the request
of his daughter, and also a baptistery in the same place, where
Constance was baptized, by Bishop Sylvester.

Among the most interesting early mosaics is the apse of the Church
of St. Pudentiana in Rome. Barbet de Jouy, who has written extensively
on this mosaic, considers it to be an eighth century achievement.
But a later archaeologist, M. Rossi, believes it to have been made
in the fourth century, in which theory he is upheld by M. Vitet. The
design is that of a company of saints gathered about the Throne on
which God the Father sits to pass judgment. In certain restorations
and alterations made in 1588 two of these figures were cut away, and
the lower halves of those remaining were also removed, so that the
figures are now only half length. The faces and figures are drawn
in a very striking manner, being realistic and full of graceful
action, very different from the mosaics of a later period, which
were dominated by Byzantine tradition.

In France were many specimens of the mosaics of the fifth century.
But literary descriptions are all that have survived of these works,
which might once have been seen at Nantes, Tours, and Clermont.

[Illustration: MOSAIC FROM RAVENNA; THEODORA AND HER SUITE, 16TH
CENTURY]

Ravenna is the shrine of the craft in the fifth and sixth centuries.
It is useless in so small a space to attempt to describe or do
justice to these incomparable walls, where gleam the marvellous
procession of white robed virgins, and where glitters the royal
cortege of Justinian and Theodora. The acme of the art was reached
when these mural decorations were planned and executed, and the
churches of Ravenna may be considered the central museum of the
world for a study of mosaic.

Among those who worked at Ravenna a few names have descended. These
craftsmen were, Cuserius, Paulus, Janus, Statius and Stephanus,
but their histories are vague. Theodoric also brought some mosaic
artists from Rome to work in Ravenna, which fact accounts for a
Latin influence discernible in these mosaics, which are in many
instances free from Byzantine stiffness. The details of the textiles
in the great mosaics of Justinian and Theodora are rarely beautiful.
The chlamys with which Justinian is garbed is covered with circular
interlaces with birds in them; on the border of the Empress's robe
are embroideries of the three Magi presenting their gifts; on one
of the robes of the attendants there is a pattern of ducks sw