Before we pass to the large series of ivory carvings executed between the eighth or ninth and the fifteenth centuries, there is one very celebrated piece about which a few words may be said: a superb leaf of a diptych, preserved in the British museum. The other leaf is lost and has probably been destroyed; nor is there any record (it is believed) from whence that museum obtained the ivory. It has been in the collection for many years.
The plaque itself is one of the largest known: more than sixteen inches in length by nearly six in width. The subject is an angel, standing on the highest of six steps under an arch supported on two Corinthian columns; he holds a globe with a cross above it in his right hand; in his left a long staff, to the top of which, as if half resting on it like a warrior on his lance, the hand is raised above his head. He is clothed in a tunic and an ample cloak or mantle falling round him and over the shoulders in graceful folds. His head is bound round with a fillet, and the feet have sandals. There is no antique ivory carving which surpasses this in grandeur of design, in power and force of expression, or in the excellence of its workmanship. Although some foreign writers are disposed to place the date of it so late as the time of Justinian, we shall be more correct in attributing it, with Mr. Oldfield, to the fifth or even to the end of the fourth century. Nor, looking at it, can we hesitate to claim for the earliest Christian art, after Christianity was recognised by Constantine, a place by the side of the best works of pagan times. If we select this, and the book-covers in the treasury of the cathedral at Milan, and the well-known book-cover in the public library at Paris, we shall find no western work in ivory to equal them in quality and beauty of workmanship from the fifth to the thirteenth century.
We owe the preservation of many of these consular and mythological diptychs to the circumstance that when the practice of sending them as presents had (it may be) for some time been discontinued, another use was found by adapting them to Christian purposes. In some cases the subjects or titles of the diptychs were altered; as, for example, in one of the diptychs preserved at Monza. This was originally a consular diptych, of late work, coarse in style and manner of execution. The consul is represented on each wing, raising the mappa circensis in the usual way: on one, however, he is standing; on the other he is sitting upon a kind of throne. On one leaf the top of the consul’s head has been shaved, to show the clerical tonsure; and in the blank space of two small panels, immediately beneath the arch under which he stands, the title S[an]C[tu]S GREGoR[ius] is cut in high relief. On the other leaf above the sitting consul, on the corresponding panels, DAVID REX is inscribed in similar letters. Both the wings are engraved by Gori. It must not be omitted that some late writers have argued that this diptych is not a palimpsest; that it is merely an imitation of the preceding consular diptychs, and not earlier than the seventh or eighth century. But the whole character is unlike mere imitation; and the shaving of the head, the alteration of the ornamented top of the sceptre or staff, and the cutting of the inscription on the tablets, might without difficulty have been made for the required and more modern purpose.
It is easy to understand how later possessors of consular diptychs were induced to make presents of them to their bishops and churches; and in some instances, probably, in the sixth century, those originally sent to high ecclesiastical persons were at once transferred to pious uses. Instead of containing the lists of the consuls, the diptychs then inclosed the names of martyrs, saints, or bishops who were to be commemorated in the public service of the Church. These lists were read at mass: of the saints at that part of the canon which is now known as the Communicantes; and of the dead at the Memento, after the consecration of the Eucharist. Frequent reference to the custom is to be found in the old ritualists, and full information and a cloud of authorities on the subject in the learned work of Salig, on diptychs. The leaves of several such diptychs still exist, and sometimes with the names not written on wax, but carved or incised upon the ivory itself.
One very remarkable example is the diptych, now at Liverpool, of Flavius Clementinus, consul a.d. 513. Upon the back of each leaf a long Greek inscription has been incised, done, beyond doubt, in the first year of pope Hadrian, a.d. 772, when the diptych was given to some church for sacred use. The list of names inscribed, to be prayed for, includes that of the donor.
The two inscriptions are to be read across both divisions, and were engraved probably upon the ivory by some one not well skilled in the language. There are several faults, both in spelling and in the letters: for example, we have στομεν sΘεωτωκος; ελεωςd; and ι often instead of η.
The inscription is to this effect: “✠ Let us stand well. ✠ Let us stand with reverence. ✠Let us stand with fear. Let us attend upon the holy oblation, that in peace we may make the offering to God. The mercy, the peace, the sacrifice of praise, the love of God and of the Father and of our Saviour Jesus Christ be upon us, Amen. In the first year of Adrian, patriarch of the city. Remember, Lord, thy servant John, the least priest of the church of St. Agatha. Amen. ✠ Remember, Lord, thy servant Andrew Machera. Holy Mother of God; holy Agatha. ✠ Remember, Lord, thy servant and our pastor Adrian the patriarch. ✠ Remember, Lord, thy servant, the sinner, John the priest.”
Another example is the diptych of Anastasius, a.d. 517, of which one leaf, no. 368, is in the South Kensington collection. Upon this leaf the portion of a single word “GISI” is now alone to be deciphered; when Wiltheim saw it, more than a hundred years ago at Liege, he read “IGISI,” and supposed it to be part of the name of Ebregisus, the twenty-fourth bishop of Tongres, in the seventh century. But upon the other leaf, which is now preserved at Berlin, Gori was able to make out a considerable portion. “Offerentes ... O ... eorum p. pi ... ecclesia catholica quam eis dominus adsignare dignetur ... facientes commemorationem beatissimorum apostolorum et martyrum omniumque sanctorum. Sanctæ Mariæ Virginis, Petri, Pauli, etc.” But he owns that some even of these words are conjectural.