l of the West.

We now turn to the apse, which we enter under a second triumphal arch
upon the face of which we see upon the left the city of Hierusalem and
upon the left Bethlehem. A cypress stands at the gate of each, and
between them two angels in flight uphold a discus or aureole having
within it eight rays. Above this again are three windows about which
is spread a gorgeous decoration in mosaic.

Beneath within the tribune of the apse we see Our Lord, "beautiful as
Apollo," enthroned upon the orb of the world, an angel upon either
hand, while to his right stands S. Vitalis to whom He hands a crown,
to His left S. Ecclesius bearing the model of this church in his hand.

Beneath upon either side stand the two great mosaic pictures, the most
marvellous works of the sixth century that have come down to us and
perhaps the most glorious and splendid works of art which that age was
able to achieve, and it is needless to say that there is nothing like
them anywhere in the world.

Upon the left we see the great emperor, perhaps the greatest of all
the Caesars, Justinian, bearing in his hands a golden dish; beside him
stands the archbishop of Ravenna, S. Maximianus. A little behind these
two figures and on either side stand five attendant priests, and on
the extreme left of the picture is a group of soldiers.

[Illustration: Capital from S. Vitale]

In the mosaic upon the right we see the empress Theodora, straight
browed, most gorgeously arrayed, very beautiful and a little sinister,
bearing a golden chalice, attended by her splendid ladies and two
priests. Upon the extreme left of the picture stands a little fountain
before an open doorway hung with a curtain.

What can be said of these gorgeous and astonishingly lovely works?
Nothing. They speak too eloquently for themselves. Not there do we see
the mere realism of Rome, the careful and often too careful
arrangement that Roman art, able to speak but incapable of song,
always gives us. Here we have something at once more gorgeous and more
mysterious and more artistic, a symbolical and hieratic art, the gift
of the Orient, of Byzantium. In the best Roman art of the best period
there is always something of the street, something too close to life,
too mere a transcription and a copy of actual things, a mere imitation
without life of its own. But here is something outside the classical
tradition, outside what imperial Rome with its philistinism and its
puritanism has m