Page:Cambridge Medieval History Volume 3.pdf/585

542 also panels representing geometrical arrangements of marble, and a cornice imitating modillions in a formal perspective on the flat. This is practically identical with a "cornice" band made up of flat morsels of marble of different colours at Salonica. At Ravenna again there are angels in mosaic which are certainly derived, as Strzygowski himself pointed out, from such medallion-bearing Victories as those of Palmyra. Alexandria would be the best common centre for places so far apart as Salonica, Ravenna and Palmyra, and the painted catacomb at the latter place may be taken to represent Alexandrian art of the fifth century. Catacomb burial itself most probably originated in Alexander's city. Recent explorations in Asia reveal how wide was the saturation of late Hellenistic and early Christian art in the East. Alexandria was the great emporium for distributing works of art over the civilised world.

Two early churches, both perhaps of the fifth century, may be taken as types, one of the circular plan and the other of the basilican. The former, the church of St George at Salonica, is a domed rotunda having a very thick wall in which a series of recesses are, as it were, excavated, while a bema with an apse projects to the eastward. The circular "nave" thus follows the tradition of many Roman tomb buildings as, for instance, that of St Helena at Rome; this constitutes indeed the martyrion type of church. The rotunda of Salonica may be earlier than the bema attached to it and may have been erected in the fourth century; the masonry of the wall is of small stones with bonding courses of brick, a late Roman fashion. The dome, which is about eighty feet in diameter, was encrusted within with mosaics of which large portions still remain. Eight great panels contained martyrs standing in front of architectural façades. These are, it may be supposed, the courts of paradise. The saints are in the attitude of prayer; and some ivories shew St Menas of Alexandria in a similar way. One of these ivories has the background filled by an architectural composition which is remarkably like those of the Salonica mosaics. Here are round pediments filled with shells, lamps hanging between pairs of columns, curtains drawn back, and birds. Mr Dalton has spoken of the architectural façades which derive from the scenes of the theatre as "in a Pompeian style," and has remarked that the free use of jewelled ornament on columns and arches is an oriental feature. It is not to be doubted that these mosaics derive from the art of Alexandria. The recesses of the interior are also covered with mosaic; this church must have been a wonderfully beautiful work. The dome is covered externally by a low-pitched roof.

The basilican church mentioned above is St John of the Studion at Constantinople, which was built about 463 and is now in a terribly ruined condition. It is rather short and wide and had two storeys of marble columns on either hand, the lower tier supporting a moulded marble beam, forming the front of a gallery floor, and the upper tier