Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/357

 x] BYZANTINE PAINTING which does not appear in the somewhat earlier mosaics of the nave. In the impressive apse mosaic of SS. Cosmo and Damiano (sixth century) there is something not inherited from the antique style, something which possible traces of the lineaments of the northern barbarians will hardly account for. The draperies of the individual figures are not so very hard, nor their attitudes so very stiff; but a symmetry like the Byzantine controls the composition as a whole.^ Possibly the mosaics in the arch of S. Lorenzo (578-590) and in the apse of S. Agnese Fuori, of about the same time, show clearer traces of the transition from the antique to the Byzantine. The calamities of Italy from war, pestilence, and famine in the seventh century were contemporary with a lessen- ing of Eastern influence. In consequence, art rapidly declined, sinking to its lowest level in the eighth cen- tury. The ninth brings a renewed activity at Rome, yet the mosaics show ignorance and incapacity,^ and a barbarism which seems just touched by the Byzantine style. Apart from the influences which may be called Byzantine, no new style of sculpture, painting, or 1 De Rossi, Musaici CrUtiani, in the text accompanying the reproduction of this mosaic, says: " Esso segna un passo notabile del proceHso piU o meno lento, che I'antica arte cristiana transfomib nella cos) detta bizantina. La monotona e dura simmetria della composizione h difetto dominante ..." of 88. Coono and Damiano (sixth century) with the degenerate imitation of it in the Church of 8. Praxede (ninth century). The mosaics on the triumphal arch of 88. Nereo ed Achilleo (cir. 800) and in the apse of 8. Cecilia in Trastevere (ninth century) also show art at a low level.
 * This decay appears strilcingly upon comparing the apse mosaio