of the dome, the river god of the Jordan appeared 

 rising out of the water, a strange mingling of Christian and Pagan 

 subjects. Lower down the twelve Apostles were ranged round 

 the walls, and beneath were graceful festoons of foliage and the 

 true vine. The marble parapet of the font was ancient, and here 

 for fifteen centuries every child born in Ravenna had been 

 baptised. Some of the other Ravenna churches had beautiful 

 examples of Mosaic and marble pillars with finely-carved Byzantine 

 capitals. Ireland and Ravenna had one architectural feature in 

 common in their round towers. It was a vexed question which 

 were the older. The Ravenna Campaniles were of brickwork, 

 they do not taper, and were heavy and clumsy, and much less 

 lofty than Irish towers. The older churches in Rome all had 

 Mosaics, which had suffered more or less from restoration, but still 

 retained much of the original design ; the figures were doubtless 

 stiff and conventional, but interesting to study, and full of 

 symbolism. Traces of interlaced patterns similar to those on Irish 

 crosses were to be found in most old Italian churches. This 

 decoration seemed to have been much used from the sixth to the 

 tenth century. In Rome these interesting fragments were hidden 

 in neglected corners or lay in cloisters or were built into walls ; 

 few were in situ. One of the oldest, dated 514-523, was a white 

 marble panel in the choir screen of St. Clement's, Rome. And a 

 doorway in the Church of St. Prasseda had beautiful white marble 

 jambs covered with interlaced pattern. At the Church of St. 

 Sabina very fine slabs with interlaced knot-work were lately found 

 under the pavement. In remote parts of the country, off the 

 beaten track, fine old churches exist which had escaped restoration, 

 and still retained a good deal of their original interlaced decoration. 

 In the 13th century a new style of Mosaic was developed, called 

 cosmati work, much used on tombs and pulpits and twisted round 



