the female face which has for over six centuries looked
calmly down upon generation after generation of worshippers. Perhaps those
severe proud features may have impressed the ignorant Vandal-Bishop as
that of some unknown Saint, whom it might be dangerous to offend, and may
thereby have saved the pulpit of Niccolo Rufolo from the destruction that
must have seemed inevitable. Be that as it may, the bust has survived
uninjured, which, apart from the feeling of sentiment, is particularly
fortunate, for it belongs to a small class of artistic work, of which
existing specimens are rare and highly prized. For there must have been a
local and premature Renaissance in this part of Italy during the
thirteenth century, otherwise a statue so imbued with true classical
feeling and so correct in technical finish as that of Sigilgaita in
Ravello Cathedral could never have been produced; yet the names of the
artist or artists who thus anticipated the great plastic revival remain
undiscovered. Portrait-busts, similar in treatment and idea to that of the
so-called Sigilgaita, are to be found here and there in museums, but this
effigy in remote Ravello remains unique amidst its original surroundings.

Turning aside from Sigilgaita's steady gaze and making the round of the
bleak white-washed building, our eyes are suddenly attracted by a fine
picture, in the manner of Domenichino, representing the martyrdom of
Pantaleone, the popular Amalfitan Saint to whom this church was dedicated
by the Rufolo family.

The cult of this Asiatic martyr in Amalfi is of course another legacy of
the Republic's close connection with the Levant, whence some relic-hunting
admiral or merchant of the state reverently brought Pantaleone's bones to
the Italian coast. As the veneration of this Saint still exists so
deep-seated that his Hellenic name is frequently bestowed on children at
baptism, it may not be deemed amiss to give a very brief account of this
eastern Martyr, who is so closely associated with Amalfitan, and later
with Venetian life. Pantaleone was born at Nicomedia, in Bithynia, the son
of a Pagan father and a Christian mother. Well educated by his parents, he
became a physician, and on account of his skill, his learning, his
graceful manners and his handsome face, was finally selected to attend the
person of the Emperor Maximian. At the Imperial Court the young doctor,
who had meantime neglected the faith of his mother, was recalled to a true
sens