CHAPTER II
LATIN AND BYZANTINE IVORIES
I. Latin, Latino-Byzantine and the
Early Byzantine Ivories
At the end of the last chapter it was shown how the Church had preserved a large number of consular diptychs, either unchanged or altered to suit Christian iconography. To that list must be added several ivory carvings with religious subjects, yet so closely connected with the class of Private Diptychs, that it is more than probable that they also have undergone transformation.
The most important among these are a fragmentary panel in the Museo Civico at Bologna and the celebrated Ivory Book of Rouen Cathedral.
On the Bologna fragment is the figure of a bearded man of heavy type, in a well designed but poorly executed robe; he clasps a roll in his left land and beneath his neatly sandalled feet is a stool, always a mark of honour, in the side of which is a deepened space with the name “Petrus” rudely inscribed. Above, in the broken pediment, is a niche with the bust of a bearded man, labelled “Marcus.” The whole is surrounded by a handsome ovolo moulding, as are also the panels of the Rouen Book Cover, which may be of a slightly later date, but they must both be placed early in the sixth century. The Rouen carvings represent St. Peter and St. Paul, without a doubt, for they are already of that iconographical type which had become fixed by the end of the preceding century, St. Paul with a bald head and long pointed beard, and St. Peter with thick hair and a round curling beard; but it is very likely that the figures on both the Bologna and Rouen tablets were originally intended for authors or poets as on the series of complimentary diptychs.
The architecture lends credence to this theory, the cannelated columns and pediment flanked by so-called “doves,” being much the same as that on the various sixth century diptychs. The drapery too, has been copied from good models, that of St. Peter, with the right arm buried in the folds of his toga, is in imitation of the famous Lateran Sophocles. Another proof of alteration is the manner in which he holds a narrow key in a grasp wide enough to contain a roll as large as that in the Bologna fragment.
There is a diptych in Tongres Cathedral,[8] which has a history carrying it back to the ninth century. The names of the Bishops of Tongres from 855-959 being engraved on the back.
It evidently belongs to the large class of ivories of mixed Latino-Byzantine origin. The vine scroll border, the flat relief and rather grooved working of the draperies, also the peculiar stockings and oriental shoes are all features of this class. St. Paul raises his hand to bless in the Greek manner, with only two fingers extended. The interpretation of this gesture is variously given, many say it is symbolical of the dual nature of Our Lord and of the Trinity.
Byzantine, equally with Italian art, sprang from the last floraison of Roman Art, and grew up at Constantinople, the New Rome, but much modified by Greek and Syrian influences. At first the culture of the two Empires was so linked together, that it is the merest shade which distinguishes Roman Art in the East and West. The division widens, and the two branches stretch out, one, the purely Latin, soon to wither and almost perish, and the other to grow into that spreading tree of Byzantine Art, whose branches have scattered fruit in every part of Europe and the Levant.