The MeT>^ALLIC: TORTR^ITS of CHRIST By G. F. Hill J Medal in the British Museum. Busts of Christ and St. Paul. THE MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST THE FALSE SHEKELS THE THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER By G. F. hill FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 19x0 Oxford University Press London Edinburgh Glasgow New York Toronto Melbourne Cape Town Bombay Humphrey Milford Publisher to the University PREFACE OF the essays included in this volume, those which deal with the Medallic Portraits of Christ and False Shekels were originally published in the Reliquary and Illustrated Archaeologist in 1902, 1904, and 1905. Constant inquiries con- cerning these subjects are addressed to the British Museum and doubtless to other similar institutions. It seemed, therefore, worth while to place on record what is known about them ; not so much, it must be confessed, in the hope of dissipating certain picturesque superstitions, which continue to show every sign of a long and happy life ; but rather to make it easier for scholars to answer the inquiries addressed to them. At the same time, some few of those who are curious in such matters are interested to learn the truth ; others are occasionally convinced by the printed word where the mere assurance of a Museum official would be received with passionate incredulity. The research, once undertaken, proved to have attractions of its own, although the portion concerned with the medals of the later sixteenth century has been worked out more from a sense of duty than because of any interest in the banal types produced in that period ; and the whole is, I fear, anything but easy reading. The essay on the Thirty Pieces of Silver, being more or less akin to the others, seemed not unfitting to accompany them. It was read before the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1904, and printed in Archaeologia, vol. lix. I am indebted to Messrs. George Allen & Co., the present proprietors of the Reliquary, and to the Council of the Society of Antiquaries, for their kind permission to republish the essays, which have been revised and in great part rewritten in the light of more recent investigation. My thanks are also due to the Directors of foreign museums and to the private collectors, by whose courtesy I am able to publish illustrations of a number of pieces not represented in the British Museum ; and to my colleague Mr. O. M. Dalton, who has been so good as to read the proofs and make various useful suggestions. G. F. HILL. British Museum, March, 1920. ■775548 LECTORES DOCILES PAGINA NOSTRA VOCAT Godfrey of Viterbo LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FIG. PAGE Frontispiece. Medal in the British Museum. Busts of Christ and St. Paul . 2 1. Medal by Matteo de' Pasti. Collection of Mr. Henry Oppenheimer . 10 2. Sketch for Medal of Christ in the Recueil Vallardi. From Heiss, Med. de la Renaissance . . . . . . . . . .11 3. Repousse medallion. Victoria and Albert Museum .... 12 4 a and h. Medal in the Collection of the late Don Pablo Bosch {rev. Inscrip- tion) . 13, 14 5. Plaquette in the British Museum . . . . . . -15 6. Detail from altar-piece by Montagna. Brera . . . . .16 7. Medal at Berlin {rev. Inscription) . . . . . . .18 8. Medal at Berhn 19 9. Medal in the Victoria and Albert Museum ...... 20 10. Medal in the Ashmolean Museum {rev. Inscription) . . . .21 11. Medal in the British Museum. Bust of St. Paul ..... 22 12. Medal in the British Museum {rev. Bust of a monk) . . . -23 13. Medal in the British Museum {rev. Inscription) . . . . .24 14. Medal in the Collection of Mr. Henry Oppenheimer. Bust of St. Paul {rev. Inscription) ........ 15. Stone Relief at Poitiers. From Gaffre, Portraits du Christ 16. German engraving at Dresden ...... 17. Engraving by Hans Burgkmair ...... 18. German woodcut of 1538 ....... 19. Panel portrait of Christ. Berlin Gallery. School of Jan van Eyck 20. Tile with Head of St. John Baptist. British Museum . 21. Miniature in the Trivulzio Collection, Milan 22. Medal in the Collection of Mr. Maurice Rosenheim {rev. Trigram of Jesus 23. Reverse of Medal in the British Museum (Pieta) .... 24. Illustration from Rouille, Promptuaire des Medailles 25. Medal in the possession of Dr. Thomas Henderson {rev. Hebrew Inscrip tion) ........... 26. Three varieties of the ' Hebrew Medal '..... 27. Medal formerly in the Murdoch Collection {rev. Hebrew Inscription) 28. Medal in the British Museum {rev. Hebrew Inscription) . 29. Medal by G. A. de' Rossi in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris {rev. Adora tion of the Magi) .... 30. Medal in the British Museum {rev. Calvary) 31. Medal in the British Museum {rev. Calvary) 32. Medal in the British Museum 33. Crystal intaglio in the British Museum 34. Medal at BerUn {rev. Bust of the Virgin) 35. Medal in the British Museum by Giovanni dal Cavino {rev. Crucifixion) 63 36. Medal by Cavino, from modern impressions made from the old dies {rev Trinity) .......... 37. Medal by Cavino (?) in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris {rev. Trans figuration) ........... 65 25 26 27 28 29 31 38 44 45 46 46 49 50 51 52 56 60 60 61 63 63 65 8 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FIG. PAGE 38. Medal in the Collection of Mr. Maurice Rosenheim {rev. Christ standing) 66 39. Jubilee medal of 1550 {rev. Porta Santa) in the British Museum . . 66 40. Restored medal of Paul IV in the British Museum .... 67 41. Medal by Antonio Abondio in the British Museum {rev. Christ as Man of Sorrows) ........... 68 42. Medal in the British Museum {rev. the Fall) . , . . .68 43. Pendant by Gaspare Mola in the British Museum {rev. Bust of the Virgin) 69 44. Medal (with obverse by Flotner) in the Berlin Museum . . -71 45. Medal by Hagenauer in the British Museum {obv. Bust of Count Thomas of Rheineck) .......... 72 46. Medal (Viennese) in the British Museum ...... 73 47. Medal of 1549 in the Collection of Mr. Maurice Rosenheim {rev. Agnus Dei) . . . .74 48. Medal of 155 1 in the Collection of Mr. Maurice Rosenheim {rev. Agnus Dei) . 74 49. Medal in the British Museum {rev. Agnus Dei) ..... 74 50. Medal at Munich {rev. Arms of Johann Schmauser, Abbot of Ebersberg) 75 51. Medal at Munich {rev. Arms of Johann Schmauser, Abbot of Ebersberg) 76 52. Medal by Valentin Maler in the British Museum {rev. The Church between Poverty and Gratitude) ......... 77 53. Medal by Valentin Maler in the Victoria and Albert Museum {rev. Christ supporting the Cross) ......... 77 54. Genuine Jewish Shekels and Half-shekels of the First Revolt (British Museum) ........... 79 55. Genuine Jewish Shekel of the Second Revolt (British Museum) . . 80 56. Becker's forgery of the Shekel of the First Revolt (British Museum) . 81 57. The ' Censer Shekel ' (British Museum) . . . . . .82 58. Waser's illustration of the Half- Shekel ...... 84 59. Waser's illustration of the One-third-Shekel ...... 84 60. Censer Shekel from Villalpandus ....... 85 61. Shekel from Postel . . . . . . . . . -87 62. Variety of the Censer Shekel in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris . . 88 63. Silver Coins of Rhodes, fifth to fourth century B.C. (British Museum) . 105 64. Medal of Judas Iscariot and Rhodian Coin, from Rouille . . .110 65. Fifteenth-century reproduction of a Rhodian Coin, in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris . . . . . . . . . .114 66. Stater of Tyre (British Museum) . . . . . . • 115 67. Stater of Antioch (British Museum) . . . . . . • 1^5 68. Denarius of Tiberius (British Museum) . . . . , • 115 I MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST iMfV I. The Fifteenth Century 'Q (fyiXraTrj npoa 0-^19, (o TroOov/jtepr) apaioTTjg app7jT09 virep irau yepos, elKcoi' aypa(p09 a.ypa(l)ov p.op(P(s3ixaT09. — Christus Pattern. THE question of the artistic development of the portrait of Christ, in itself sufficiently intricate, has been so much complicated by contributions from writers more remark- able for their piety than for their sense of evidence, that it is necessary to apologize for attacking it once more. My excuse must be that I propose practically to limit myself to the medallic portraits of the Renaissance, only incidentally dealing with earlier representations, and to ignore altogether, as a matter which can hardly be proved one way or the other, the question whether the numerous portraits bear any resemblance to the actual counte- nance of Christ. There is, I take it, no doubt that nearly all later representations have been much influenced by the various literary descriptions ^ of Christ, of which the earliest seems to be that given by John of Damascus, who died about 754.- Better known is the famous letter supposed to have been written by Publius Lentulus to the Roman Senate.^ A third description is given ^ Cf. F. X. Kraus, Gesch. der christ- in a tract headed, ' Ex gestis Anselmi lichen Kunst, i, p. 177. coUiguntur forma et mores beatae Mariae - Epist. ad Theophilum, c. 3 (Migne," et eius unici filii lesu ', on the last page Patrol., Ser. Gr., vol. 95, p. 350). of an undated edition (end of fifteenth ^ See J. P. Gabler, Kleinere theolog. century) of St. Anselm's Opuscula ; but Schriften (Ulm, 183 1), ii, pp. 628 f. it is not acknowledged among his genuine Gabler comes to the conclusion that the works. The current assumption, there- letter was concocted by some monk of fore, that it goes back to Anselm's time the thirteenth or fourteenth century, is unfounded. I have not been able to It appears for the first time in print, trace any manuscript containing it earlier although not under the name of Lentulus, than the fourteenth century. 