Chap. I. EARLY MOSAICS AT RAVENNA. 33 many are the conjectures to which these inscriptions have given rise. The portrait of Maximian is not in the least like that in S. Vitale,-; and none of the imperial persons wear the diadem. Any attempt to draw an inference from this restored work must be abandoned. On the arch of the tribune, a medallion bust of the Saviour was placed. The Redeemer in his purple robes was presented as in the act of benediction and holding a hook in his left hand. His long hair and beard were usual, but the features were no longer the calm and regular ones of the Saviour in the cross of the apsis. Muscular developments in the forehead, a brow knit by terrible thoughts, gazing eyes, a nose bent at the end, proclaimed the progress of that more modern idea which sought to increase the majesty of the head by adding the terrible, as the Romans had already done in mosaic and painting. Lower down in the courses, Jerusalem and Bethlehem, the twelve apostles in the form of sheep, two palms, the archangels Michael and Gabriel, S. Mathew and S. Luke were represented. 1 1 It behoves those who reject a received opinion to state most accurately the reasons that in duce them to express one directly contrary. It may therefore he necessary to describe in detail the changes that repairs have produced in mosaics which, ac cording to one of the most recent art-historians, “are old and ge nuine”. Taking first the mosaics of the apsis. — The white tunic of the figure of Moses is repainted. Half the face from the nose down wards and both the hands of Elias are restored. The head of S. Apollinaris is in part damaged, the left hand and lower part of the figure destroyed. The sheep on the sides of S. Apollinaris, but particularly those on the right of that figure are almost com pletely modern. A large part of the left side of the apsis is re painted. Of the four bishops be tween the windows of the tribune the head of Ecclesius is preserved, the lower part repainted. The head of S. Ursinus is a new mo saic and the lower half of the figure is restored. In the mosaic of the sacrifice half the head from the eyes upwards and part of the arms of Abel are repainted. The legs have become dropsical under repair. The figures of Abraham and Isaac are almost completely j-epainted and the hands and feet are formless for that reason. This mosaic is repaired in two different ways with white cubes coloured over and with painted stucco. In the mosaic representing the tender of the privileges, the nimbi as already stated are new, but be sides , the lower part of all the figures is repainted on stucco, and the heads are all more or less repaired. Of the figures on the arch that of the archangel Gabriel 3 VOL. I.