quiet and mystic Byzantine dwelling on thought rather than action. In a northern sculpture of this subject, the daughter of Herodias would have been assuredly dancing; and most probably, casting a somersault. With the Byzantine, the debate in her mind is the only subject of interest, and he carves above, the evil angels, laying their hands on the heads, first of Herod and Herodias, and then of Herodias and her daughter.
291. Plate VIII.—The issuing of commandment not to eat of the tree of knowledge. (Orvieto Cathedral.)
This, with Plates X. and XII., will give a sufficiently clear conception to any reader who has a knowledge of sculpture, of the principles of Giovanni Pisano's design. I have thought it well worth while to publish opposite two of them, facsimiles of the engravings which profess to represent them in Gruner's monograph[1] of the Orvieto sculptures; for these outlines will, once for all, and better than any words, show my pupils what is the real virtue of mediæval work,—the power which we mediævalists
- ↑ The drawings are by some Italian draughtsman, whose name it is no business of mine to notice.