1715 . B 10 MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST by Nicephorus Callisti (XanthopouUos), who died about John of Damascus describes Christ as having meeting eye- brows, fine eyes, long nose, curly hair, stooping shoulders, fresh complexion, black beard, and a skin the colour of wheat, as well as other characteristics which do not concern us here. Nicephorus agre.e&'in most particulars with John, adding that his hair was Fig. I. — Medal by Matteo de' Pasti. Collection of Mr. Henry Oppenheimer. golden, not very thick, inclining to curliness ; eyebrows black, not much curved ; beautiful eyes, bright and inclined to brown ; long nose ; beard golden, and not very long ; hair of the head long ; attitude somewhat stooping ; complexion wheat-coloured ; face not round but rather pointed below, and slightly rubicund. The letter of Lentulus describes his hair as nut-brown, smooth to the ears, curling on the shoulders, parted in the middle ; his forehead smooth and serene ; his face without wrinkle or blemish, slightly rubicund ; nose and teeth good ; full beard, like his hair, not long, but forked in the middle, &c., &c. 1 Hist. Eccl. i. 40 (Migne, vol. 145, p. 748). MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST II The head of Christ first makes its appearance on coins in the reign of Justinian II (a.d. 685-95).^ He is represented with long flowing hair, moustache and beard, and a cross behind the head. It is a full-face representation, such as was only to be expected at the time, when it is quite the exception to find a profile portrait on a coin. The facing bearded bust of Christ, with various modifications, continues in use in Byzantium down Fig. 2. — Sketch for Medal of Christ in the Recueil Vallardi. Frmn Heiss, Med. de la Ren. to the very end of the coinage in 1448. The beardless bust, also facing, does not appear until the reign of Manuel I (a.d. i 143-80).^ These facing types had no influence whatever on the Renaissance attempts at portraying the Saviour, which, so far as medals are concerned, are invariably in profile, usually to the left. The busts of Christ on the coins, in fact, are merely examples, on a small scale, of the orthodox Byzantine iconography of Christ, which Italian art discarded as soon as it felt able to do so. 1 W. Wroth, Catalogue of the Imperial Byzantine Coins in the British Museum (1908), ii, p. 331, nos. II ff. ^ W. Wroth, op. cit., ii, p. 566. 12 MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST The medals with which I propose to deal may be divided roughly into two classes, corresponding to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The earliest of which we have any knowledge (fig. i) is the work of the medallist Matteo de' Pasti of Verona, Pisanello's most distinguished pupil .^ His various medals of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta and Isotta Atti bear dates from 1446 to 1457, and it is improbable that the medal with the head of Christ is much later than 1460. Its description is as follows : Ohv. lESVS ■ CHRISTVS DEVS ■ DEI • FILIVS • HVMANI ■ GENERIS ■ SALVATOR ■ Bust of Christ 1., with plain circular nimbus seen in perspective ; the hair is brushed back from the forehead and falls in curls on the shoulders ; beard full, but not forked or long ; moustache full ; whiskers slightly curly. He wears a vest and cloak. Rev. OPVS • MATTHAEI • PASTI I ■ VERONENSis • The dead Christ, seen in half-figure in his tomb ; his head supported by a putto ; on the left, another putto, weeping, with hands uplifted ; behind, the cross. Bronze, 93 mm. Stops in the legends, inverted triangles. The obverse of this medal bears considerable resemblance to a drawing in the Recueil Vallardi in the Louvre. The majority of the drawings in this album are from the hand of Pisanello himself ; but to any one acquainted with the work of that master, it is clear that this particular design, which I reproduce here (fig. 2) after Heiss (p. 28), is not from his hand. The treatment of the hair and beard differs from that on the medal : the bust has Fig.3- -Repousse Medallion in Victoria and Albert Museum. 1 See especially A. Heiss, Les Medail- leurs de la Renaissance : Leon-Baptiste Alberti, Matteo de' Pasti, &c. (Rothschild, Paris, 1883). M. Gustave Dreyfus's specimen of the medal of Christ is illustrated on pi. iii, 3, and described on p. 26. I have to thank the pubHsher for permitting me to reproduce the sketch in fig. 2 from this work. The specimen here reproduced (fig. i) by kind permis- sion of Mr. Henry Oppenheimer, is without a reverse. MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST 13 no nimbus, and is turned to the right instead of to the left. It is, if anything, weaker in expression than the medaUic head, which itself is quite the poorest of Fasti's productions. On the whole, we are justified in supposing that the drawing is a design by Pasti himself for his medal. This work exercised comparatively little effect on the develop- ment of the medallic portraits of Christ. Its influence may, however, be traced in a repousse silver medallion of the late fifteenth century in the Victoria and Albert Museum (fig. 3). This represents a head of Christ to 1. with a cruciferous nimbus. The type is refined but weak, with a fairly long pointed beard, and long hair, a lock being brushed back from the forehead over the temple. The area of the nimbus is raised above the rest of the field ; its circle is of cable pattern. A metrical inscription in letters of late Gothic style runs round the bust : viva • dei ■ FACIES ■ ET ■ SALVATORis ■ IMAGO ■ Diameter, 63 mm. In the collection of the late Don Pablo Bosch of Madrid is a large medal (fig. 4 a, b) which belongs to the same group : Ohv. — Bust of Christ to 1., draped, otherwise as on fig. 3 ; across the field -in- • r • i • ; around, + respice • in • faciem • CHRISTI -TVI • SPECIOSVS- FORMA • PRE ■ FILMS • HOMINVM (quatre- foils as stops, where visible). Rev. — Incised inscription : + | venite • adme : om | nes • QVI LABORATIS ET | ONERATI ESTIS ET ■ EGORE | FICIAM • VOS ■ IVGVM • ENI I MEVMSVAVE • EST • ET | ONVS • MEVM • LEVE Bronze gilt, 113 mm.^ The lettering, especially on the reverse of this medal, is finely decorative, in the monumental style of about 1475. That is the time to which we may assign the origin of the medal, approximately. A specimen (obverse only), recently presented to the British Museum by Mr. E. G. Millar, shows the signature PHI LIP I OPVS incised on the truncation of the bust. The same type also occurs on a well-known baiser de paix^^ of which the specimen in the Plaquette Room of the British Museum is illustrated here (fig. 5 , 89 by 66 mm.). Christ is repre- sented in profile to 1., with cruciferous nimbus ; at the sides of the head, the letters 1 • N R • 1 ; above, the Holy Spirit between Sun and Moon. Molinier dates the piece to the end of the fifteenth 1 I have to thank the late owner for BerHn (Ital, Bronzes, 1305). M. Valton the photographs from which the illustra- possessed a variety, now presumably in tions in the text are made. the Paris Cabinet, without the symbols 2 MoUnier, Les Plaquettes, ii, p. 73, above, and with INRI on a label below, no. 461. Other specimens in the British Cf. Armand, Les Medailleurs italiens, iii, Museum, at South Kensington, and at p. 149 C 14 MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST century. The way in which the bust is cut off is characteristic. The same type (apart from accessories) is exactly reproduced on a lead medallion (diameter, loo mm.) found in the cemetery of Sainte-Livrade (Lot-et-Garonne).i The bust is flanked by the letters i N, and the field of the medaUion decorated with Fig. 4 a. — Medal in the Collection of the late Don Pablo Bosch, Obverse. incised ornaments. On the reverse is a Hebrew inscription, to which we shall return when dealing with the medals of the sixteenth century. M. de la Tour^ thinks that this medallion is as late as the seventeenth century, and the work of an Italian artist. Although it reproduces a fifteenth-century type, there 1 Published by M. G. Tholin, Bull, de la Soc. Nat. des Antiquaires de France, 1898, pp. 276 f. 2 Bulletin de la Soc. Nat., p. 281. MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST 15 is, I think, no doubt that it cannot be earlier than the second half of the sixteenth century. It is interesting to note that Fasti's medal, or something very like it, was known to the painter Bartolommeo Montagna. In his altar-piece in the Brera, dated 1499, and representing the Fig. 4 h. — Medal in the Collection of the late Don Pablo Bosch. Reverse. Madonna and four saints ,1 he has introduced two decorative medallions, of which one (fig. 6) seems to me to be suggested by the type of Fasti's medal. The medalHons which are used thus by many painters from the second half of the fifteenth century onwards to decorate their architecture are not often, I believe, derived from modern medals, although, as in the case of actual ^ T. Borenius, The Painters of Vicenza, p. 44. i6 MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST architecture of the time, the influence of Roman coins is strong. But a careful examination of ItaHan paintings from this point of view might reveal some interesting features. We now come to a much more important group of medals.