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BOOK VII
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151
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than
one color. I shall start with the white marbles. Some are white
permeated with gray spots. In Rome the columns near the altar in the
Temple of St. Bartholomew, at one time sacred to Jove, which is on an
island, are of this type of material. Some white marbles are discolored
with gray spots such as that found in the mountains between Northusa,
Thuringia, and the town of Elderica. This rock is similar to alabastrites. In
the Temple of Wisdom in Constantinople there are two bas-reliefs cut
from white marble with the gray areas so distributed by nature that the
image of St. John the Baptist appears to be covered with a camel's
hide. The other shows Turks with Christians.
When a block of stone was broken free with wedges in the marble quarries at Paria, it was found to contain the image of Silenus6
while in the Chian quarries the likeness of the head of Pan has been
observed upon a fracture surface. It is difficult to understand how
these have been produced. There is a gray marble in the Temple of St.
Vitalis in Ravenna in which Nature has portrayed the image of a
Franciscan monk. This is one of the famous vari-colored marbles from
the Palace of Senator Pintius that stood on the magnificent hill of
Gardena in Rome. This was brought to Ravenna by Theodoricus, King of
the Ostrogoths, according to the letters of Cassiodorus.
Some
marble is white with veins of different colors, for example, that from
Noricum which we call Salburgian marble. Another has dark yellow veins
through it and since it is in great part translucent is called lapis phengites. According
to Pliny this was used by Nero to build the gambling house that was
called Sejes since it was dedicated to King Servius. This house was
famous for its golden cupola and lighting. During the day, light was
let into the building through concealed openings that made it as light
as if windows had been used and yet the source of light appeared to
have been within it. There is a vase of the type known as buccal in the
house of Tiberius in Naples made from this stone. Large pellucid pieces
of lapis phengites have been found in Cappadocia near Galatia.
Some marbles are gray with a slightly bluish tint and with white and black spots. One variety, quarried in Misena near the town of Rochlitz, is
as lustrous as silver. Another variety which comes from Numidia is gray
with yellow spots. Two basins in front of the Pantheon in Rome are said
to be made from this variety as well as the twenty foot column erected
to C. Ceasar by Antonius and torn down by Dolobella. There are three
other basins of the same shape and almost the same size in front of the
Pantheon that were cut from a stone similar to the Numidian marble. One
stands before a shrine of St. Mark at the end of a wide road, another
seventeen feet long, seven feet wide and five feet high before a shrine
of St. Peter in chains, and the third before a shrine of St. Salvatori
of the Laurel near the hill now called Jordan.
6 Silenus was the tutor of Bacchus who is always portrayed with a bald head, riding on an ass and drunk.
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