works of the sixth century. One is the splendid basilica of Parenzo with its atrium and baptistery complete. It has a great number of beautiful carved capitals which were certainly imported from Constantinople. There are also some fine mosaics. The most remarkable of these is one covering the external surface of the west wall above the atrium roof. It shewed the Majesty enthroned amidst the seven candlesticks. This may remind us that Justinian encrusted the west external wall of the basilica of the Holy Nativity at Bethlehem with a great mosaic of the birth of Christ. Such external mosaics were quite common on Byzantine churches. At Parenzo, as also at Ravenna, and in St Sophia itself, there is much ornamental plastering of the sixth century.
At Ravenna is a large group of buildings, some of the age of Justinian, others both earlier and later. S. Vitale has already been mentioned. The delightful small cruciform tomb-chapel of Galla Placidia has some fifth century mosaics. There are also two large baptisteries and two magnificent basilican churches with their splendid mosaics. Here also is the very curious tomb of Theodoric with its monolithic covering shaped like a low dome.
One of the chief treasures preserved in this city is a superb ivory throne, a work of the fifth century, with panels carved with subjects from the Old and New Testaments. This is almost certainly an Alexandrian work. Somewhat similar panels, preserved at Cambridge and in other museums, suggest that more than one of such thrones had been made.
In Rome there are several remnants from the age of Justinian, chief amongst which are the choir enclosures of S. Clemente. At Milan, on the north side of S. Lorenzo, is a beautiful chapel with mosaics in apsidal recesses. One is of Christ and the Apostles, which is executed in a very grey scheme of colour, largely black and white, with some blue and green; the nimbus of Christ is white. Although so simple these mosaics are most beautiful. At Naples there is a baptistery with very fine but fragmentary mosaics, which date perhaps from the end of the fifth century.
Byzantine mosaic decoration was one of the noblest art-forms ever developed. Enormous areas were covered by perfectly coherent and co-ordinated schemes of pictorial teaching, and a solemn majesty was unerringly attained; while the splendour of the gold backgrounds suffused the whole with a glowing atmosphere.
The types of Christian imagery which are found in the Byzantine mosaics of the fifth and sixth centuries were probably drawn from Egyptian Christian sources. It has been suggested that these types may have originated in Palestine, and that the paintings and mosaics of the great churches built there by Constantine largely influenced the schemes of imagery in the rest of Christendom may not be doubted. It is improbable, however, that Palestine was a school of iconographical invention; whereas
