History of mediæval art . tion, and also those tables of pray-ers from which the canonical tablets,still in use in the Catholic Church,appear to have been derived. Carv-ings of ivory were also used for thecovers of books, especially of missals,and were for this purpose mounted ingold and decorated with jewels andenamels. This kind of binding be-came general when the change wasmade from a scroll to a book ofleaves, the latter having evidentlybeen considered at first as a combi-nation of the manuscript and the dip-tych. To this category belong thecarved panel of ivory in the Cathe-dral of Salern
History of mediæval art . tion, and also those tables of pray-ers from which the canonical tablets,still in use in the Catholic Church,appear to have been derived. Carv-ings of ivory were also used for thecovers of books, especially of missals,and were for this purpose mounted ingold and decorated with jewels andenamels. This kind of binding be-came general when the change wasmade from a scroll to a book ofleaves, the latter having evidentlybeen considered at first as a combi-nation of the manuscript and the dip-tych. To this category belong thecarved panel of ivory in the Cathe-dral of Salerno, with the story ofAnanias and Sapphira, and the fourtablets in the British Museum, uponwhich, among other scenes of the Pas-sion, the Crucifixion is the style of the latter sculpturedoes not appear to be later than the fifth century, it is without doubt the earliest appearance of thissubject. Similar works of about the same date are preserved inthe cathedrals of Milan and Como, the Church of S. Michele in. Fig. 64. — Diptych of the ConsulAnastasius, 515, in the Na-tional Library, Paris. 112 EARLY CHRISTIAN AND BYZANTINE SCULPTURE. Murano, the National Library in Paris, and the collections of Bres-cia and Darmstadt. In Constantinople the use of these tablets continued general forcenturies, and their decorations were but little influenced by theaction of the Iconoclasts. The antique elements of design, how-ever, gradually disappeared, and carving in ivory, following the de-basement of the miniatures and mosaics, became stiffer, more life-less, and less artistic, while still maintaining in great measure theoriginal delicacy and exactness of execution. The tablet in theMusee Cluny in Paris, representing the Emperor Otto II. with thePrincess Theophano,—without doubt a memento of their marriagein the year 972,—and that with the portraits of the Emperor Ro-manus IV. and his wife, dating from the year 1068, show the exces-sively long and lean forms of the b
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