XXIV

NOTES ON THE

by Justinian, bad its windows filled with glass, some of which may perhaps evennow remain; and glass was largely used for works in mosaic, and probably made,or at least remelted and coloured, on the spot. We, however, know scarcelyanything of the products of the Byzantine workshops as regards vessels orornamental works in glass; but it is not improbable that some of the cups orvases, which bear the character of classical art in its decline, such as the cup withbacchanalian subjects belonging to Baron Lionel de Rothschild, the situlse in thetreasury of St. Mark at Venice, and two specimens in this collection (Nos. 320and 321), may have been made at Constantinople; for we may reasonably supposethat this branch of art underwent somewhat the same vicissitudes that befell the artsof painting and sculpture in the Eastern Empire. The Byzantine painters andsculptors seem to have followed classical models with more or less bad taste andfeebleness, until the fervour of the iconoclastic Emperors brought about a temporaryparalysis of all art and the emigration of many of its practitioners. When in themiddle of the ninth century the arts were again more largely practised, ancienttraditions had in a great measure been lost, and the new style which we know asByzantine, into which the older had previously been in some degree merging,became almost exclusively prevalent. Something of the same kind probablyhappened as regards the manufacture of glass, but examples which we can con-fidently assign to the post-iconoclastic period are almost wholly wanting. Perhapsthe only objects which have been noticed, and which there is good ground forsupposing to belong to the centuries intervening between a.d. 800 and a.d. 1200,are some in the treasury of St. Mark’s at Venice, which, as they differ much incharacter from any other kind of glass productions, and in some cases bear Greekinscriptions on their mountings, are jnobably specimens of Byzantine work. Theyare supposed, together with many other objects in the same treasury, to have beenpart of the plunder of Constantinople, when it was taken by the Crusaders ina.d. 1204. Five of these are cups and two are shallow basins; the glass in all isgreenish, very thick and with many small bubbles; all have been cut with thewheel. One of the cups, 12 inches wide and 6 high, is of a someAvliat elegantform; it has two handles but is otherwise without ornament. Another cup has thesurface so cut away that small cones are left standing up, and another has circlesformed in the same manner; a third has a very rude figure of a leopard coucliant,with outlines and spots left standing up in the like fashion.

The basins are shallow, about 11 inches wide; one has a setting of gems insilver gilt, and a long handle; the other has circles and cones in projecting lines onits under side, and a setting in silver gilt with the inscription + APIE IIANTE-AEHMON BOH0EI Til C/l A OTA/2 ZAXAPIA APXEniCK/in/l 1BHPI AMHN,i.e., “Saint Panteleon, protect thy servant Zacliarias, Archbishop of Iberia,Amen.” The most remarkable, however, among these glass vessels is a small vase3 5 inches high by 4 wide, of very dark brown glass almost opaque ; the body issomewhat globular, and the mouth widens upwards. The body is decorated withseven circles enclosing figures which are painted on the surface in a pale flesh-