Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/371

 x] THE ANTIQUE IN MEDLEVAL ART 353 survival of the antique is afforded by the habit of personifying the subjects represented. In all periods of mediaeval art are to be found personifications of natural objects, like rivers, of human vices and vir- tues,* of the arts and sciences, of the months and signs of the Zodiac and the seasons of the year. Many creatures of pagan myth and legend, monsters, human personages and demi-gods, survive in mediaeval art,* — Satyrs and Centaurs, Sirens and Sibyls. These figures may be simply ornamental, or the myth may carry a moral and Christian significance. For exam- ple, Ulysses and the Sirens symbolize temptation,' and the Sibyls appear among those who prophesied of Christ. Throughout the Middle Ages the repre- sentation of animals, realistically or conventionally or fantastically, was universal, and the influence of the Physiologus is continually encountered, a work apparently first composed in Greek in Alexandria. Not infrequent in mediaeval art were representations of antique themes of legend and history which were 1 The Christian virtues and vices, personified so frequently through mediseval art, were not the virtues and vices of paganism — quite the contrary. Nor were the human qualities which they represented subjects of pagan antique art, with some few excep- tions. It was this general habit of personifjring human qualities that came from the antique. 2 The LibH Carolini, Lib. Ill, Cap. 2:^ (Migne, Patr. Lat., Vol. !M), express themselves strongly against the representation of rivers and other natural objects by means of human figures, and against other untruthful creations of pagan art, but such personifications appear in Carolingian miniature painting. See Leitschoh, op. cit., pp. 32 et seq., 274 et seq. twelfth century Hortut Deticiarum of AbbeM Herraid. of Hohen- burg in Alsace.
 * Ulysses and the Sirens appear aa a tymbol of temptation in the