^ The chief peculiarities of the type of Christ on these medals are the retreating forehead, the thick fleshy nose and lips, the moustache which leaves the upper lip almost bare, starting from the wing of the nose, the short forked beard, the cruciferous nimbus with circles in the arms of the cross. The ob- verse inscription is, in one form or another, YHS XPC SALVA TOR MVNDI. a. (Fig. 7). — )?HS in in- scription ; stops, lozenges ; moustache on front of upper lip indicated ; field slightly sunk. Rev. — In wreath, in- scription in fifteen lines : PRESENTES | FIGVREAD- SIMILI I tvdinemdominmheI SV" SALVATORIS- NOSTRI | ET ■ APOSTOLI ■ PAVLI ■ IN ■ AMI i RALDO ■ IMPRESSE • PER ■ MAG Nl THEVCRI ■ PREDECESSORES- AN I TIA- SINGVLARITER ■ OB- SERVA I TE ■ M ISSE ■ SVNT ■ AB • IPSO • MAG I NO ■ THEVCRO • S • D ■ N ■ PAPE | INNOCENCIO • OCTAVO ■ PRO ■ SI I NGVLARI • CLENODIO ■ ADHV | NC EINEM ■ VT ■ SWM ■ FRA TREM • CAPTIWM t RETINERET Fig. 5. — Plaquette in British Museum. ^ I may note, in passing, that all the medals of Christ of the fifteenth and earlier sixteenth centuries are un- doubtedly cast, not struck. M. de Mely speaks [Gaz. des Beaux- Arts, 1898, tome xix, p. 490) as if some of them were struck. In view of the misapprehensions which prevail regarding the processes of medal-making, I may be excused for reminding my readers that the stages through which a cast medal passes are {a) the original model in relief, positive ; {h) the mould, hollow, negative, made by impressing a into moulding material ; {c) the cast from the mould, i.e. the com- plete medal. Further, it may be well to say a word as to the way in which varieties, such as those which are to be MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST 17 Lettering, late Gothic ; N is invariably reversed ; stops, lozenges. For ANT I A and E I N EM read ANTE A and F I N EM . Bronze, 85 mm., Berlin.i Another specimen is m the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Fortnum Collection) ; a third at Milan {Bull, de la Soc. des Ant. de V Quest, 1889, p. 87) ; a fourth, apparently cast from, or else the original of, the Milan specimen, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It has the same breaks in the margin, and is pierced in exactly the same place. A fifth (83 mm.) with loop for suspension is in the British Museum ; it reads FIN EM, but is a poor cast. A medallion cast from the obverse of a similar medal is inserted in a bell, cast in 15 15 by Georgius Wagheuens, in the Fig. 6. — Detail from Altar-piece by Montagna. church of St. Olaus at Helsing0r in Denmark. See F. Uldall, Danmarks Middelalderlige Kirkeklokker (Copenhagen, 1906), described, came into existence. It was not necessary to build up an entirely new model. The artist could take an old medal and do one of two or three things. He could work on it with a graver, chasing and altering details, even cutting out one inscription and replacing it by another, or wholly modifying the bust. He could then make from this as many new casts as he pleased. Or, taking his old medal he could impress it in moulding material and make certain alterations at that stage ; but it is doubtful whether much could be done in this way which could not more easily be effected by a third 1715 c method. That was to make a wax cast, reproducing the old medal exactly, and then work on it as one pleased ; this would then be the model from which the new variety could be cast. It is probable that not one of the varieties of the Salvator medal to be described was made from a new model, built up freehand in imitation of an original ; the moulds were doubtless in all cases made mechanically from older speci- mens, and all specimens are the lineal descendants of one original. 1 Dr. H. Dressel kindly sent me casts of this and the next medal. \ .i;* .^> a' Fig. 7.— Medal at Berlin. MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST 19 pp. 303 f. This medal was also reproduced at Nancy, in the church of St. Evre, on a bell cast in 1576, but now no longer existing. 1 b. (Fig. 8). — YHS • XPC in legend ; stops, pellets (two at the end). The field is roughened ; the area of the nimbus is sunk and filled with incised rays, the arms of the cross are also filled with incised lines. The whole medal is strongly tooled, especially Fig. 8. — Aiedal at Berlin. as regards the hair and the modelling of the face (note, e.g., the way in which the temple is sunk). Rev. — In wreath, inscription as on preceding, with the following differences : at beginning, small cross ; stops, pellets ; AO for ad; inpresse ; antea ; svmt ; dono for clenodio ; FINEM ; RETINEAT. Bronze, 84 mm., Berlin. Published by W. Bode, Zeitschr. f. chr. Kunst, 1888, pp. 347 f. ; cf. Gaz. des Beaux-Arts, 1898, vol. xix, p. 489. The whole aspect of the lettering of this medal is somewhat earlier than that of a ; the D for instance is of a Gothic form ; the A has a more defined horizontal bar at the top. But the medal, to judge by the workmanship, has all the appearance of being a later modification of a. The artist, who realized that some people ^ might be 1 Bull, de la Soc. des Ant. de rOuest, who in Bull, de la Soc. des Ant. de I'Ouest, 1889, pp. 87 f. 1889, p. 77, commits himself to the state- ■^ Such as Mgr. Barbier de Montault, ment that the word has no meaning. 20 MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST puzzled by the word CLENODIO (treasure, KX(iv(abi,ov, cf. the German Kleinod), has replaced it by DONO. c. {Frontispiece). — Stops, lozenges ; field slightly sunk ; circles in arms of cross ; the inscription, which is the same as on «, rests on an inner linear circle. Rev. — Bust of St. Paul r., with long beard, wearing cloak fastened with bulla on r. shoulder ; plain circular nimbus ; Fig. 9. — Medal in the Victoria and Albert Museum. inscription : ■ pavlvs • apostolvs vas ■ election is ; before third word, small cross ; stops, lozenges ; field slightly sunk. The lettering is late Gothic, as on a. Bronze, 83 mm., British Museum. A specimen, in some points better preserved than the Museum specimen, is in the possession of Sir Hercules Read. A specimen in the Victoria and Albert Museum has, instead of the head of St. Paul, an engraved niello-like design of a tree with various flowers (pinks, marigolds, &c.). On the obverse (fig. 9) the field of the nimbus is decorated with punched annulets, and the background of the inscription is roughened. A second specimen, also at South Kensington, has short incised rays round the head and face. d. (Fig. 10). — Inscription : ms ■ xpe, &c. ; stops, inverted triangles ; field not sunk ; circles in arms of cross. Rev. — In wreath, tied at bottom, inscription in six lines : TV ES I CHRISTVS | FILIVS DEI VI | VI QVI INHVNC | MVNDVM VE I NISTI. "«— ^ -«Wl -»-M ~-- <■%.. ^ A Fig. 10. — Medal in the Ashmolean Museum. 22 MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST Bronze, 91 mm., Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Fortnum Collection) .^ Note (for future reference) that INHVNC is written as one word. The lettering on both sides retains no Gothic elements. A specimen (bronze gilt, 90 mm.) without reverse at Florence reads XPC on the obverse.^ For the legend, see St. John xi. 27. e. (Fig. II, obverse). — Head of St. Paul as on reverse of c, but of slightly later, softened style ; inscription : • pavlvs apo- STOLVS VAS ELECTION IS • ; stops, SO far as preserved, inverted triangles. Fig. II. — Medal in the British Museum. Rev. — In wreath, tied at bottom, inscription in seven lines : BENEDICITE | IN EXCELSIS DEO | DOMINO DE FONTI | BVS ISRAEL IB! BENI I AMIM ADOLESCENTV | LVS IN MENTIS | EXCESSV. In line I the letters te, in line 5 ntv, are ligatured. Bronze, 89 mm., British Museum. The lettering on both sides of this medal is exactly the same as on d, with the same tendency to run words together, and there is no doubt that they are a pair. For the legend see Ps. Ixviii. 26, 27. /. Ohv. (Fig. 12). — Field not sunk ; circles in arms of cross ; inscription : lESVS christvssa lvator mvndi ; stops, obscure. 1 I have to thank Mr. C. F. Bell for 2 j g Supino, // Medagliere Mediceo, a cast of this medal. It is mentioned by p. 61, no. 125. Professor Supino kindly A. Way, Archaeological Journal, xxix sent me casts of this medal and of the (1872), p. 119. Bargello specimen of/. MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST 23 Rev. — Bust of a monk 1. ; inscription : inqvietv(m) • est • COR MEVM • DONEC • REQVIESCAT ■ IN • TE ; StOpS, pellets (?). Bronze, 45 mm., British Museum (from the Rome Sale, Sotheby's, 1904, no. 309). Another specimen at Florence (Supino, p. 191, no. 609). Cf. Armand, Med.ital.,'m, p. 149 B. One at Berlin {Amtliche Berichte, 191 1, p. 127). The quota- tion on the reverse is from St. Augustine, Conf. i. i. This medal is the work of a Florentine, about the year 1500 ; the portrait of the monk shows a good deal of power of character- ization. It may well be by the same hand as the medal of Alberto Belli (who died in 1482) and as some of the medals of Savonarola. I have maintained elsewhere ^ that the portrait closely resembles the painting in the Academy at Florence of Dom Baltasar, Fig. 12. — Medal in the British Museum. Abbot of Vallombrosa, traditionally ascribed to Perugino, though some have named Raphael in connexion with it and its companion portrait of Dom Biagio, General of the Order of Vallombrosa.- Perugino may have painted the portraits about 1500. But I do not now feel convinced that the painting and the medal represent the same man. g. Obv. (Fig. 13). — Bust of Christ, as on the previous medals, but the nimbus is removed from behind the head and indicated in profile at the top. Inscription : liHS • XPC ■ salvat or • mvndi ■ Stops, apparently inverted triangles. Rev. — Inscription in seven lines : ms • | xps • devs | et • HOMO • LA I PIS • ANGVLA | RIS ■ QVI • FECIT | VTRAQ ■ V | NVM, and around : an imam ■ meam • pono ■ pro • ovibvs ■ meis • Stops, usually inverted triangles. ^ Burlington Magazine, January 1909, Reinach, Re'pert. ii, p. 207 ; Crowe and p. 215. Cavalcaselle, ed. Borenius, v, p. 308. 