peculiar kind that shows a double pile or the pattern in velvet upon velvet, now so seldom to be found. On the back orphrey, which is quite straight, is shown St. Peter with his keys; St. Paul with a sword; St. John blessing with one hand, and holding a chalice, out of which comes a serpent, in the other; St. James with a pilgrim's hat and staff: on the front orphrey the Annunciation, and St. Simon holding a club, but his person so placed, that, by separating the archangel Gabriel from the Blessed Virgin Mary, a tau-cross is made upon the breast; St. Bartholomew with a knife, and St. James the Less with the fuller's bat. For their greater part, the Gothic niches in which these figures stand, are loom-wrought; but these personages themselves are done on separate pieces of fine canvas and are applied over spaces left uncovered for them. Another curious thing is that in these applied figures the golden parts of the draperies are woven, and the spaces for the heads and hands left bare to be filled in by hand; and most exquisitely are they wrought, for some of them are truly beautiful as works of art.
79.
Cope, crimson velvet, with hood and orphrey embroidered, &c. Florentine, late 15th century. 9 feet 5-1/2 inches by 4 feet 6 inches.
This fine cope is of the same set a part of which was the beautiful
chasuble No. 78, and, while made of precisely the same costly
materials, is wrought with equal care and art. Its large fine hood is
figured with the coming down of the Holy Ghost upon the infant
Church, represented by the Blessed Virgin Mary amid the Apostles, and
not merely this subject itself, but the crimson colour of the velvet would
lead us to think that the whole set of vestments was intended for use
on Witsunday. On the orphrey, on the right hand, the first saint is
St. John the Baptist, with the Holy Lamb; then, Pope St. Gregory
the Great; afterwards, an archbishop, may be St. Antoninus; after
him a layman-saint with an arrow, and seemingly clad in armour,
perhaps St. Sebastian; on the left side, St. George with banner and
shield; under him St. Jerome, below whom, a bishop; and lowermost
of all St. Onuphrius, hermit, holding in one hand a cross on a staff, in
the other a walkingstick, and quite naked, saving his loins, round which
he wears a wreath of leaves. All these subjects are admirably treated,
and the heads done with the delicacy and truth of miniatures.
