Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/91

Rh be assured that the subject is ably treated. After an introduction of some length on the object and practice of pictorial representations of religious history and doctrine, M. Didron enters upon his subject by treating first one of the most striking characteristics of divinity and sanctity, which, when it appears about the head is called the nimbus, and when it encircles the whole body he distinguishes by the term aureole or glory. The nimbus is used very extensively; but the aureole surrounding the whole body is almost entirely restricted to the Divine Persons and to the Virgin, and does not dispense with the use of the other at the same time. The following figure, (fig. 1,) taken from an illuminated Italian MS. of the fourteenth century, in the Bibliothèque Royale at Paris, represents Christ carried up to heaven by angels: the Saviour has the nimbus about his head, and an elliptical glory about his whole body; the angels are also nimbed, but with a nimbus of an inferior rank.

(Fig 1) Christ in an Elliptic Aureole.

By far the most general form of the nimbus is a circle, but it sometimes occurs under other forms, particularly in early monuments. In Italy, and