Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 3.djvu/313

Rh The rebuses, which occur on monuments of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in this country, have their antitypes in the phonetic figures on some of the ancient Christian monuments at Rome, thus: 'the tomb of Dracontius exhibits a dragon; that of Onager an ass.'

The author has great pleasure in being able to contribute, to the small number of phonetics already published, the annexed, from the Lapidarian Gallery. A fragment only has been copied, the entire inscription being long—

—Pontius Leo, and Pontia Maxima his wife. The former while living, bought this tomb. Their sons set up this.

Two well-known instances are those of Doliens and Porcella.

Doliens the father, to Julius his son.

Dolium is the Latin for cask; Porcella signifies a little pig, as in the next:

Here sleeps Porcella in peace. She lived three years ten months, and thirteen days.

Anciently the symbolic manner in which the Almighty Father was indicated, was by the image of a hand issuing from a cloud, and two instances of this appear among the catacomb sculptures, of which Dr. M. gives illustrations. In the Vetera Monimenta of Ciampini more early examples from mosaics are given of this symbol. It occurs in this country over the sculptured rood, a work of the twelfth century, on the south side of Romsey abbey church, but it was not till the fifteenth century that the usage of representing the first person of the Holy Trinity in human form became at all prevalent: we then find it on sculptured bosses, in painted glass, on ecclesiastical seals, and, as at Chacombe, Northamptonshire, and Great Tew, Oxfordshire, on sepulchral brasses. Milman attributes to the French the introduction of this representation, so early as the ninth century, an illuminated bible, supposed of that age, being his authority; but M. De Caumont, the learned antiquary of Normandy, was unable to find sculptured representations of the Trinity, with the Almighty Father thus personified, of an earlier era than the fifteenth century.

Whatever difference of opinion there may be as to the theological tone in which Dr. Maitland's remarks are written, and on this we offer no comment, his work is well worthy of a careful perusal, and possesses more than a mere transient interest. He has undoubtedly done much service in affording to many—few of whom have ever heard of the thirty years labours of Bosio, or of the folio tomes of Aringhi—a full, descriptive, and critical account, bearing evident marks of much labour and learning, of the