s, from the
pontificate of Gregory in the beginning of the seventh century.

In the most ancient of these effigies which remain, we have clearly
only a symbol; a half figure, veiled, with hands outspread, and
the half figure of a child placed against her bosom, without any
sentiment, without even the action of sustaining him. Such was the
formal but quite intelligible sign; but it soon became more, it became
a representation. As it was in the East that the cause of the Virgin
first triumphed, we might naturally expect to find the earliest
examples in the old Greek churches; but these must have perished
in the furious onslaught made by the Iconoclasts on all the sacred
images. The controversy between the image-worshippers and the
image-breakers, which distracted the East for more than a century
(that is, from 726 to 840), did not, however, extend to the west of
Europe. We find the primeval Byzantine type, or at least the exact
reproduction of it, in the most ancient western churches, and
preserved to us in the mosaics of Rome, Ravenna, and Capua. These
remains are nearly all of the same date, much later than the single
figures of Christ as Redeemer, and belonging unfortunately to a lower
period and style of art. The true significance of the representation
is not, however, left doubtful; for all the earliest traditions and
inscriptions are in this agreed, that such effigies were intended as
a confession of faith; an acknowledgment of the dignity of the Virgin
Mary, as the "SANCTA DEI GENITRIX;" as a visible refutation of "the
infamous, iniquitous, and sacrilegious doctrines of Nestorius the
Heresiarch."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Mostrando quod ipsa Deipara esset contra impiam Nestorii
Heresium quam talem esse iste Heresiareo negabat_ Vide Ciampini, and
Munter's "Sinnbilder."]

* * * * *

As these ancient mosaic figures of the Virgin, enthroned with her
infant Son, were the precursors and models of all that was afterwards
conceived and executed in art, we must examine them in detail before
proceeding further.

The mosaic of the cathedral of Capua represents in the highest place
the half figure of Christ in the act of benediction. In one of the
spandrels, to the right, is the prophet Isaiah, bearing a scroll, on
which is inscribed, _Ecce Dominus in fortitudine veniet, et brachium
ejus dominibatur_,--"The Lord God will come with strong hand, and his
arm shall rule for him." (Isaiah, ch. xl. v. 1