Bowl Type, III.—These, the great capitals of S. Sophia, seem to have been especially designed for the metropolitan church: the beautiful palm foliage, however, with which they are sculptured is found again at Parenzo and on a capital in the Ravenna museum said to have been brought from Pomposa. The church at Parenzo was begun in 535.
Byzantine Ionic, IV.—These occur in their perfected form of block capital fully sculptured in S. Sergius and at the palace of Hormisdas in Constantinople, also in the upper order at S. Sophia, Salonica. Examples are also found at Venice.
In their earlier form of transition from the “Ionic with a plain dosseret” an immense number are found in the subterranean structures of Constantinople. An example has been found in Chalcis.[359]
Bird and Basket, V.—S. Sophia furnishes two examples, but there is no proof that they originally belonged to the building. Another example is in Cairo. That at S. Clemente, Rome, is signed with the name of John Mercurius; Piranesi figures a capital of this kind from the Palazzo Mattei, bearing a monogram which is indecipherable in his plate. Period, end of fifth century and beginning of sixth.
Byzantine Corinthian Type, VI.—These are of great variety; we will only mention one. In the portico of John Studius the acanthus leaves are doubled, one leaf lying over and within another, so that a double row of serrations is shown around the margins (see figure in Salz.). Similar capitals are found in S. Demetrius, Salonica, and at S. Mark’s, Venice. This particular form is probably nearly concurrent with the last, possibly a little earlier.
Wind-blown Acanthus, VII., is represented at Constantinople by two examples forming bases for the posts of a wooden porch to a house near Gûl Jami, and another is found in the cistern usually called after Arcadius or Pulcheria. Absolutely similar capitals are found in S. Sophia, Salonica (circa 490) and one occurs at S. Demetrius. At Ravenna fine examples are dated by bearing the monogram of Theodoric. Others at S. Apollinare in Classe resemble the last so closely that we doubt their having been made specially for the church built in 534-549. An example was found in Chalcis with the Ionic capital just referred to and De Vogüé figures one from Syria. Period, say 425 to 525.
The seven most typical Byzantine orders were thus being wrought concurrently at the end of the fifth century, and it seems that the three last did not long outlast this century. The others in their central types probably did not continue in use much beyond the sixth century. After this time somewhat coarse varieties of Byzantine Corinthian, or Type I., were mostly used.
Fig. 58.—Bronze Annulets of Columns.
The evidence of the original block in the fully sculptured finished work which we find in the most characteristic examples of the Byzantine capitals is of primary importance in all marble sculpture, and differentiates the work of the chisel from being a mere stone model of a clay model which is practically what most modern sculpture has become. In many of these capitals the vertical strip shown in [Fig. 55] left in the finished work furnishes a further suggestion of the block from whence they were hewn.