The Ivory Workers of the Middle Ages

by Anna Maria Elizabeth Cust

There appears to have been a class of diptychs, each leaf consisting of five pieces joined together by ivory beading or metal mountings. The four pieces were arranged like a frame round the central and most important plaque. (See the later Christian book cover, [Fig. 10].) Meyer suggests they were especially intended for gifts to members of the imperial family.

Some of these five-piece panels were more probably intended as book covers, but one undoubted consular diptych in five parts still survives, though the pieces are scattered. Two horizontal strips are in the collection of the Marchese di Trivulzio at Milan. The upper one, with a bust of Constantinople borne by two winged figures, is inscribed with a dedication to an Emperor, while the lower strip, which is carved with barbarians rushing forward to present tribute (the same motive as that of the Magi), bears the Consul’s titles.

Two upright pieces of slightly varying width, on a book cover in the Munich Library, represent a consul in the act of walking to his right, and carrying what is probably a congratulatory address to the Emperor, his hands being religiously veiled. Above and behind him is an Imperial Guard, with large shield and spear, his robe embroidered on the shoulders, and his neck encircled by a collar from whence hangs a bulla, just as we see them on the mosaic in St. Vitale at Ravenna.

The narrower piece has a rigidly vertical design. Below is the full face figure of a man holding a long staff, and above, the upper portion of a figure of Victory, holding up over her head a wreath containing a bust of the Emperor, the exact enlargement of those Victories which so often stand on the arms of the curule chair (No. 17).

Meyer considers that these two unequal pieces formed the two sides, but the complete want of balance in the composition makes Molinier’s opinion that they both formed the right side the more probable. This increases the number of pieces to seven, but the Victory having no border may have been sawn off the central plaque. On the other hand, in the five-piece panel at Ravenna ([Fig. 10]), the central plaque is divided horizontally by a beading, if not in two separate pieces. If we consider that these two pieces formed the right side, and multiply their combined width for the left side, and then compare the total of the two sides with the width of the horizontal strips, there is still ample space for a central plaque representing the Emperor.

Meyer adds to the list of diptychs the celebrated five-piece tablet in the Barbarini Library at Rome. The upper and lower strips are of exactly the same character, and in the central plaque the Emperor (probably Constantine the Great) is seen on a rearing horse, under whose feet is a woman with her lap full of fruit, who personifies some conquered country. In the left piece is the figure of a soldier bringing a Victory, and the other side, which should have a representation like the Munich Consul, is lost.

Molinier emphatically declares this could not have been a consular diptych, as there is no trace of inscription; but suggests that it was the cover of a book intended for the Emperor.

There is one more diptych in exceedingly high relief, which may possibly be classed among the consular series, the date and subject of which is still a matter of much discussion. One leaf is in the Bargello at Florence ([Fig. 5]), and the other in the Vienna Museum (No. 57).

The Florentine portion represents a personage clad in a robe blazing with jewels, and standing under an elaborate edifice, holding orb and sceptre. The Vienna leaf is practically the same, only the figure is seated on a throne set with precious stones, and extends the right hand in the same manner as the Empress Eudoxia on [Fig. 20], whilst the left hand supports the orb. The sex of this personage was long disputed, but now it is considered by most writers to represent a woman, both from the modelling of the form and from the dress.

The robes of Emperor and Empress were very similar, but on examining the mosaics of St. Vitale at Ravenna, we find that though Justinian and Theodora both wear the chlamys, hers is more lavishly decorated, and she wears a large collar of pendant jewels, while Justinian has the fibula. But the head-dresses were always tolerably distinctive till considerably later. Ladies of high rank all wore a kind of wig-like turban, sometimes double, as in the case of Serena (No. 1). That it was a turban and not hair is evident from the striped pattern on that of Serena. This was often bound with jewels, and the imperial family wore diadems with long strings of jewels hanging over the ears, as on the Bargello tablet. These pendants were often, but not invariably, worn by the Emperor, but his diadem fitted close on to his forehead without the intervening wig, as we see on the interesting ninth century casket in the Museo Kircheriano in Rome, where both head-dresses are represented. A large segment is inserted on the front of her robe by a jewelled edging, on which we see the portrait of a chubby boy dressed in the trabea, and wielding mappa and scipio, a diadem with pendants being on his head.