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Murrhina, China-Agate

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244
MURRHINA.
stance, it would seem, in consequence of the most common make in which the antique substance appeared. Thus a bowl is termed peculiarly Murreus : old inventories have often the item " Mur-reus de argento."
When Chinese porcelain began to find its way into Europe, the learned, not knowing how it was made, seem to have agreed to call it Murrhina. Long before that time the Italians had their Porcellana (so called from the pounded shells entering into its composition), a mere glazed earthenware, the secret of which had been taught them by the Moors : hence afterwards " Porce­lain " was improperly applied to the Chinese manufacture, though of a totally different nature. Thus Garcias ab Horto : " They find a green kind of Jasper, out of which Murrhina are made (called Porcellana) of so bright a green that they might be thought cut out of the Emerald : and such is probably the ma­terial of the Sacro Catino at Genoa. A Murrhine vessel of this kind was once offered to me for 200 pardoàs (rupees) ; had it been a true Emerald I could hardly have got the thousandth part of it for that sum."
Lambeccius figures (Bib. Imp., vol. i.) of the actual size a most elegant patera with twisted handles, designed in a pure classical style, and then (1665) believed to be hollowed out of one entire Emerald, although more than a foot in diameter, measured over the handles. This therefore must have been, like the Sacro Catino, formed in a brilliant green paste, for certainly no mere green Jasper could in that age have been mistaken for the true Emerald, especially in Vienna, the school of the most learned amongst the early mineralogists. The Imperial Library then boasted of the most magnificent example of the true Murrhina ever produced by ancient skill, or preserved, as a most sacred treasure, protected also by superstition, through all the inter­mediate ages between the Roman and the Hapsburg Ca?sars. Lambeccius calls the material Oriental Agate, which exactly agrees with the foregoing definition of the real signification of the name Murrhina. The form was a patera with elegantly twisted handles, and much resembling the Emerald vase in general design ; but the size was perfectly incredible, the dia­meter over the handles measuring a Viennese ell all but two digits (about 27 inches). This also, to remove all doubt, is given
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