istics of each style were not particularly pointed out.
In the present consideration the peculiarities of detail and ornament
are all that need be taken up, as the views given furnish no opportunity
for the study of plan or general design. The derivation of the Byzantine
style was indicated in the March number of THE BROCHURE SERIES in
describing the Ravenna capitals there illustrated.

Byzantine conventional ornament appears to be of two types,--the one
usually used in mosaics, of thin scrolls, terminating in flowers or
symbols, displayed upon a ground which is much greater in quantity than
is the ornament; the other, usually confined to sculpture, an intricate
interlace of ribbon lines with spaces filled with Byzantine acanthus,
the ornament much greater in proportion than the ground, which only
shows in small separate pieces. Apart from these are the borders,
occasionally of overlapping leaves, often of small repeated units, such
as Greek crosses and squares and diamonds, or else meanders or
guilloches. The guilloche takes a new form in Byzantine design, and
instead of being a continuous succession of small circles enclosed in an
interlacing ribbon, it assumes the form of alternating small and large
circles, or of small circles alternating with large squares, and often
progressing in both directions at once, horizontally and
perpendicularly, and thus forming an all-over pattern. The roses of
ornament are often incorporated into this form of guilloche. Sculpture
of the human form becomes more and more feeble and crude. The acanthus,
however, went steadily through successive variation until it attained
the virile form seen in the best Byzantine work. It is no longer the
olive type of the Romans, or the heavy, stupid leaf of the earlier
centuries of the Christian era, but has again turned towards the
sharp-pointed, vigorous leaf of the Greeks. Its lobes are divided into
three or five tines, each sharp at the tip; its centre lines, radiating
from a central stem, bend like flames; its surfaces are concave, with
deep V cutting, and it has one very marked peculiarity, that is, that as
far as possible no tine is left displayed alone on the ground, but the
tip of each is made to touch either the tip of a neighboring tine or the
ribbon or moulding bounding the space in which the ornament occurs. The
tines are of nearly equal size throughout, and the spaces of ground left
by the ornament are also of comparatively equal size, and