288 THE MAGIC OF JEWELS AND CHARMS
One
of the very curious cases of the employment of a purely secular Roman
gem for ecclesiastical uses is offered by the exceedingly beautiful
convex blue aquamarine engraved with the head of Julia, daughter of
Titus, a fine work of the Augustan Age, now in the French Cabinet des
Médailles in Paris. This was donated in the ninth century by the
Carolingien emperor, Charles the Bald, to the Treasury of St. Denis,
after it had been given a setting of pearls and precious stones. In St.
Denis it was placed at the apex of a reliquary, which became known as
the Oratorium of Charlemagne, and the head of the vain and worldly
princess is said to have been venerated by the pious monks and priests
as that of the Virgin Mary. As a work of portrait art this gem is one
of the finest examples from classic times.18
The
strange decadence and the conventionalized but profoundly earnest
quality of Early Christian art is shown in an intaglio gem of the Royal
Numismatic Museum in Munich. This is a dark-hued sardonyx of two
layers, and the engraving depicts a bearded Christ, enthroned and
accompanied by the twelve apostles, six on either side, four of them
beardless while the remainder are represented with beards; they are all
gazing reverently upon the central figure, behind whose head appear the
arms of the cross and above them the letters Ίϋ Ύϋ îyaoût Xptmos.1* Another
somewhat similar Early Christian gem is a cameo cut in a sardonyx of
three layers, the groundwork being a brownish-black, and the figures of
a light-bluish hue, the upper parts yellowish-brown. Here also we have
an enshrined Christ; above his head two angels hold a diadem. This is
of superior workmanship to the intaglio gem just described.15 There is a sardonyx cameo showing a rude figure of the Prophet
"Ibid.,
vol. i, Plate LXVIII, fig. 8; described in vol. ii, p. 307. "Op. cit.,
vol. i, Plate LXVII, in No. 7; described in vol. ii, p. 307. " Op. cit, vol. i, Plate LXVII, No. 3; described in voL ii, p. 307.
