[57] The famous enamelled bowl, however, found in a Roman tomb of the time of Hadrian, at Bartlow, Essex, was accompanied by a cinerary vase and other examples of glass. See Archæologia, vol. xxvi.
[58] The chapter dealing with these marks, together with that on the geographical distribution, forms the most valuable part of M. Froehner’s already quoted work on ancient glass.
[59] So when some of our leading archæologists saw at first in the discoveries of Schliemann at Mycenæ and Troy the work of wandering tribes of the fifth and sixth centuries, they were unconsciously arguing in favour of this often renewed Oriental influence.
[60] The glass from the catacombs has long attracted notice, with the result that many more or less clever forgeries, dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, have to be reckoned with. These fondi d’oro are most completely illustrated by Garucci in the third volume of the Jesuit father’s great work, the Storia dell’ Arte Christiana (1876), as well as in an earlier work (1858 and 1864), especially devoted to Christian glass. The most scholarly treatment of the subject is to be found in the little work of Dr. Hermann Vopel, Die Alt-Christlichen Goldgläser (1899). For an excellent summary of what is known on the subject, see also the catalogue of the early Christian Antiquities in the British Museum, by Mr. O. M. Dalton, and the same writer’s paper in the Archæological Journal (1901).
[61] ‘... quo facto desuper ipsas Armavi vitrum docto flatu tenuatum Ignis; sed post quam pariter sensere calorem Se vitrum fialis tenuatum junxit honeste.’ These lines, which describe the critical process by which the superficial layer of glass was applied, are unfortunately somewhat obscure. If I have translated them aright, the process did not differ much from that now adopted at Murano. Heraclius is here probably copying an older recipe.
[62] There is a good example, a bearded man, in the Glass Room at the British Museum. Some clever imitations were made in the eighteenth century.
[63] As examples of this, note the gladiator glass and the Anatoli Gaudens portrait from the Tyskiewitz collection. This last example, of quite exceptional merit, has been recently acquired by the British Museum.
[64] I am inclined to connect the cemetery glass as a whole with the Judaising Christians of the old narrow school, who had long been settled in Rome near to the Porta Capena and in the Transteverine quarters, not far, that is to say, from the principal cemeteries.
[65] Formerly in the Basilewski collection, now, I think, in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg. This cup, which is also of interest for the inscriptions on it in a local dialect of debased Latin, was found near the site of Doclea, to the north of the Lake of Scutari.
[66] In the Theodosian code, however, we find, among the craftsmen who are freed from personal taxes, Vitrearii, vasa vitrea conflantes.