2 Florence, Accademia, nos. 241-2 ; 24 MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST British Museum (presented by Mr. Max Rosenheim). Bronze, 38 mm. The circular inscription is from St. John x. 15 ; the other contains a reminiscence of Eph. ii. 14. This last medal of Christ also had its companion medal of St. Paul (fig. 14) : Obv. — Bust of St. Paul r., with long beard, wearing cloak fastened on r. shoulder with bulla ; no nimbus ; inscription : PAVLVS • DOCTOR GENTIVM Rev. — Inscription in seven lines : pavlvs ■ | raptvs • in | PARADISVM I AVDIVIT • ARC | HANA • VERBA | QVE ■ NL ■ hlO | I • LOQVi, and around : christo • confixvs ■ svm ■ CRVCi ■ Collection of Mr. Henry Oppenheimer, bronze gilt, 38 mm. (Lanna Catalogue 356, pi. 22). Another in the Collection of Signor Pio Santamaria. For the inscriptions see 2 Cor. xii. 4 and Gal. ii. 20. Fig. 13. — Medal in the British Museum. I do not know of any later medals with this type of Christ, which seems to have been superseded by the regular sixteenth- century type, which we shall deal with later. But some other small works reproduce the same type. One is a stone relief, about 70 cm. square, in the Museum of the Societe des Antiquaires de rOuest at Poitiers (fig. 15). I reproduce it here from Pere Gaifre's Portraits du Christ (p. 73). ^ It will be noticed that it reproduces exactly the type of the medal, but that the inscription has been transferred to a scroll and the abbreviations expanded as on/. The relief was found at Bignoux (Vienne), and appears to be French work of the early sixteenth century. The medal also influenced German line-engravers and wood- cutters of the early sixteenth century. We have no less than four instances in point. The line-engraving (fig. 16), which seems 1 By the author's kind permission. Bulletin de la Soc. des Antiquaires de For further details I may refer to Mgr. V Quest, 1889, p. 91. Barbier de Montault's article in the MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST 25 to be the earliest of all these reproductions/ is at the same time the least skilful. Other works of the artist, who is known by the floriated A seen in the left-hand bottom corner of the illustra- tion, have been described by Passavant and Lehrs ; ^ the latter authority dates his activity about 1500. For us the chief interest of the engraving lies in the fact, revealed by the text below, that it is taken from one of the earliest class of the medals with the long inscription referring to Bajazet's emerald on the reverse, and not, like Hans Burgkmair's woodcut, from the later variety with the short inscription TV ES christvs, &c. The character of the features is considerably altered, but the essentials of the type, except the fleshiness of the lips, are preserved. In the Fig. 14. — Medal in the Collection of Mr. Henry Oppenheimer. legend round the edge the engraving corresponds with the medal. Below is a short legend giving the substance of the long inscrip- tion on the original, viz. (abbreviations being resolved) : ' Imago et vera facies domini nostri iesu christi facta instar illius quam olim ingenti smaragdo impressam turcorum rex Innocentio papae octavo pro singulari clenodio misit.' Next comes an engraving dated 1507, published at Pforzheim ; =^ it represents the bust of Christ surrounded by a circle which obviously suggests the border of the medal. The nimbus is omitted. A finer work is that of Hans Burgkmair, about 15 15, which I reproduce here (fig. 17).^ This is admittedly and obviously a close copy of the 1 My attention was called to this hitherto unpubUshed work, which is at Dresden, as well as to the woodcut described below, by Mr. Campbell Dodgson ; and for the photograph of the former I have to thank Professor Max Lehrs, - Passavant, Le Peintre Graveur, ii, pp. 200 f. ; Lehrs, Repert. f. Kunstwiss., xii (1889), pp. 344 ff. ^ Reproduced by L. Kaemmerer, Hubert undjan van Eyck, p. 97. * From a photograph obtained for me by Mr. Campbell Dodgson, who also called my attention to the engraving. I have omitted from the illustration the lettering above and below the design. 26 MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST medal d, even to the use of the triangular stops. It will be noticed that the inscription of the reverse has been transferred to an outer circle, and that the copyist has slavishly followed the original in running the two words in hvnc into one. Above the design is a long account in Latin of the supposed origin of the medal, Fig. 15. — Stone Relief at Poitiers. From Gaffre, Portr. du Christ. to this effect : The portrait of Christ painted during his lifetime was perpetuated in a bronze and gold tablet of the fashion and size of this medal, faithfully reproducing the prototype. When the perfidious race of the Turks expelled the Christians from Asia, this holy effigy was hidden away. It is said on good authority MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST 27 that this bronze tablet, together with three gold coins bearing the same image, was found in the treasury of a certain king of the Turks, and was given by him to a certain noble German who was Fig. 16, — German Engraving at Dresden. on a visit to the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. It was thus brought to Europe and copied by some painter. As a proof that this image represents the actual appearance of Christ, the letter of Lentulus is given below the engraving. 28 MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST The reference to the copy made from the tablet by a painter is interesting in view of a point which we shall consider below. The woodcut illustrated in fig. i8 comes from a work by Hans Sachs, published at Frankfurt in 1538 ; ^ the cuts are mostly by Beham, but that with which we are concerned seems Fig. 17. — Engraving by Hans Burgkmair. to be from another hand. The work has considerably less merit than its predecessors, but shows the persistence of the type in Germany. One may doubt whether it was taken directly from the medal, and not rather from some earlier woodcut. The type of the medals is also reproduced with some altera- tions on a miniature published by Mgr. Barbier de Montault,- 1 Hans Sachs, Der Reiser, Kunige und duced in Baer's Frankfurter Biicher- anderer beder geschlecht personen kurtze freund, 1900, nos. 9-1 1, p. 184. Beschreibung, Sec. The head of Christ ^ Op. ctt., p 116. from which fig. 18 is taken is also repro- MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST 29 and dating from the seventeenth century. An inscription below says : Cette presente Figure est la representation et ressemblance de nostre Sauveur Jesus Christ gravee sur une Emeraude envoyee au Pape Paul V. par le Grand Turc, pour le rachapt d'une sienne qu'il tenoit pour lors prisonniere.^ But to discuss later reproductions of this kind would lead us into a consideration of the numerous later paintings, engravings, Fig. 18. — German Woodcut of 1538. &c., professing to reproduce the authentic portraits of Christ. For these I must refer to the articles by Messrs. C. W. King and Albert Way in the Archaeological Journal.^ It is improbable that ^ Thus, as we may see by comparison with the facts about Bajazet and his brother described below, Djem has changed his sex, Innocent VIII has become Paul V, and retineret has become redimeret — for so we can explain the origin of the idea that Bajazet wished to ransom the prisoner. Cf. ' redemption ', &c., in the pictures described by C. W. King, Arch. Journ. xxvii, pp. 181 f. - xxvii (1870), pp. 181 f., and xxix (1872), pp. 109 f. See also the reprints in C. W. King's Early Christian Numis- matics, &c. (1873). The tapestry panel referred to in the latter article, pp. 113 f., appears to be identical with that now in the British Museum. A small EngHsh panel exhibited by Mr. Clifford Smith at the Society of Antiquaries {Proc. Soc. Ant., January 22, 1914) is among the most degraded of its class. In the text accom- panying it Zizim has become * Maximilian the Great ' ! Cp. also Bodleian Quarterly Record, iii (1920), no. 25. 30 MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST any of the paintings described in these articles can be older than the sixteenth century. A terracotta of Italian workmanship, acquired in Paris by M. Gaillard de la Dionnerie, is also said by Mgr. Barbier de Mon- tault 1 to reproduce the type ; but it would appear from his description that the resemblance is not so exact as in the case of the French relief at Poitiers. A bronze plaque at Berlin, ^ representing half figures of Christ and the Virgin, has also been brought into connexion with these medals. Although the heads are not in profile but nearly facing, the type of Christ is obviously the same. His right hand is raised in blessing, his left holds the cruciferous orb. The plaquette is a work of the ' school of Donatello ' of the second half of the fifteenth century. In the Victoria and Albert Museum is a Limoges enamel (c. 1550) by J. Penicaud which is adapted from the Salvator medal ; it has the inscription ms • XPC ■ salvator ■ mvndi • (stops, three-armed) up the left side and along the top of the panel. What are we to make of the ' special picture of Christ cast in mould by Raphael de Urbino brought into England from Rome by Cardynall Poole ', which is mentioned in the inventory of Lumley Castle^ drawn up in 1590 ? Possibly it was merely one of our ' Salvator ' medals. For the sake of completeness I mention here another painting, although a reproduction is not forthcoming, and the original is inaccessible to me. It is a large miniature ^ in a New Testament in the library at Fulda, which has, unfortunately, been repainted in oils in the sixteenth century. It bears the inscription effigi ES • SALVATORIS- MVNDI ■ QVAE • ANTE ■ MVLTOS ■ ANNOS ■ EX ■ AEGIPTO- ARGENTINAM ■ TRANSMISSA • EST ■ RENOVATA • I AM • ANNO ■ 1588. It does not appear from Bode's description whether the picture exactly represents the profile type with which we are concerned. But there is a representation of this type of the bust of Christ which is more important than any of the copies of the medal that we have discussed. It is a painting on an oak panel in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum at Berlin, representing Christ in the ^ Op. cit., p. io6. ^ E. Milner, Records of the Lumleys 2 Berlin, 997 ; Molinier, op. cit., ii, (1904), p. 333. p. 73, no. 462 ; published by Bode, * Mentioned by Bode, Ztschr. f. chr. Ztschr. /. chr. Kunst, p. 350, and repro- Kunst, 1888, p. 350. duced by Barbier de Montault, p. 72. MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST 31 act of blessing, the right hand being only partly seen (fig. 19).^ It used to be attributed to Jan van Eyck, who died in July 1441 ; but Mr. Weale, the chief authority on the subject, considers it Fig. 19. — Bust of Christ by a follower of Jan van Jiyck. to belong to the end of the fifteenth century. And, to be on the safe side in the argument which ensues, we had better accept that judgement. Thus a delicate and complicated question arises : 1 No. 528 A ; ascribed in the official W.Y[.].Wea.