tombs appears to have thus been perpetuated. That there were
links between North Africa and the Adriatic towns is suggested by
various facts. Coptic objects have been noted in the treasury at
Spalato, and the patriarchal chair once at Grado has been described.

At Agram a stele is preserved, found at Salona, which is of the shape of
Coptic altars. On it is a representation of Jonah being vomited by the
whale, and a head, with a curious kind of form at the bottom like the
plan of an apse with a rail returned across the entrance. Dr.
Strzygowski gives similarly shaped stelai from Alexandria and Cairo,
with incised awkward scrolls, and some of Arab date. He suggests that
the shape originated with the altars in the apses above the relics of
martyrs, and says that the Salona example (which is of the eighth
century) is the most ancient that he knows, and the only Western
example. The ivory chair of Maximian at Ravenna is another case in
point. Maximian, before he was chosen bishop of Ravenna, had made a
journey in the East, and visited Alexandria. Agnellus gives extracts
from his own account of his visit. Apparently he ordered the chair from
the ivory carvers there after his elevation, for the costume in the
Joseph subjects, and the choice of that history, as well as the
admixture of animal forms in the ornament, point to an Egyptian origin.
It seems probable that Ravenna was the centre from which the influence
spread westwards. There were many Orientals in the city, Syrians being
so numerous that they were able to nominate one of their number for the
episcopal dignity. With the taking of the place by the Lombards the way
was made open for the best craftsmen to migrate to the more important
city of Pavia, the Lombard capital, and so to spread the Oriental
influence farther and farther westward, though of course it also
penetrated France by the ordinary trade routes through Narbonne and
Marseilles. It is a curious fact that the plan of the great Rhenish
churches, with the apses and transepts at each end, is found in North
Africa at a much earlier date, which suggests direct intercourse, of
which no record has survived.

The tracing of the various currents which united to form the full
flowing river of that magnificent style known as Romanesque is a
fascinating subject, but not one to be taken up at the end of a book
which has already run to a considerable length. The fusing of antique
Occidental art with Oriental may be said