VI. Situlæ, or bucket-shaped vases, 1st, A situla of clear glass of a violet tint. The design—somewhat rudely cut with a wheel—consists of a series of figures, with pastoral and Bacchic emblems. The decoration is similar in style to the engraved work found on some late Roman glass from the Rhine district (hgt. 8 in.) (liii. 121). 2nd, The famous situla that I have already described when treating of the diatretum glass (p. [72]). The Canonico Passini thinks that the rings of glass have been fitted on subsequently, and that is the impression that I formed when examining the vase (hgt. II in.) (liii. 122). ([Plate XIV.])
VII. The vase enamelled with classical medallions which has already been described in connection with the enamelled glass of the Romans (p. [66]). Although, as I have said, the figures are purely classical in style, yet the scroll-work reminds one of the decoration on Coptic bowls and fragments brought from Egypt (xl. 78, and xli. 82).
VIII. There remains the turquoise basin, richly mounted in gold and gems, presented in 1472 by the Shah of Persia to the Signoria of Venice. The only ornament is a conventionalised hare carved in low relief on each of the five compartments that divide the sides. On the base is a brief dedication in Arabic to Allah. As to the material of this vase, all I can say is that it is carved; this is seen by the light reflected on the somewhat unctuous surface; it is therefore not porcelain or other ceramic ware, as some have thought. The slightly waxy lustre is in favour of its being a natural stone of the turquoise order. Some, however, have held this dish to be of a glass paste, on the ground of the minute bubbles on the translucent edge; but the existence of these bubbles is denied by others, and I myself failed to discover them (hgt. II in.) (liii. 122).
I have dwelt in some detail on this little-known Byzantine glass at St. Mark’s, for it is, as a group, of unique interest for our history, throwing light on so many obscure problems.
SITULA OF LATE ROMAN OR BYZANTINE GLASS
DIATRETUM WORK
We may obtain some slight hints as to the commoner kinds of glass in use by the Byzantine Greeks from the illustrations of contemporary manuscripts. I will give an instance of frequent occurrence. The Evangelist who on the opening page is represented seated at his desk engaged in writing his gospel, dips his pen into a little flask of clear glass, of cylindrical body and straight neck. This is a simple form, easily turned out by the blowing-tube, without the use of the pontil. We may trace it all through the Middle Ages, and a flask very similar in shape is still used in the laboratory of the chemist.
Apart from the more or less conventional rendering of the human figure—and this is what we usually think of in connection with Byzantine painting—we find two tendencies in the minor arts of the time; one classical, carrying on the old Greco-Roman tradition, the other Oriental in motive and feeling. For more than three hundred years the frontiers of the Roman and Sassanian empires were continually fluctuating, and in this border region, which included Armenia, Georgia, Western Persia, and the upper waters of the Tigris and the Euphrates, there were at this time many flourishing centres of industry. It was probably in some of these lands, rather than in Constantinople itself, that we may look for the home of the school of carving in rock crystal and in glass that we associate vaguely with the Lower Empire.[[72]] Nor did the Arab conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries make at once any great changes in the arts of these districts. It was through these lands probably that so many Oriental motives filtered through to the west, not only to Constantinople, but to the north and west coasts of the Black Sea also, and thence through Poland and Hungary to Germany. Nowhere is this Oriental influence better seen than in the vases of rock crystal and other hard stones preserved in the treasuries of our Western churches, nor can we separate these vases from the even rarer objects carved in glass. The carving on the so-called Hedwig glasses is, as we shall see, executed in an allied if somewhat degenerate style; some of these glasses can be traced back to the borderlands of Poland.
Of the glass in use among the Persians and the other subjects of the Sassanian empire (which lasted from the end of the third to the beginning of the seventh century) we know practically nothing. Doubtless many examples of Sassanian glass have been turned up during the gigantic explorations around Nineveh, Babylon, and Susa, but till quite lately little attention has been paid to objects of so comparatively late a date. In the Louvre are some fragments of glass lately brought from Susa. One piece calls for mention here. This is a large fragment of thick clear glass which has formed the half of a shallow circular dish, about fourteen inches in diameter. There are some eight or nine shallow circular depressions cut out from the sides, with a stud rising in counter-relief from the centre of each. We are at once reminded of certain ‘balance-pan’ hanging lamps in the treasury at Venice—in fact, this fragment from Susa must have formed part of a vessel almost identical with these.