\e,Hubertandjfohn van Eyck catalogue (5th ed., 1904, p. 126) to an (1908), p. 210 ; Weale and Brockwell, imitator of Jan van Eyck. Bode, op. cit., The Van Eycks (1912), p. 188. pp. 347 f. ; Kaemmerer, op. cit., p. 95 ; 32 MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST is the picture earlier or later than the medal (which as we shall see can hardly be earlier than 1492), the original source of the medal or inspired by it ; or do both go back to a common original ? The last is the view of Dr. von Bode. It will be observed that the picture is a fragment ; and he suggests that it once contained another person, probably the Virgin, as she is represented on the Berlin plaquette already described. Among the Limoges enamels from the Barwell Bequest in the British Museum is one represent- ing busts of Christ (of the type in question) and of the Virgin, confronted, and evidently derived from some such picture as that of which half is preserved at Berlin. Following the suggestion of the inscription on the reverse of the earliest variety of the medal, some, including Dr. von Bode, regard the type as an imitation of a Byzantine original. Let us reconsider that inscription. The medals a and b, it will have been noted, mention two ' figures ', of Jesus Christ and of the Apostle Paul, which were once ' impressed ', i.e. carved (in intaglio ?), on an emerald, which had been preserved with great care by the predecessors of the Grand Turk,^ and sent by him to his Holiness Pope Innocent VIII ^ as an especial treasure, to the end that he might retain his brother in captivity. Djem, or Zizim, defeated by his brother, the Sultan Bajazet II, fled to Egypt, and then appealed to the Knights of St. John at Rhodes, where he landed in 1482.^ The Grand Master, who used him as a means of extorting money from Bajazet, sent him to France, whence he transferred him, in 1489, to Rome. There he lived a prisoner in the Vatican, the Pope receiving a heavy tribute from the Sultan on condition of keeping him in security. In 1492 Bajazet sent also the head of the sacred lance with which the side of Christ had been pierced. Djem died at Naples — perhaps poisoned — in 1495. Now, if Bajazet sent the sacred lance-head, there is nothing improbable in the story that he sent the engraved emerald of which the presentation is recorded on our medals.^ But no one, it would seem, has ever seen anything of the kind. Until the ^ For Theucer = ^viTk. in the fifteenth ^ For the story of this prince see century see Ducange s.v. Teucri. Gregorovius, Gesch. der Stadt Rom, vii, ^ Von Bode remarks that the inscrip- pp. 290 ff., 374 (Eng. ed., pp. 305 fF., tion shows the medal to have been made 394). during Innocent's occupation of the * Mgr. de Montault's reasons (p. 118) Papal chair (1484-92). This is probable, for doubting that the emerald ever but the inscription hardly proves it. existed are insufficient. MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST 33 Treasury of St. Peter's yields up its secrets, we must proceed on the assumption that the emerald, if it was ever in the possession of the Vatican, has disappeared. Two portraits are spoken of, but it seems to be implied that they were on the same stone. A head of Christ engraved on a precious stone appears to have been among the treasures at St. Sophia as early as the tenth century. As M. de Mely has pointed out,^ Anthony of Novgorod, describing the treasures of Constantinople in a.d. 1200, says that he saw a large silver dish, used for Divine service, which was given by Olga, the Russian grand duchess, to the Patriarch ; in which dish is a precious stone, with the effigy of Christ chased thereon, from which impressions are taken .^ As Olga died in 968, this stone must have been as old as the tenth century. Possibly, then, the emerald sent by Bajazet to Rome in or about 1492 was at least as old as the tenth century, being identical with Olga's. But then, what of the head of St. Paul ? M. de Mely, in calling attention to the passage from the Russian pilgrim, maintains that in the Christ- type of the medal we have a specimen — modified no doubt by the hand of the Renaissance artist, but still representing the original — of Byzan- tine glyptic art of the tenth century. Dr. von Bode,^ also, 1 Gazette des Beaux- Arts, 1898, tome to our fig. 12) is imitated from the xix, p. 492. known ancient Byzantine cameo in the 2 Antonius Novgorodensis, Liher qui Treasury of St. Peter's (' dem bekannten dicitur Peregrinus. Latin version of altbyzantinischen Kameo im Schatz der extracts in P. E. D. Riant, Exuviae, ii Peterskirche nachgebildet ist '). He goes (1878), p. 219 : ' Discus sacrificii magnus on to point out that in relief and handhng argenteus, ab Olga Russica, magna the head of the monk resembles the heads ducissa, quae ilium donavit pontifici in of Savonarola and his supporters and usus sacrificii, quando in caesaream opponents, which he (Dr. von Bode) has urbem venit, ut baptizaretur. , . . In sought to show to be the work of Niccolo disco illo Olgae lapis quidam pretiosus (di) Forzore. Since the head of Christ est, coelatam exhibens Christi effigiem, on the reverse exactly resembles the cuius signacula impressa desumuntur known larger plaquette (imitated from ad quasvis gratias obtinendas ; desuper the said Byzantine cameo), to which autem discus margaritis ornatus est.' there is a companion piece with a head [Another version for magna . . . bapt. of St. Peter, it is probable, he concludes, gives donatus, quae C. P. ad tributum that these two plaquettes are also works percipiendum verier at.] of Niccolo Fiorentino. This passage ^ This critic's latest handling of the contains some details of a most surprising matter is worth considering. He writes kind. If the description of the cameo (Amtliche Berichte aus den koniglichen as ' known ' means anything more than Kunstsammlungen, March 191 1, p. 127) that it has been talked of for centuries, that the profile of Christ (on the reverse without any serious evidence of its of a medal with a monk's head, similar character or appearance, or even of its 1715 E 34 MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST assumes that the medal-type is a faithful copy of the head on the emerald, and suggests that copies of the famous stone found their way to the West long before the emerald itself came to Rome. This last suggestion is certainly borne out by the remark of Anthony that signacula impressa desumuntur ad quasvis gratias existence at the present time, being pro- duced, Dr. von Bode ought to have been more precise. He may, for all we know, have had that access to some of the treasures of St. Peter's which is denied to less fortunate investigators ; but he has never, it would seem, made his discovery public. We are therefore forced to assume that he knows no more about the * known ' Byzantine cameo than any one else. He goes on to speak of ' plaquettes ' of Christ and St. Peter, companion pieces. The standard works on plaquettes record none such. It is probable that he means to refer to specimens of the medal of Christ which have been cast without reverses. To call such pieces plaquettes is merely misleading. But, letting that pass, what are we to make of the companion piece with the head of St. Peter } Neither among plaquettes nor medals is it possible to find any work in any way answering to that description. Has Dr. von Bode again special knowledge, which he does not choose to divulge, or is he merely confusing St. Peter with St. Paul ? If we must decide, the balance of probability seems to incline to the latter alternative. There are other matters in the official report from which the above passage is taken, which seem to indicate that carelessness of thought and method are at the bottom of the mystery. Amongst the acquisitions of the Berlin Museum, which the Director illustrates and describes, are two medallic pieces, the one a portrait of the painter Francia, the other a design of Hercules and Atlas with the globe, with the inscription * Hi duo, ille solus '. The Francia is described as a leaden model for a medal which was never carried out or is unknown. To those who are in the least familiar with the history of medallic art, it should be at once obvious that it is a grotesque forgery. It belongs to a class, including medals of Primaticcio and Guercino, which were made by some bungling hand, hardly earher than 1650. (All three are illustrated together in my Portrait Medals of Italian Artists of the Renaissance, pi. XXXII.) Of the Her- cules and Atlas design Dr. von Bode writes that it is without doubt the reverse of an unknown or never executed medal, of which the broad, large handling of form betrays an artist of the character of Leone Leoni (' deren breite, gross- ziigige Formenbehandlung einen Kunst- ler in der Art des Leone Leoni verrat '). Again those dangerous words * unknown or never carried out ' ! This wonderful design, which to the Director of the Prussian Museums is the work of an Italian artist such as Leone Leoni, is nothing but the reverse of a medal by a French artist of the seventeenth cen- tury, representing Cardinal Mazarin, which he might have found illustrated in its complete form by reference to so well known a work as the Tresor de Numismatique (Medailles fran^aises, i, pi. LXVI, 5). But even were the design otherwise unknown, the lettering alone is enough to betray it. It has seemed desirable to dwell upon these matters, hardly in themselves relevant to the sub- ject of this book, because they throw some light on the quality of Dr. von Bode's expertise in regard to medallic art, and justify us in refusing to accept without careful discrimination his views on the origin of the medal of Christ. The criticism of medals requires special training, and cannot be regarded as a trifle which any critic of sculpture can dispatch in his spare time. MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST 35 ohtinendas ; whatever exactly this may mean, it is clear that impressions of the gem were made. The whole question may, however, be approached from another point of view ; and we may clear the way by asking whether, so far as our knowledge of Byzantine art goes, there is anything which bears the least resemblance to the type of the Flemish picture and the medals. I believe that every Byzantinist will answer in the negative.