The strange decadence and the conventionalized but profoundly earnest quality of Early Christian art is shown in an intaglio gem of the Royal Numismatic Museum in Munich. This is a dark-hued sardonyx of two layers, and the engraving depicts a bearded Christ, enthroned and accompanied by the twelve apostles, six on either side, four of them beardless while the remainder are represented with beards; they are all gazing reverently upon the central figure, behind whose head appear the arms of the cross and above them the letters I̅C̅ X̅C̅ Ἰησοῦς Χριστός.[[523]] Another somewhat similar Early Christian gem is a cameo cut in a sardonyx of three layers, the groundwork being a brownish-black, and the figures of a light-bluish hue, the upper parts yellowish-brown. Here also we have an enshrined Christ; above his head two angels hold a diadem. This is of superior workmanship to the intaglio gem just described.[[524]] There is a sardonyx cameo showing a rude figure of the Prophet Daniel, a lion on either side of him, and inscribed with his name in Greek letters. This is of Byzantine workmanship.[[525]]
The reliquarium of Wittekind, now in the Kunstgewerbe Museum at Berlin, is considered to be probably the most important specimen of early Frankish goldsmith-work that has been preserved, and is richly set with precious stones, some of these being ancient gems. This is one of a number of cases where engraved stones of Pagan times were used in the adornment of ornamental objects destined for Christian religious use. The upper edge shows a row of entwined animal figures, and the front side has medallions with primitive bird forms in cloisonné enamel; on the reverse side are very rudely executed repoussé figures of saints. This work is assigned to the latter part of the eighth century A.D., and is conjectured to have been a gift from Charlemagne to the Saxon King Wittekind, on the occasion of the latter’s conversion to Christianity in the year 807. It was long preserved in Wittekind’s foundation at Enger near Herford, to which he had bequeathed his treasures; in 1414 it was removed for safe-keeping to the Johanniskirche at Herford, where it remained until 1888, when it came into the possession of the Berlin Kunstgewerbe Museum. This precious example of the earliest German work has the form of a small portable satchel, in which could be placed those sacred relics the owner might wish to bear around with him because of the protection they were assumed to afford.[[526]]
One of the most notable and valuable objects in the famous Guelph treasure that has recently been brought back to the city of Brunswick as a result of the marriage of the Duke of Cumberland’s son, Ernest Augustus, with the daughter of Emperor William II, is an elaborately designed cross, a very fine specimen of the goldsmith’s art of the twelfth century. This with the other treasures was taken by the Duke of Cumberland to Vienna for safe-keeping, at the time he gave up, in 1884, his title as Duke of Brunswick, rather than acknowledge Prussian supremacy. The cross, which has the form of a so-called “crutch-cross,” with rectangular projecting plates at the ends of the arms, was designed to serve as a reliquary, the relic shrine being in a cruciform capsule behind a small, round-edged golden cross set in the midst of the cross proper. The precious relics reposing here were said to be bones of John the Baptist, St. Peter, St. Mark the Evangelist, and St. Sebastian. On the reverse side of the cross are set four large and beautiful sapphires and in the centre is a remarkably brilliant topaz.
While nothing definite is known as to the goldsmith who executed this work, its style and general character suggest the conjecture that it may have been produced by the artist who made the “Crown of Charlemagne” in Vienna, really a crown executed for Conrad III, King of the Germans (1093–1152), the first Hohenstaufen, and also several regal ornaments for the latter’s consort, Queen Gisela. In addition to the jewelled decoration of its reverse, the front of the cross is set with many pearls, and the form of these settings is one of the chief arguments adduced in favor of attributing it to the maker of the so-called “Crown of Charlemagne.”[[527]]
An ecclesiastical jewel of great beauty and remarkable historic interest is known as the Cross of Zaccaria. It was secured in 1308 by Ticino Zaccaria at the capture of the ancient Greek colonial city Phocæa, in Asia Minor, and was donated to the Cathedral of San Lorenzo in Genoa. This cross is of silver gilt, measuring 64 cm. in height and 40 cm. in width, and within it behind a crystal is set a piece of the Holy Cross. It is profusely adorned with precious and semi-precious stones, there being 57 good-sized rubies, emeralds, sapphires, carnelians, malachites and amethysts, besides 44 smaller stones and 299 of still lesser size. The jewel is now preserved in the Palazzo Bianco, Genoa.
