anopy, but itself
appears to be of the ninth century, judging by the columns, two of which
are twisted, and by the carving of the symbols of the Evangelists, which
seems to be rather later. On the other hand, there is a square O in the
inscription on S. John's book, of which other instances occur at Cattaro
in an inscription of the ninth century, and in one of the seventh at
Spalato. The pulpit is sexfoil in plan; one side is open, and one has a
large cross carved upon it. The canopy has six fourteenth or
fifteenth-century octagonal colonnettes, supporting ogee trefoiled
arches with a domical termination, coloured in red and white chequers,
and with scrolls and rosettes of red on the spandrils of the arches
below. The shape and decoration show Arab influence strongly.

[Illustration: PULPIT IN THE CATHEDRAL, GRADO

_To face page 45_]

In the pavement is still preserved a great deal of that laid down by
Elias in the sixth century. It filled the nave, being entirely worked in
tesserae of very few colours--black, a green-grey, red, yellow, and
white. From the west door a pattern, surrounded by a border, stretches
as far as the fifth pair of columns. It consists of a central band of a
wavy pattern, interrupted by inscriptions and medallions; the
easternmost one is blank and has a running border, with the corners of
the square (cut off by the band of inscriptions) filled with
scroll-work. The side portions are cut up into squares by bands of open
interlacings, with ivy leaves in the interstices, and different designs
within the squares, or with inscriptions, most of them in Latin, but one
in Greek. They record the gift of so many feet of pavement, as at
Parenzo; and one donor, Laurentius the Viscount Palatine, seems to have
been generous to both cathedrals. A long inscription leaves no doubt as
to the date, and that it was laid down under the Patriarch Elias
(571-585); it runs: "Atria quae cernis vario formata decore squallida
sub picto caelatur marmore tellus longa vetustatis senio fuscaverat aetas
prisca en cesserunt magno novitatis honori praesulis Haeliae studio
praestante beati haec sunt tecta pio semper devota timori."

The flat ceilings and the rococo stucco-work are due to the restorations
of 1740. The apse contains remains of mediaeval painting--a seated Christ
of colossal size surrounded by the symbols of the four Evangelists, with
raised right hand and a closed book in the left; on one side S. John the
Baptist