^ On the other hand, the type in the Flemish picture has all the appearance of being taken straight from life ; ^ there is nothing Byzantine about it ; and although it corresponds with the literary tradition so far as concerns the beard and hair, there is absolutely nothing in the head which suggests a hieratic artistic tradition. Further, there is, I think, no doubt that the type of face is characteristic of Flemish art in the fifteenth century. Even in full-face representations, one is able to recognize the thick, fleshy lips and nose, with the moustache starting from the corners of the upper lip, in paintings and in illuminated manuscripts from the time of Jan van Eyck down to the early sixteenth cen- tury ; and when in profile, one sees also the retreating forehead. It is important to note that features such as this are given not only to Christ, but also to any face to which it is desired to assign prominence .=^ On the other hand, it is extremely rare to find any approximation to the type in art south of the 1 It is quite possible that Olga's ^ I note here some of the Dutch, emerald reproduced the Edessa portrait Flemish, or North French MSS. in the which was translated to Constantinople British Museum, which it is instructive in 944 (see v. Dobschiitz, Christusbilder, to compare. 17267 (Dutch, early or 1899, pp. 149 ff.). In this case it would middle of saec. xv), fol. 28 b, 42 b; be a facing head. The profile treatment Sloane 2471 (Flemish illuminations, would be almost an anomaly in Byzantine second third of saec. xv), fol. 54 b; art. The facing bust on the cameo in 35313 (late xv), fol. 8, 21, 22 b, 222 b ; the Bibliotheque Nationale (Babelon, 1885 1 (late xv), fol. 77, 345 b ; 17280 Camees 333, pi. xxxix) shows the typical (Flemish, latexv), fol. 202 b, 221 b. The Byzantine treatment, but I cannot agree type is very prominent throughout the with M. de Mely {Gaz. des Beaux- Arts ^ fifteenth century in the Netherland 1898, vol. xix, p. 492) that this resembles school of painting ; for late instances see the type which we find in profile on our the works of Hieronymus Bosch and Jan medals. Mostaert, illustrated in M. Friedlander, ^ It is only fair to note that Kaem- Meisterwerke der niederl. Malerei, pis. 84, merer (p. loi) says that the picture is 85, 86. It would not be difficult to cite probably not the result of direct study instances from English fifteenth-century from the life, but a copy of the so-called art, such as the alabaster reliefs of the vera effigies. I simply cannot agree. Nottingham school. 36 MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST Alps,^ and no one has yet produced a parallel to it from Byzantine art. If therefore we have no definite instance of the occurrence of the type in question in Byzantine art ; if it occurs in a Flemish picture of the fifteenth century, and a similar treatment of hair and features is characteristic of Flemish art, while only excep- tionally found south of the Alps, down to the sixteenth century — how can we avoid the conclusion that the statement connecting the medals with Bajazet's emerald must be regarded with suspicion ? The inscription says that there were two heads, one of Christ, the other of St. Paul. Mgr. de Montault has suggested (p. 79) that two medals were made, one representing each head, but with the same inscription mentioning both : presentes FIGVRE, &c. Such a medal of St. Paul we do not actually possess ; but the medal c shows that a head of St. Paul was connected with the head of Christ, supposed to be copied from the emerald. If the Christ reproduces the type of the emerald, we are justified in supposing that the St Paul does the same. And that is a rediictio ad absurdum ; for I do not think that any one, even if he believe in the Byzantine origin of the former, will fail to recognize a pure Italian type in the latter. We infer, therefore, that the inscription on the reverse of the early medals a, b is 3. pious fiction, intended to give currency to the portrait on the obverse by assigning to it a respectable pedigree. The artists of the period were no more conscientious in such matters than their successors of the sixteenth and seven- 1 Instances I have noted are in the Flemish influence on the Italian illu- Brit. Mus. MS. 15265 (saec. xiv) and in minator need not surprise us. There the Veronese fresco (second half of is some approximation to the type also saec. xv) over the main entrance to San in Verrocchio'is Christ in the famous Fermo Maggiore, in which the face of group (finished in 1480) on the outside St. Longinus bears some slight resem- of Or San Michele ; indeed I have blance to the type. Northern influence heard that, on the strength of the was strong in Verona. A good instance, resemblance, the medal with which we more or less contemporary with the are dealing has been attributed to the medal, is in the Book of Hours of Bona great sculptor. It is quite unworthy of Sforza (Brit. Mus. MS. 34294, as in him from the point of view of technique, fol. 88, reproduced in Warner, Reprod. The peculiar treatment of the moustache from Ilium. MSS., ser. iii, 1908, is in itself not confined to the North ; pi. xlii). It should be noted that, thus we find it in the Santo Volto of although this illumination is ascribed to Lucca (Gaffre, Les Portraits du Christy an Italian hand, many of the illuminations pi. xviii). in the same book are Flemish, and MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST 37 teenth centuries, who would not scruple to describe a fancy head of Christ as a faithful copy of the emerald of Bajazet.^ We may conclude, therefore, as regards the relation between the picture and the medal, that either the medal is copied from the picture, or, if they have a common origin, that origin is to be sought in a Flemish painting approximating to the extant picture, and not in any way dependent on a Byzantine model. The medal has been briefly discussed by the late Natalis Rondot in his posthumous work on French medallists and coin engravers .2 A certain number of specimens, he states, have been met with at Lyon, In 15 17 the echevins of that city pre- sented a specimen in gold to the wife of the General of Finance of Languedoc. De Longperier (presumably Adrien of that name) possessed a fine specimen in yellow bronze which he regarded as of Lyonnese origin. This attribution M. Rondot regards as possible. The medal, he says, is certainly French ; but this statement he qualifies by the addition that, to judge by the heads and the character of the lettering, it must be a French reproduction, made in the first years of the sixteenth century, of an Italian piece of the end of the fifteenth. To distinguish between an Italian original of the end of the fifteenth century and a French reproduction made a few years later by the casting process, and possibly differing only in the character of the lettering — note that the busts in the various extant specimens differ in no essential characteristics — is a process of considerable delicacy. It is still more delicate when the whole question is complicated by the fact that the more remarkable of the two heads is derived from a painting by a Northern master. Unfortunately very little is known of French work of that date which can be compared with the medal. But, as Sir Hercules Read points out to me, an important monument of the potter's art at Lyon in the early sixteenth century is the tile (fig. 20) with the head of St. John the Baptist, presented to the British Museum by Major- General Meyrick.^ As to this, Mr. Solon remarks that the modelling of the head is absolutely French in style. There may be a superficial resemblance between this head and the head of Christ on our medals ; but it is hardly ^ Cf. C. W. King, in Archaeological ed. by H. de la Tour (Paris, 1904), p. Journal, xxvii (1870), p. 181. 83. 2 Les Medailleurs et les Graveurs de ^ M. L. Solon, Hist, and Descr. of the Monnaies Jetons et Medailles en France, Old French Faience (1903), fig. 4. 38 MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST enough to justify any argument as to community of origin. In any case we have to remember two things. First, that ItaUan influence was exceedingly strong at Lyon at the time. As Fig. 20. — Tile with head of St. John Baptist. British Museum. Mr. Solon remarks (p. 41), ' of the twenty-seven master potters known to have been at work at Lyon in the early part of the sixteenth century, seven were of Italian origin ; they are said to have practised their art after the fashion used in their own MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST 39 country '. Second, that the resemblance between the medal and the terra-cotta is confined to the head of Christ on the former ; the treatment of the head of St. Paul is absolutely different. In other words, it is a resemblance of type rather than of style. And this resemblance of type may be due to the influence of some Northern model on the designer of the tile. One would like to have had more explicit reasons for Rondot's opinion. At present (assuming him to admit the derivation of the head of Christ from the Flemish painting) we find him committed to the view that we have a French imitation (early sixteenth century) of a lost Italian medal (late fifteenth century), of which one side was copied from a Flemish painting (late fifteenth century) and the other was of Italian origin (presumably contemporary). I prefer to take refuge in the less subtle and romantic theory that the Italian medal is not lost but is to be found in some at least of the many varieties in which the medal with the two heads exists .