[54] Ant. med. aevi, Tom. I. chap. ii. p. 158.
[55] De' real palazzi, ch. i. par. 4.
[56] That the Longobards were either metal-workers themselves, or had Italian artificers in their pay, we know from the specimens preserved in Monza Cathedral, and especially the crown of Agilulf, of which the Antichità Longobardica Milanesi gives an illustration.
[57] Sancti Ambrosii, Comment. in S. Luc. Lib. V. cap. vi.
[58] Dell' Architettura in Italia, cap. viii. p. 245.
[59] Would this at all explain the Runic knot in Ireland, and in Scandinavia, where there was very early intercourse with the Phœnicians?
[60] Amantius, the fourth Bishop of Como, was translated from the See of Thessalonica to that of Como.
[61] Antichità Romantiche d'Italia, Vol. I. capo iv. p. 138.
[62] "Sophiæ patres, per quædam occulta et audacia enigmata, manifestant divinam, et misticam et inviam immundis veritatum."—Sancti Dionisii, de Theologia Simbolica, Epistola I. ad Titum Pontificem.
[63] A very pretty later instance of this myth is in the fresco of the Spanish chapel in Santa Maria Novella, Florence, where the Dominican monks are figured as the "dogs of the Lord" (domini canes—mediæval pun), fighting and overwhelming the heretical paterini whom the monks literally fought with in the streets of Florence. The dog is always used as emblem of fidelity—the hare treated alone is generally used as an emblem of unchastity; when in the chase, as unfaithfulness.