S. Maria Antiqua.

115

had become very elaborate, and the old name had been given up.1 But till the eleventh
or twelfth century the regular design shows a symmetrical composition (specially adapted
for a lunette) in which Christ stands in the centre, facing the spectator, between two
groups. In one hand he holds a 'cross, while with the other he raises Adam from the
tomb. Behind Adam appears Eve. This group is balanced by two or more figures
(generally David and Solomon) rising from a tomb on the other side of the Saviour,
under whose feet the broken fragments of the sepulchres, or, more rarely, the prostrate


Fig. 8.—The Descent into Hell. (Harl. MS. 1810.)

figure of Satan, are represented. This type, of which the examples are numerous,2 is
represented in Fig. 8, taken from a twelfth-century Greek MS. of the Gospels in the
British Museum.3 The figure behind the kings is St. John the Baptist.
This treatment seems to be a development, for reasons of symmetry, from a simpler
and earlier form in which only Christ and Adam and Eve appear. In representations of
this type the Saviour stands sideways as he approaches and takes Adam by the hand.

1 Didron, ed. Stokes, ii. 319.

2 E.g. Schultz and Barnsley, l.c. Fig. 39 ; d'Agincourt, T. xiii. 21 (doors of S. Paolo fuori,
Rome), Ivii. 6, lix. 6(MSS. in Vatican); Gori, Thes. Vet. Dipt, iii. T. xxxii. ; Melanges d'Arch,
et d'Hist. 1888, 316 (eleventh-century MS. at Messina). Cf. Diehl, Convent de St. Zinc, 42, for
other instances.

3 Harl. 1810, f. 206 b.

I 2