^ The medals are of Italian origin. We have nothing in the early medallic art of the Netherlands, or of any other country, to warrant our ascribing the medal a to any part of the world save Italy. It is well known that early Flemish pictures found their way into Italian collections ; ^ and there is no difficulty therefore in supposing that the picture now at Berlin, or an earlier version of it, was known to the Italian artist who invented the medal with which we are concerned. But, not possessing any such model for his St. Paul, he produced a head of purely Italian type. This explains the different feeling which characterizes the two heads, and which gives the impression that the medal c is a hybrid, i.e. a combination of two obverses which do not belong to each other. From some medal combining the two heads, as in c, a later artist, who was unaware of the medals with the inscription attributing the origin of the type to the emerald, made the two medals d and e, to which he attached new reverse inscriptions. All this happened probably after 1492 (when Bajazet sent the lance-head and, perhaps, also the emerald) and before 1507, the date of the Pforzheim engraving, or, if that is taken from the earlier medal, before about 15 15, to which time Burgkmair's engraving probably belongs. The statement 1 In the British Museum is a specimen, 2 ggg Jacques Mesnil, UArt au Nord presented by the late Mr. Max Rosen- et au Sud des Alpes (191 1), especially heim, in which the head of Christ is p. 20, on the devotional aspect of the surrounded by fine incised rays. Northern pictures. 40 MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST on Burgkmair's sheet, to the effect that the original portraits of Christ were copied by a painter, I take to reveal the fact that the connexion between this type and the Flemish painting was known. Admitting that the medal is of Italian origin, can we be more precise, and indicate the school to which it belongs ? Those who are familiar with the products of the Italian schools of the end of the fifteenth century will not fail to recognize, in the handling of the bust and the hair, traces of the Florentine manner. So much, indeed, of the ordinary journeyman Work of the Florentines has been attributed to the chief master of that school, Niccolo di Forzore Spinelli, that it would be strange if these Christ medals had escaped. But Dr. von Bode, as we have seen, has not hesitated to annex them for his favourite. They have also, as I have indicated above (p. 36, note i), been assigned to an even greater Florentine, Verrocchio, on what appear to me to be inadequate grounds. But Florentine influ- ence was strong in Rome also at the end of the century, and I am inclined to suggest that the medal was made, so to speak, in the shadow of the Vatican, where the treasure, which it falsely professed to reproduce, was laid up. There is something of the classicizing spirit in the style of the head of St. Paul, in particular, which suggests Rome rather than Florence. The genealogy of the type may therefore be expressed as follows : Picture of the School of Jan van Eyck. [Presumed Medal with head of St. Paul and inscription corre- sponding to a.] Medal a (shortly after 1492). Medal c. Medals b,f, and other repro- ductions of later date. Berlin Plaque with Christ and Virgin (second half of fifteenth century) . Medal e. Medal d. German Engravings of early sixteenth century. MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST 41 This theory of the history of the type appears to me, due account being taken of the psychology of fifteenth-century artists, to make legitimate use of our data. As I have said, there is no reason to doubt that there was an actual antique emerald sent from Constantinople by Bajazet to the Vatican. But whom the heads on it actually represented is another question ; and further, when we come to the claim of the medals to represent that gem, our suspicions are aroused, and investigation becomes necessary. There is^ however, an alternative theory in explanation of the real origin of the two heads of Christ and St. Paul, which Sir Martin Conway has put before me, and kindly allows me to reproduce ; I do so as far as possible in his own words : The statement that there were two heads engraved upon the emerald is very suggestive, and at once recalls the third- and fourth-century gems with double heads, and other decorative objects thus treated. For example, a marriage-ring in the Berlin Museum, 1 with two bust portraits in profile confronted ; or the fifth-century ring in the British Museum ; ^ and plenty more might be cited .=^ In Berlin * is a little gold encolpion of the fourth century, from Egypt, with two such confronted heads in profile of SS. Peter and Paul. Such confronted profiles of the two saints with the chi-rho monogram between them adorn a bronze repousse plaque ^ and also appear on gold-glass ; ^ and there is also a single head of the type (called Peter) in the Basilewsky Collection.' Now the statement that the gem was engraved with the heads of Christ and St. Paul seems to suggest that it was in reality a third- to fourth-century gem with the heads of Peter and Paul. The head of Paul in fig. 11 perfectly corresponds with the above cited examples. The head of Christ, however, differs in having long hair, whereas both the Apostles in all the examples cited have short hair ; but the form of beard is the same.^ 1 Atntliche Berichte, November 1913, in the Vatican Library Museum, ibid., p. 34. pi. X, 2. 2 Dalton, Catalogue of the Finger Rings, ^ Deville, Hist, de VArt de la Verrerie, no. 127 ; Catalogue of Early Christian 1873, pi. 29 B. Antiquities, no. 207. ' Darcel et Basilewsky, Coll. Basilew- ^ e. g. Proc. Soc. Ant. xxii. loi. sky, pi. V. * WulfF, Altchr. &c. Bildwerke, 11 18. ^ It is to be noted that on the well- " Bull. d'Archeol. Crist., 1887, p. 130, known disc from the cemetery of Domi- pl. X, 3 (found in the Catacomb of tilla (^m//^^., /oc. a/., pi. X, i) the beards S. Agnese). Compare the similar bronze are short and round. 1715 F 42 MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST There may then have been a real gem at the Vatican, on a tiny scale, engraved with heads of Peter and Paul, but without their names. There may have been, as in some such representa- tions we know there was, a small star or cross or chi-rho mono- gram between the two heads, which may have been taken to identify one of the heads as Christ. Some artist, being told that the heads were Christ and Paul, may have made a painted copy of it on a large scale, giving it of course his own local style and making the Christ long-haired. This artist may have been Flemish, and have worked from a wax impression. Granted that the Berlin picture is the first so painted, and that it ever had both heads, the introduction of a blessing hand was the only way in which the presence of two heads of equal dimensions and importance could be explained and a proper predominance given to Christ's head. The mistake has been in looking for the original in Byzantine days. It would seem that these confronted busts are a pre- Byzantine type. Of course the treasury at Constantinople may have contained many objects brought from Rome or made in any and every part of the Empire ; there is, therefore, no inherent improbability in the statement that the gem was sent from Constantinople. This is Sir Martin Conway's theory, and it presents remark- able attractions. It may have already occurred to the reader that the original juxtaposition of Christ and St. Paul in the form presumed seems a little hard to explain. One might expect to find Christ between two other persons ; but why should St. Paul have been chosen to be placed alone with his Master on a gem ? On the other hand, the confronted heads of SS. Peter and Paul were the obvious thing. Again, an artist familiar with the later conception of St. Peter, as it is found, for instance, on mediaeval Papal bullae, may well have failed to recognize the long-bearded type as it is seen on the bronze of S. Agnese, and may have taken it for Christ. It may be noted that on the fifteenth-century medals the heads of Christ and St. Paul face to left and right respectively ; it may therefore be assumed that if they were both copied from some one design, on that original they were confronted. All this is in favour of Sir Martin's theory. If I point out one or two objections to it, it is not because it conflicts with my own view, which is only concerned with denying the direct Byzantine origin of the Christ-type on our MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST 43 medal. We know that there existed a design of some kind with the two busts of Christ, blessing, and the Virgin ; the Berlin plaquette and the Barwell enamel ^ are enough to prove that ; and in both these the type of Christ is akin to that on the medal and in the Berlin picture. It seems only reasonable to assume that the Berlin picture when complete contained not St. Paul as the second figure but the Virgin. Secondly, why should the artist, copying the supposed early gem, have so thoroughly transformed the one head not merely by giving it the long hair which he supposed to be characteristic of Christ, but also by making it wholly Flemish in feeling, while he succeeded in retaining the classical Roman type for his St. Paul ? Is it not more likely that the ultimate source of the medal of Christ was one thing (the Flemish picture), and that of the medal of Paul another ? Whatever be the solution, it is to be repeated that Sir Martin's theory and my own are not incompatible. My theory assumes that the head of Christ on the medal was derived from a Flemish picture ; his explains the origin of that picture. II. The Sixteenth Centurv WITH the sixteenth century the medallic type of Christ assumes a character very different from that which we have met with in the late quattrocento. Here again, though much less directly than in the former case, the medallic type was inspired by a great painter. We shall see that the theory which connects it directly with no less an artist than Leonardo da Vinci cannot be regarded as tenable. Since Leonardo practi- cally dominated the whole of North Italian art in his time, it is clear that but for him the medallic type as we know it would not have come into existence ; but the filiation with him is not direct. Among the engravings of Raphael Morghen is a medallion representing the draped bust of Christ to the left, without nimbus, but with a cross at the back of the head ; the beard is short, the hair long and flowing. Around is the inscription : • XPS • REX • VENIT- IN • PACE • ET • DEVS- HOMO- FACTVS • EST • >J^ • 1 The panels of Christ and the Virgin Gallery and elsewhere, are a free develop- by Quentin Metsys, in the National ment of a similar scheme. 