Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/372

 S54 THE CLABSICAL HERITAGE [chap. popular in mediaeval literature; prominent among them was the legend of Alexander the Great. Most of the foregoing themes of art were pagan as well as antique. It is different with the antique influ- ences still to be mentioned. Quite plain is the survival of antique and Byzantine designs and motives of deco- ration in church sculpture ^ and painting, in the minia- ture illustration of manuscripts, and in ivory carving. Somewhat less tangible, and yet real, was the survival of antique and Byzantine ways of ordering and com- posing the subject of the painting or sculpture. A plain example of this is afforded by the Bernward column in Hildesheim (eleventh century), which in its spiral ordering of the composition follows Trajan's column.^ Again the general arrangement of figures in the tympanums over the Romanesque church doors at V^zelay, Autun, Moissac, and on the capitals of Moissac and of St. Trophime at Aries recall the panels of antique Christian sarcophagi, while movement and drapery suggest the Byzantine style.^ Finally, the 1 See, generally, Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire, article " Sculp- ture." On the Romanesque capitals in the south of France appear the acanthus of antique capitals and the fantastic animals observed in works from the Orient. In Provence, Roman ornamentation is copied, and in Poitou, Byzantine ornament (Choisy, Hist.de V archi- tecture, II, 169, 180). The capitals of St. Michael's and St. Godehard's at Hildesheim likewise show the antique acanthus leaf, as do many other Romanesque churches of Germany. 2 Also the Bernward doors to the cathedral at Hildesheim seem to imitate the doors of S. Sabina at Rome. See Bertram, Die Thilren von S. Sabina, etc. Hence they are indirectly related to Byzantine art, to which the doors of S. Sabina (fifth to sixth century) are related. le-Duc, Dictionnaire, article " Sculpture," pp. 104-116.
 * Choisy, Histoire de V architecture, Vol. II, pp. 180-181 ; Viollet-