Chap. II. MINIATURES. 55 restored. 1 That the artist was ignorant and inexperienced is proved by the deformity of the figures, feet, hands and articulations. Yet the compositions are imitated from of those of a better time. Equally rude, but interesting perhaps as an example of the technical processes of the period, is a pontifical of the ninth century executed for the use of Bishop Landulfus of Capua, now in the Minerva at Rome. Vasari’s epithet of “ tinlor ” might be applied to the artist. Roman art in its fall may be traced in the stout short heavy figures that convey the representation of a clerical ordination of the period. Some animation and action may be said to compensate for absence of true form. The large square heads, round black eyes and rouged cheeks — the shadowless forms, drawn with coarse dark outlines combine with the draperies of uniform colour and marked out with parallel strokes, to present a miniature counterpart of the apsis figures in many a Roman church of the eighth and ninth century. The tech nical execution is as usual a light thin water-colour of a warm yellowish tinge in the flesh. 2 From the seventh to the end of the eighth century Rome merely affords examples of formal ceremonial pic tures. Of religious compositions in the true sense of the word there is scarcely a trace in mosaics or painting. The miniatures of the period which remain are either feeble imitations of the antique, or so low in the scale of art as to leave little room for criticism. It may there fore be interesting to discover, if in sculpture something can be found to fill up the void. The wood reliefs of the gates of Santa Sabina at Rome are in this respect valuable remnants. Santa Sabina was built on the Aven- tine hill by Pope Celestin the First in 421, but the gates were only placed in it by Innocent the Third, some years before the church was granted by Honorius the 1 MSS. No 3867 of the Vatican library. 2 Another miniature of the 9 th century, representing the rite of baptism by immersion, may be noticed here. It belongs to an unnumbered MS. in the Minerva at Rome. The short figures, the draperies, are even more reminis cent of the antique than the Terence No. 3868. The drawing, particularly of the extremities, is defective, the eyes are very round and open, the mode of colouring the same as in the Terence MSS, the outlines very marked and coarse.
