480

Appendix.

BRUSSELS.
MUSEE
ROYAL
d'anti-
quites.

and above the head qfChrift, is inferibed in capital letters, much con-
joined:1 +VBI DNS AMBVLABIT SVPER ASPIDEM ΕΤ
BASILISCV ET CONCVLCABIT LEONE ET DRACONEM.
The whole is furrounded by a border compofed of the Z Chinefe-like
pattern of the Anglo-Saxon fchool, marvellouily open cut.
The other leaf is in two compartments with fmaller figures, much
more rudely defigned. In the upper is the Annunciation; the Virgin,
with a plain nimbus, is feated on a cufhion holding a fpindle and
diftaff in her left hand, the right hand held Hat to the breaft; the edges
of her garment are ornamented with double rows of pearls. On the
left fide Hands the archangel in fimilarly ornamented robes, with an
enormous pair of wings, holding a wand in his left hand, and with the
right hand extended to the forehead of the Virgin. He wears a band
acrofs the head. On the right fide ftands a female attendant, and the
Virgin is feated in front of an arcade compofed of fmall rounded arches,
fupported on very flender ihafts and foliated capitals, with a large cur-
tain looped up; at the right fide is inferibed (-I-V)BI GABRIHEL
VENIT AD MARIAM.
In the lower compartment is the Vifitation; the Virgin and
St. Elizabeth embracing each other in the centre, with the dreffes
fimilarly ornamented with pearls. On the left fide is Zachariah clad in
a mantle with a large brooch on the breaft, and on the right fide is
St. Jofeph. The figures are reprefented within a building, fupported
by numerous fmall arches on flender columns, with curtains hanging
from rods beneath each arch. Over the heads of the figures is inferibed,
+ . VBI MARIAE SALVTAVIT ELISABETH. The whole is
furrounded by an openwork border of Anglo-Saxon interlaced ribbon
work ; the centre portion alfo open-cut, leaving all the figures ftanding
free. The eyes throughout are filled in with blue glafs. Poffibly of
the Sth to the 10th century. Figured, Maes, Album des Objets
d'Art Religieux de Moyen-Age expofees a Malines, Bruxelles, 1864;
Weftwood, Min. and Ornam. of Anglo-Saxon MSS., pl. 52 ; fig. 4,
Photogr.. S. Kens. Mus., portfol. 237, No. 44,341.
A fine reliquary, 11th or 12th century, in ihape of a Romanefque
church, with two tall towers at each end. The fides are occupied by
aides with rounded arches, and beneath thefe on each fide are fix figures
of apoftles of fmall fize, and fix figns of the zodiac ; whilft at one end
the Virgin and Child, with two faints of much larger proportions, and at
the other end the Saviour feated in glory, with the evangeliftic fymbols

1 Thus in the firft word VBI, the fecond ftroke of the V ferves alfo for the firft
ftroke of the B, and the I is of fmall fize within the lower loop of the B.