basket work on the panel, the ornament on both pilasters, as well as the double guilloche of the border; and it should be noted that the Italian is the earlier.

An instance of the similarity of ornament in early Italian and Saxon carving will be found in comparing the decoration of the border of the well-head (eighth century) at the office of the Ministry of Agriculture, Rome, with that on the Saxon Font in Toller Fratrum Church (Fig. 14). Interlacing bands of three strands, bordered by a cable moulding, encircle the top of each; similar ornament in Saxon MSS. of the eighth century will be found in the British Museum Library as in Evangelia Nero, d. 4. The rough outline annexed (Fig. 15) of the ornament on a late Roman scarcophagus looks

almost as if it had been copied from a Saxon MS., so like is it. The sarcophagus of Junius Bassus of the fourth century has Byzantine columns supporting similar arched and pedimental heads alternately, and a sarco

phagus in the Lateran Museum of the fourth or fifth century has Byzantine columns with pedimental heads.

The angel carved in stone, built into the north wall of Steepleton Church, near Dorchester, may have decorated the tympanum of the doorway of the Saxon church. The angels on the east wall of Bradford-on-Avon Church are of a similar character. Floating angels, with their robes and legs bent. upwards from the knee, may be seen in illuminations in Saxon MSS. in the British Museum. Both angels will be found illustrated in Vol. V. of the Transactions, with notes on them written by the late Professor J. O. Westwood, giving references to similar carvings found elsewhere and to illustrations in Saxon MSS.

This seems to be an instance of Byzantine ornament adopted by Italian workmen. In the Museum of the Bagello at Florence is a small antique carving of Christ in Glory, a vesica piscis enclosing the whole figure, with angels of this form and attitude surrounding it, with curiously-drawn symbols of the four evangelists; and in the Syriac Gospels of Rabula of the sixth century in the same city, there are angels represented and similarly treated.

The external arcading, as in the decorative ornament on the walls of Bradford-on-Avon Church, seems to be a modification of late Roman work followed in various forms in Comacine, Lombard, Saxon, and Norman architecture. In its original

A

FIG. 16.-A. S. Apollinare in Classe (6th Cent.).
B. Apse, San Piero a Grado, Pisa (8th Cent.).
C. Apse, S. Vincent in Prato, Milan (9th Cent.).

form it may be seen on the exterior of the Basilica of S. Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna

(Fig. 16), where external arcadings in the masonry of the walls will be noticed both in the walls of the aisles and in the walls of the nave above the aisles, the arcading being carried on pilasters built into and forming part of the walls, the pilasters, with arcading serving to giving rigidity to the walls, enabling them to resist the outward thrust of the roof, as buttresses were intended to do in later times. This church was built about

A.D. 300.

This arcading developed in two directions. First, it was one stage in the evolution of the Saxon pilaster strip, which, however, can be traced back to the late Roman period, for in the façade of the Colosseum at Rome the highest of the four stages is decorated with flat Corinthian pilasters and the lower stages with

FIG. 17.-Bergamo, S. Thomaso in limine, showing Pilaster Strips, Pensile Arches, and a "Saxon" Window in the upper part.

columns. Examples of the use

of the flat pilaster strip in early churches in Italy are shown in Figs. 16 and 17.

But, though the flat pilaster strip was used by the Comacines in Italy, the detached column and colonnette was the form of embellishment which was more commonly employed there.. As before mentioned, the detached column, as an embellishment, may be seen in the façade of the Colosseum at Rome, built A.D. 80. This continued to be a feature in Roman architecture up to the fifth or sixth century, for in the use of the column the elevation of the apse of the Church of Kalat-Seman, Central Syria (Fig. 18), built in that age, bears a marked resemblance to that of the Colosseum. The

invasion of the barbarians, though it brought Roman art to an end in Italy, does not seem to have caused much local disturbance in Central Syria, where the Roman traditions of architecture were carried on without break till Syria was invaded by the Muhummadan hordes.

FIG. 18.-Kalat-Seman. S. Simeon Stylites (6th Cent.), detail of Apse.

The detached column, treated simply as a decorative adjunct, was employed over the entrance to the palace of Diocletian at Spalatro, which dates from the fourth century, where a series of colonnettes, supported on corbels or brackets, may be observed.

In later centuries the Comacines brought this form of decoration to perfection; the view of the Certosa of Pavia from the small cloister (see illustration) shows how effectively it was employed by them in the fourteenth and early fifteenth century.

The arcading developed in another direction; omitting the pilaster or column, it became the pensile arch of the Comacine style known as Lombard.

The examples in Figs. 15 and 16 will show the evolution of the little pensile arch; each arch is supported by stones built into the wall, which thus became a bracket or corbel, and in after years this ornament modified and, with the corbel more pronounced, became the Norman corbel table.

There is a fret which decorates some crosses, and is apparently of later date than the ornament derived from Roman art, for it is not-so far as I know-represented on any Roman pavement or