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558 The monument which most clearly witnesses to the presence of the East in the West is the church of Sta Maria Antiqua, excavated about twenty years ago out of the débris at the foot of the Palatine Hill. It is in the Forum, on the right in going to the Coliseum. It was an old Roman building, which was transformed into a church early in the seventh century, being a large, high hall having lateral chambers formed into chapels. The walls were partly covered with a plating of marble, and all the rest was adorned with paintings, which, for the most part, are still in good condition. The paintings are inscribed mostly in Greek with some Latin. A stone of the ambo had a bilingual inscription: † John Servant of the Theotokos. The art-types are obviously eastern, and the saints depicted are both eastern and western. There are paintings of the Crucifixion, the Majesty, the enthroned Virgin and Child, the Annunciation, Nativity, Daniel in the Lions' Den, and many others. In the apse of the chapel is a large figure of Christ between two six-winged tetramorphs. The background of this subject is divided into an upper portion painted black, and a lower part divided vertically into four parts alternately red and green. The Crucifixion is very like another in a Syrian book now at Florence. On either hand of the Cross are the two soldiers, by one of whom is inscribed Longinus. On the Syrian Gospel, which was written in 586 by the monk Rabula, the similar figure of the soldier is named ΛΟΓΙΝΟϹ. The resemblances are altogether so remarkable that it cannot be doubted that this very Syrian MS. or a similar one was the direct source for the wall painting. It has been already pointed out by Mr Dalton that a curious pattern which is found at Sta Maria Antiqua, like a row of overlapping coins, occurs again also in the Codex of Rossano, another book which is possibly of Syrian origin, and it occurs again in a Syrian book at Paris. The coincidences are so striking that it becomes evident that some oriental books must have been directly used as the sources for the designs in the church. It has often been pointed out that the mosaics of Sta Maria Maggiore must have been drawn from some book of Genesis painted in the East. Several of the mosaics in Ravenna follow a similar canon, and so again do some fragmentary Genesis pictures in Sta Maria Antiqua itself. Further, it has been proved by Tikkanen, as before mentioned, that the Genesis mosaics at St Mark's, Venice, were accurately copied from the Cotton Genesis, a book which almost certainly was painted in Alexandria in the fifth century. In these instances we get examples of what was happening all the time. Books from the East, especially ancient books, were regarded as authorities; sacred designs were not made up at will, but were handed forward as traditions. Doubts have been raised by Ainalov as to whether the important Crucifixion picture of Rabula's Gospel is not much later than the rest of the book, but the finding of it repeated at Maria Antiqua proves that it is probably at least as old as the painting there. Other fragmentary paintings suggest that there