In Rome. 331 we have representations of the Saviour enthroned in glory, surrounded by the redeemed. The Virgin does not appear to have been represented until the latter part of the fifth century. In the sixth century were produced the mosaics of SS. Cosmo e Damiano, considered the best in Rome, and deserving special mention as being amongst the last in which the figure of Christ retains the quiet majesty charac- teristic of the catacomb portraits, and in which the saints appear in natural groups and attitudes, instead of the stiff parallel rows subsequently adopted. An unbroken series of illuminated manuscripts have come down to us from early Christian times, many of which give proof of considerable imaginative power and true feeling for all that is best in antique art. To this class belong the Book of Joshua in the Vatican, a parch- ment-roll more than thirty feet long, dating from the seventh or eighth century, but supposed to be a copy of an early Christian work of the period we have been reviewing ; and the celebrated Virgil of the Vatican, an original work of the fourth or fifth century. The time of Charlemagne was the great period for manu- script illuminations, and many fine specimens are preserved in the Library of Treves. The mosaics of the tribune of S. Agnese in Rome (625 — 638) are good specimens of the transition period, the heads of the Saviour, the Virgin, etc., being purely conven- tional, whilst some of the figures are dignified, graceful, and free from Byzantine stiffness. Those in the basilicas of S. Apollinare Nuovo, and S. Vitale, at Ravenna, are of special importance now that the church of S. Paolo at
