that the ancient serpent worship of the Druids and other Northern nations, was in some way descended from the same root. In any case they were transmitted to the Longobardic Comacines through the early Christian Collegia of Rome, as we see by the plutei in San Clemente, S. Agnese, etc., and by the beautiful single-cord interweavings on the door of a chapel in S. Prassede.
Comacine Knot on a panel at S. Ambrogio, Milan. One strand forms the whole. From Cattaneo's "Architettura."
Sculpture from Sant' Abbondio, Como, 5th century. (The circle and centre a single strand.)
There is a marvellous knot sculptured on a marble panel of the ninth century from S. Ambrogio Milan, which Cattaneo has illustrated.[67] The whole square is filled with complicated interweavings of a single strand, forming intricate loops and circles, the spaces between which are filled with the Christian emblems, the rose, the lily, and the heart. Another pluteus, originally from San Marco dei Precipazi at Venice, but now over the altar at S. Giacomo, is dated 829 A.D., and is covered with what seems at first sight a geometric pattern of circles and diamonds, but if analyzed will be found a single strand interwoven in the most mysterious and beautiful manner. It seems that the parapet of the tribune in all these early Basilicas was the place chosen especially by the Roman architect of the third and fourth centuries, and the Comacine of the eighth and ninth, to set their secret and mysterious signs upon, and to mark their belief in God as showing infinity in unity.
It is very curious to notice in the churches which the guild restored in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when their tenets had altered, and their sign changed, how they themselves removed these old stones, but yet being careful not to destroy them, they turned them and sculptured them again on the other side. In the excavations or restorations in Rome many of the intrecci have come to light at the back of panels of Comatesque pulpits, recarved into altar frontals, or used as paving-stones before the altar.
Some of the earlier and less intricate forms of knots may be seen in the church of S. Abbondio at Como, which was built in the fifth century and again rebuilt in the ninth. Some excavations in the last century revealed the foundations of the fifth-century church, and also brought to light a number of sculptured stones which had been turned face downwards to form the pavement. We give illustrations from two of these which have the Comacine signs plainly written on them, and show even in this early and simple form the reverence for the line of unity. Cattaneo thinks they may have formed the front of the gallery above the nave in the eighth-century building.
In the museum of Verona is a precious fragment of Comacine work dating from Luitprand's time. It was a ciborium which Magister Ursus was commissioned to make for the church of S. Giorgio di Valpolicella. It is especially valuable as the first dated piece of sculpture of the Longobardic era, and the first signed specimen of Comacine interlaced work. The columns which remain support a round arch, covered with sculptured intrecci. As it stands now the two halves of the arch do not match, so it must be conjectured that the ciborium had four columns, and that the halves of the arch were originally on different sides of the erection. The intrecci are beautiful and varied, displaying the unbroken continuity of the curved line which marks the Comacine work of the eighth to the twelfth centuries. The capitals are curious in form and not at all classical. Beneath the capitals of the two columns are the following inscriptions in rough letters and dog Latin. One runs—"IN NOMINE DNI. IESU XRISTI DE DONIS SANCTI IUHANNES BAPTISTE. EDIFICATUS EST HANC CIVORIUM SUB TEMPORE DOMNO NOSTRO LIOPRANDO REGE, ET VB PATERNO DOMNICO EPESCOPO, ET COSTODES EIUS, VIDALIANO ET TANCOL, PRESBITERIS, ET REFOL GASTALDO, GONDELME INDIGNUS DIACONUS SCRIPSI." And the other—"URSUS MAGESTER CUM DISCEPOLIS SUIS, IVVINTINO ET IVVIANO EDIFICAVET HANC CIVORIUM, VERGONDUS TEODAL FOSCARI."[68]
The date of Bishop Dominic's death coincides with Luitprand's accession to the throne, so we may safely say Magister Ursus worked in 712. Ursus Magister fecit is also engraved in the same style on an ancient altar recently discovered in the abbey church of Ferentillo near Spoleto. It is known that Luitprand went to Spoleto in 739, and installed Hilderic in the Dukedom. In any case this inscription is of priceless value to our argument that the Comacine Guild which worked for the Lombard kings was really the same guild that built the latter Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals and palaces. Here we get the exact organization which becomes so familiar to us in the later lodges whose archives are kept, Ursus or Orso proves his right to the title of Magister by having disciples under him. The work is done in the time of "Our Lord Luitprand and our Father the Bishop," who are the presidents of the lodge, just as in later lodges the more influential citizen or body of citizens are presidents of the Opera. Then there is Refol, the Gastaldo (Grand Master). The very same term is kept up in the Lombard lodges till the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when the head of the Venetian laborerium is styled the Gastaldo instead of capo maestro as in Tuscany; there is even the notary to the guild, the unworthy scribe Gondelmus.
The work is so far inferior to the ciborium at Valpolicella, that it would seem to be, as Cattaneo remarks, by an earlier hand. The ornamentation is not a finished sculpture, but only rudely cut into the surface of the stone, like a first sketch. Possibly the remuneration offered by the employer was not liberal enough to encourage Orso to put any elaborate work into the altar, or he might have blocked out the work, and left it unfinished either by reason of death, or absence.
Another famous work of that time was one which Luitprand himself caused to be sculptured by Magister Giovanni, of the Comacine Guild. It was the covering for the tomb of S. Cumianus in the monastery of Bobbio. It will be remembered that Agilulf and Theodolinda gave shelter to the Irish Saint Columbanus, and assisted him to found the convent of Bobbio. One of the monks there, another Irishman, named Cumianus, was afterwards canonized, and Luitprand built his tomb. We are told it was covered with precious marbles, which would seem to indicate something in the style which the Cosmati afterwards made so famous.
The tomb of Theodata at Pavia is a fine specimen of Comacine-Longobardic sculpture. It is now to be seen in the cortile of the Palazzo Malaspina with some other old sarcophagi. This has been called a Byzantine work, but the extreme vitality and expression in the hippogriffs and the Solomon's knots which sign it, mark the work as Comacine; besides, we are told by the most early authors that the Longobards never employed Greek artists. There is the usual mixture of Christianity and Mediævalism in the sculptures on the top of the tomb. Winged griffins with serpent tails prance on each side of a vine, from which serpents' heads look out. Fishes are in the corner, and an interlaced border, whose spaces are filled with grapes and mystic circles, frames, as it were, the design. The side is entirely Christian; and if the peacocks which drink out of a vase with a cross in it, were less lively, it might almost pass for a Byzantine design; but the Comacine Magister has set his mark even here, in his knots with neither end nor beginning, his concentric circles, and roses of Sharon; and has told us in his mystic language that Theodata was a Christian, and though tempted, clung to the cross. Theodata, a noble Roman dame, was one of the ladies of honour to Ermelind, King Cunibert's Anglo-Saxon wife.[69]
One day Ermelind incautiously described the exquisite beauty of this lady, whom she had seen in the bath, and greatly inflamed his imagination. He brutally ruined the lovely Theodata, and afterwards shut her up in a monastery, probably that of St. Agatha, which his father had built. This took place in A.D. 720. The beautiful tomb was but a poor atonement for the coarse cruelty which had spoiled her life.
The pulpit in S. Ambrogio at Milan is a really fine specimen of sixth-century work. It is supported on ten columns. Here is the true Comacine variety of columns: they are all sizes and all shapes; some round, some hexagonal; some longer, some shorter; the difference in height being made up by the capitals and pedestals being more or less high. One, which is peculiarly short, and whose capital