The Ivory Workers of the Middle Ages

by Anna Maria Elizabeth Cust

I. Lombard Ivory Carvings

We have seen how Constantinople, or the “New Rome,” became the centre of the new Christian World as Alexandria had been of the Hellenistic; and for many centuries the riches and splendour of this most luxurious city shone out on the barbarian nations, as a lodestar for their imagination and a pattern for all civilization and culture. Byzantine, being an intrusive art in these countries, did not entirely crush out native effort, but modified the design and vastly improved the technique. Each imitator introduced more of himself and got further from the Greek original, so there arose a composite style, strongly influenced by the Byzantines, yet bearing in it the seeds of a national art.

Leaving aside the large number of Syro-Byzantine and other Eastern ivories, we must pass on to Italy, where the remains of the old Latin art still lingered, though terribly debased and mingled with that of the barbarian Lungobards. By the seventh century sculpture was reduced to a deplorable state, and as Cattaneo says,[16] it is most unlikely that the Ravenna carved sarcophagi were really made at this period; they more probably belonged to ancient burials, with the new name carved on the lid.

Even in ivory carving, which is always behind the age, we find an almost ludicrous barbarity. An ivory tablet of the eighth century in the Bologna Museum is a fair example of this mixed style; it has three tiers of scenes from the Nativity, and shows strong Byzantine influence, yet there is something in the treatment of the drapery, barbaric as it is, which seems to lead on to the later Italian style of the eleventh century, which definitely connects with the earliest Gothic art in France.[17] An example of this may be seen in a plaque in the Bargello, representing Christ in glory surrounded by angels.

By far the most celebrated example of this long period is the diptych of Rambona in the Vatican, which in spite of the miserable relief and the rudeness of the technique, plainly shows the two influences, Lombardic and Byzantine. At the foot of the cross is a large representation of Romulus and Remus with the Roman wolf. At the top the familiar pair of flying angels, much curtailed, bear a medallion containing a bust of Christ raising His hand to bless in the Greek manner. On the second leaf the Virgin is enthroned between two cherubim, the lower portion being ornamented with fragmentary scroll-work of a northern type, surrounding figures of the saints of more or less Byzantine design. An important inscription runs between stating that the diptych was carved for a certain Ageltruda, who was most probably the wife of Guy, Duke of Camerino and Spoleto, King of Italy, and Emperor in 891.

In the Victoria and Albert Museum there are two noteworthy examples of Lombard Art; a strange tall-figured group of The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, with architecture of a strongly marked Lombard type, and a plaque with a representation of Joseph’s Dream. Both of these are carved in a large style with open surfaces, but show a very rudimentary notion of drapery. The latter is especially interesting as the design is almost exactly the same as in the elaborate series of plaques from the Paliotto or shrine in the Cathedral at Salerno (eleventh to twelfth century). The subjects of these carvings are taken from the life of Christ and from the Old Testament, and show an unusually full series of scenes from Genesis, with most picturesque representations of the creation. The fluency of the design and technique of these plaques is a strange and sudden oasis in a desert of barbarism. If they were made at Salerno, as seems likely, the technique of some school in the old Greek city may have lingered on, receiving new life from the encouragement of the Normans, who certainly showed themselves ardent patrons of the arts in Sicily.

There had been little encouragement of the arts elsewhere in Italy. Several objects of goldsmith’s work and ivory in the Basilica at Monza are said to have belonged to Theodolinda, the Lombard queen, in addition to the famous ivory diptych sent to her by Gregory the Great, which was of an earlier date. Two hundred years later Popes Adrian and Leo III., seconded Charlemagne in his efforts to restore learning and culture; and finally Didier, the great abbot of Monte Cassino in 1018, and afterwards Pope, was also a great admirer and benefactor of the arts.

It is not surprising that poor Italy made so little progress, for all this time she was ravaged, first by the Saracens, who invaded the mainland from Sicily, which they had conquered from the Greeks, and then by the Normans, who in the eleventh century, consolidated their power in South Italy, and afterwards in Sicily, under Robert Guiscard.