The greatest treasure in the Cathedral of Chartres was the “Sacred Shrine.” It was made of cedar-wood covered with gold plates and was adorned with an immense number of precious stones including diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, jacinths, agates, turquoises, opals, topazes, onyxes, chrysolites, amethysts, garnets, girasols, sardonyxes, asterias, chalcedonies, heliotropes, etc. These had been presented by many different donors during a long period of time. In front of this shrine was a cross composed entirely of precious stones, comprising 56 rubies and garnets, 18 sapphires, 22 pearls, 8 emeralds, 8 onyxes and 4 jacinths. When this was first placed in the cathedral is not known, but it was there in 1353, as it is noted in an inventory made at that time. An uncut diamond weighing about 45 carats, and constituting one of the adornments of the shrine in 1682, was said to have been the gift of a marshal of France; another ornament, an oval agate engraved with the Virgin and Child, may now be seen in the Louvre where it forms part of the Sauvageot Collection.[[528]]
That all trace has been lost of an emerald engraved with the head of Christ and given to Pope Innocent VIII by Sultan Bajazet II about the year 1488, is greatly to be deplored, even though there be no truth in the legend or report that it had been engraved in the time of Christ by the order of Tiberius Cæsar. The evidence of two medals with Latin legends and of certain old paintings with English inscriptions of the sixteenth century seems to prove the existence of the gem in the Vatican treasury about the time specified, and it has been conjectured, with some probability, that the emerald had been engraved by a Byzantine artist at some time before 1453, when Constantinople fell into the hands of the Turks, and that this gem formed part of the booty they then secured. A print, often copied photographically and otherwise, purporting to be a representation of this emerald portrait of Christ, has no evidential value, and has either been freely worked up from the details of the spurious letter of Lentulus to Tiberius, giving a personal description of the Saviour, or still more probably from a Rafaelesque type of Christ’s head.[[529]]
The beads of rosaries, when blessed by the Supreme Pontiff, or by one of the dignitaries of the Church, are considered to be endowed with a certain special virtue in favor of the individual for whom the blessing is imparted. However, should this person loan the beads to another with the intention of making him a partaker of this special blessing, or indulgencing, they lose their virtue. It is prescribed that these beads should be made of stone, glass, or some other durable material not easily broken, in order that the effects of the blessing should not be lost, or perhaps that the object so blessed should be less liable to injury. Various precious stones as well as pearls are used for this purpose, there being generally groups of ten small spheres, each group separated from the other by a larger sphere, the ten smaller beads serving to numerate the paternosters while the large bead is passed through the fingers when a credo has been recited.
A legend very popular in the Middle Ages has been conjectured to be the source of the word “rosary” as applied to a chaplet of beads for counting prayers. This legend tells of a pious youth, who on each and every day wove a garland of roses for the statue of the Virgin in the parish church. His religious zeal soon induced him to become a monk, and as the restrictions and duties of monastic life forced him to discontinue his floral offerings, he was much troubled in conscience, and was only relieved when the abbot told him that by reciting 150 aves at the close of each day, he would please the Virgin as much as by the gift of flowers. The prayers were faithfully said and they eventually became the occasion of a miracle. One evening, as the young monk was traversing a dense forest, it suddenly occurred to him that he had forgotten to recite his aves. He knelt down quickly and began to pray; all at once he saw a radiant and beautiful figure standing before him, and he immediately recognized in it the Blessed Virgin. Graciously she bent over him and drew from his lips one rose after the other, until fifty roses of supernatural beauty lay upon the ground. Of these she then made a garland and placed it upon the head of her faithful servant.[[530]]
The first literary allusion to rosaries in India is in a Jain treatise written about the beginning of our era. The Prakrit name here employed, ganettiya, is equivalent to the sanscrit ganayitrika, or “counter,” and it is enumerated among the ten utensils of a Brahman ascetic. The other nine are the tridanda-stick, the water jar, the Bramanical thread, the earthen vessel named karotikâ, the bundle of straw used as a seat, the clout, the six-knotted wood, the hook, and the finger-ring. It is said that no mention of rosaries has been found in Indian Buddhist literature.[[531]]