On Mount Athos we probably find the best existing parallel to the circle of discs at S. Sophia in the monastery of Docheiareiu (see [Fig. 19]).[195] In the words of the Silentiary, “these discs form a coronet.”
The second crown of lights, which hung within the great circle of discs at S. Sophia, would also have had a circular rim supported by chains with lamps suspended beneath, or attached to arms projecting from the rim. S. Bernard speaks of a church where were placed “not crowns but wheels with precious stones and lights around them.” To these circular candelabra ecclesiastical writers usually give the title of coronae. Leo III. gave to the basilica of S. Andrew at Rome a “gold corona of lamps set with gems.” Other authors call crowns with lamps of this kind phara; we read in Leo Ostiensis of a “pharum or large crown of silver with six and thirty lamps hanging from it.”[196] They are also spoken of as cycli, but more generally as polycandela. The Chronicon Cassinense mentions “a pharos or crown of silver, weighing a hundred librae, twenty cubits round about, with twelve towers projecting from it, and thirty-six lamps hanging from it. This was fixed outside the choir, before the great cross, by an iron chain adorned with seven gold apples.”[197] The same chronicle also speaks of a “silver-gilt corona, coloured with precious stones, with six crosses hanging from it.” The great circles of Aix and Hildesheim are the best-known examples of the ancient coronae. These have twelve towers like that just mentioned, and they symbolised the New Jerusalem. R. de Fleury suggests that relics were contained in such turrets. An extremely beautiful pharos in the Hermitage Museum represents a basilica.
Fig. 19.—Corona with Lamp Discs, Mount Athos.
The light crosses were very generally known throughout Christendom, and the historian Socrates mentions that crosses of silver with burning candles upon them were carried in processions in the time of Chrysostom. According to Anastasius, at S. Peter’s there was a large pharos “in the form of a cross which hung before the presbyterium having 1,370 candles;” this was lighted four times a year; also “a gold carved cross hanging before the altar with twelve candles,” and “a cross lamp with two little ships and three fishes.” The lamp cross hanging in S. Mark’s is the best-known example remaining. It is possible that those at S. Sophia mentioned with the discs hung horizontally to four chains.
Fig. 20.—Single Lamp with Votive Inscription.
At S. Sophia, in addition to the discs, crosses, and circles, there were, according to Du Cange, lamps hung from nets. The word which he interprets in this way is that translated “skiff” (line 480), as it means a small row-boat. How he gets his interpretation of nets it is difficult to see. We mention it here for its intrinsic beauty only: it was a familiar arrangement for lamps. Anastasius in his Lives of the Popes speaks of one of the churches at Rome having “a pharos in the form of a net,” and again of a large pharos “like a net with twenty baskets,” and also “a bronze net with silver baskets.”
The hanging lamps in the form of ships mentioned by our poet would have carried the oil vessels round their sides. A most interesting example of a lamp of this kind is given in the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities (Smith and Cheetham). It represents a small vessel with a mast and sail, containing two figures, one steering, and the other looking out from the prow. These figures are either Peter and Paul or more probably Christ and Peter. The symbolism of the ship for the Church is too familiar to need comment; the mast in the centre, without which the ship is unsafe, as S. Ambrose says, typifies the cross without which the church is unable to stand. The galley form of lamp was well known also in antiquity. In the Christian era it was only one of the many beautiful and suggestive forms in which lamps were made; some resembled birds, crystal fish, or shells, others again were bowls of white or emerald glass.
