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Chap. I. EARLY MOSAICS AT RAVENNA. 23 Still more classical and if possible finer were those of the monumental chapel of the Empress Galla Placidia. * 1 Nor is it uninteresting to find that it fell to the lot of artists who took their inspiration from pure Greek models to depict the allegory of the birth of the Christian faith and its triumph over the Arian heresy. The youthful Pastor bidding his fiock to “go and teach the nations” was represented, as is fit, above the inner portal and, in the choir, the triumph was symbolized by the figure of the Saviour burning the books of the heretics. Christian art had not as yet been illustrated by so noble a repre sentation of the good shepherd as that which now ador ned the monument of Galla Placidia. Youthful, classic in form and attitude, full of repose he sat on a rock in a broken hilly landscape, lighted from a blue sky grasp ing with his left hand the cross and his right stretching aslant the frame to caress the lamb at his sandalled feet. His limbs rested across each other on the green sward. His nimbed head, covered with curly locks, reposing on a ma jestic neck and turned towards the retreating forms of the lambs, was of the finest Greek type and contour. The face was oval, the eyes spirited, the brow vast and the features regular. The frame was beautifully proportioned, classical and flexible in the nude. The blue mantle shot with gold was admirably draped about the form. A warm sunny colour glanced over the whole figure which was modelled in perfect relief by broad masses of golden light, of ashen half tones and brown red shadows. No more beautiful figure had been created during the Christian period of the Homan decline, nor had the subject of the good pastor been better conceived or treated than here. As in the rise of the faith the symbolic type of the Saviour must necessarily be youthful, so in its triumph it was natural that the Redeemer should have the aspect of one mature in years. In the choir of the monumental government and that ultimately something will be done to save the fewremaining monuments of Italy. 1 Now, S. Nazaro e Celso.