44 MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST Below we read : UOriginale d'egual grandezza creduto di Leonardo, trovasi nella Galleria de^ Fratelli Trivulzio a Milano. Fig. 21. — Miniature in the Trivulzio Collection, Milan. The original in question is here reproduced (fig. 21) by the kind permission of its owner, the Prince Trivulzio.^ That it is by Leonardo it would be extremely rash to assert ; 1 I have also to thank the late M. H. de la Tour, of the Cabinet des Medailles, Bibliotheque Nationale, for the photo- graph from which the illustration is made, and for generously allowing me to antici- pate his publication of it. He first called attention to its bearing on the subject in Bull, de la Soc. des Ant. de Fr., 1898, p. 385. He there also mentions a silver- point drawing in the British Museum attributed to Leonardo, as resembling the head on the medals with which we have to deal. The drawing, however, cannot be by Leonardo ; apart from the question of its style, it is dated (in the top left-hand corner) 1532 ; and after a careful examination of it I am bound to say that its resemblance to the head on the medals seems to me to be very slight. MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST 45 I do not find it assigned to him in any authoritative book on his work, and to more than one student of that painter Luinesque, rather than Leonardesque, seems to be the epithet most proper to describe its somewhat sweet effeminate beauty. The medal which presents exactly the same type, and which I shall henceforward call, for convenience' sake, the XPS ■ REX medal, is fairly common, and is found with more than one reverse. It is unnecessary to describe the obverse of these pieces again ; the three reverses which are known to me are — (i) The YHS trigram in a glory of flames (i.e. the symbol Fig. 22. — Medal in Mr. Maurice Rosenheim's Collection. especially associated with San Bernardino of Siena) ; around, YHS • XPS ■ OPTIMVS ■ MAXIMVS ■ SALVVM • ME • FAC : Mr. Maurice Rosenheim's Collection. Bronze, cast, 47-5 mm. (fig. 22). British Museum. Bronze, cast, 47 mm. The letters of the YHS monogram are of Gothic form, the hasta of the h being crossed. In the inscription only the Y is of Gothic form ; a small cross rests on the bar of the H ; the first V of SALVVM is inserted ; and the letters M E are ligatured. (2) The dead Christ lying on the knees of the Virgin, who is seated before the cross ; on the left, a nimbate disciple supports the head of Christ ; to the right stands the Magdalen tearing her hair. Around, a wreath. British Museum. Bronze, cast, 46 mm. (fig. 23). Parma. 46 mm. Armand, iii, p. 149 D. (3) A Hebrew inscription, with which we shall deal later. Bronze, 44 mm. Published by L. Germain, Bull, de la Soc. Nat. des Ant. de France, 1898, p. 387, and Rev. de I'Art chretten, 1900, p. 424. It should be observed that this third reverse was not made specially for the obverse, but, as is clear from its smaller size, 46 MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST Fig. 23. Medal in the British Museum. was simply cast on from a specimen of the ' Hebrew medal ^ discussed later. It is evident enough from M. Germain's illustra- tion that his medal is a surmoulage or after-cast, and that he cannot argue from the conjunction of the two sides that the Latin and the Hebrew inscriptions mean the same thing, although that is in itself likely. At first sight one hardly considers the possibility that the Trivulzio mini- ature may itself be not an original. Such a possibility must, however, be taken into account for more than one reason. We know that from the latter half of the fifteenth century onwards it was the custom to copy medals in miniatures. The most striking in- stance is perhaps that furnished by the reproduction on the title-page of a manuscript in the Laurentiana, of a medal of Cosimo de' Medici the Elder .^ Another good instance is the copy of the reverse of Pisanello's ' Liberalitas ' medal of Alfonso of Aragon on the first title-page of Andr. Contrarius's ' Defence of Plato '.^ Now the com- position of the Trivulzio miniature is entirely medallic in character : wit- ness the arrangement of the legend on a circular border which is broken by the front of the bust. The use of the triangular stops also points to a have noticed the frequent occurrence At the same time Fig. 24. — From Rouille, Promptuaire des Medailles. medallic original ; we of these stops in the fifteenth- century medals. it must be confessed that the extant medals of this type all have ordinary stops ; so that if the miniature was copied from a medal, that particular medal has disappeared. One of the earliest printed numismatic books is the Promp- 1 See Miintz, Les Precurseurs, pp. 156, where other instances are given). A 158. reproduction facing p. 424 of Miintz, 2 Bibl. Nat., MS. Lat. 12947 (Steven- Ren. a Vepoque de Charles VIII. son, Me'l. deVEcolefrangaise, viii, pp. 470 f., MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST 47 tuaire des Medailles of Guillaume Rouille, the drawings for which were done by the artist Corneille de la Haye. Editions in French, Latin, Spanish, and ItaUan were printed in the same year, 1553. On p. 9 of the second part we find (see fig. 24) a medal of Christ which reproduces the same type, and is evidently derived from an actual medal.^ The bust is to the right, not, as in the medals with which we have dealt so far, to the left ; and this is probably due to the artist's having engraved the bust as he saw it on the medal to the left, forgetting that it would be reversed in printing. That the original medal was somewhat worn is shown by the treatment of the drapery on the right shoulder, where two folds have run together owing to wearing away of the edges. No reverse is shown ; but in the field is the name ' Jesus ' in Hebrew letters (with points), and around is the inscription CHRISTVS REX VENIT IN PACE DEVS HOMO FACTVS EST. The halo consists of rays arranged in a square with incurved sides, suggesting a cross. This engraving is obviously modelled on the XPS • rex medal, which must therefore have been in existence some time earlier. This brings us to a group of medals which have been the subject of considerable controversy, a group which includes the commonest of all medals of Christ, and which, from the fact that the inscriptions on them are all in Hebrew, we may call the Hebrew group .^ The earliest literary mention of medals of this kind dates from 1538. Theseus Ambrosius Albonesius, in a book published in 1539,^ speaks of the forms of the ' Samaritan ' letters used by coin- engravers in their inscriptions, such ' as, when I was at Rome in the happier days of Pope Julius II, and in the time of Leo X his successor, I remember to have seen on bronze coins ; and last year an image of our Saviour cast in bronze, with Samaritan 1 It is not superfluous to say this, be- a legendes hebraiques de la Bibliotheque cause many of the ' medals ' reproduced in Nationale, in Rev. Num., 1917, pp. 269- this book are pure inventions of the artist. 79, with a plate illustrating seven ex- - In dealing with this group I have amples, belonging to the varieties illus- had the kind assistance of my colleague trated in figs. 24 and 26 ; and by Dr. L. D. Barnett, without which I should L. Germain, in Rev. Num., 1919, have hesitated to make any decided state- pp. 89-94. ments about questions of interpretation ^ Introductio in Chaldaicam linguam, of the Hebrew inscriptions. The most Syriacam, atque Armenicam, et decern recent discussions of these medals are alias linguas (Pavia, 1539), fol. 21 by S. Ferares, Les Medailles du Christ verso ff. 48 MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST letters, was shown to me by a lady, of most holy reputation, whose name (lest I offend her most chaste ears) I will wrap in silence, when she was passing through Ferrara, and was travelling by boat along the Po to Venice ; on the other side of which coin were to be seen letters cast or struck, of which the sense was as follows : Messiah the King came in peace, God became man, or incarnate '.^ The subsequent literature of the medal of Christ is enormous. It seems almost criminal to add to it ; but a sober re-statement of the problem seems to be required. The discussion of attempts to disentangle the meaning of a Hebrew inscription which is either blundered or wilfully distorted presents few attractions except to philologists. The general reader, therefore, who has struggled to this point, may be wise if he skips the following pages, and rests content with the verdict of the excellent Jobert, who, at the end of the seventeenth century, gave a correct estimate of the age of the medal in these words : ^ ' Ainsi la Medaille de Jesus- Christ quoy qu'elle cut pu estre faite par quelque Juif converti au Christianisme, est cependant une de ces Medailles faites a plaisir dans les derniers siecles, & dont les curieux ne doivent faire aucun estat.' It is difficult to guess what were the bronze coins which Albonesius once saw in Rome in the time of Julius II (1503-13) or Leo X (15 13-21). But of medals with the image of Christ with Hebrew lettering we have a choice of four or five kinds in our attempt to identify what he describes. Hitherto attempts at such identification have not been very plausible ; nothing that was known to have survived seemed to come very near to the sense of the inscription as rendered by Albonesius. Recently, however, a very roughly cast medal (Fig. 25) has come to light, differing slightly but decidedly from all others of the Hebrew group, which I think may be like the piece which the old scholar saw : (i) Obv. — Bust of Christ 1., in high relief , with a cross behind the head, and in front the square Hebrew letters L 1 Messias rex venit in pace, Deus homo been taken to say that the medal of factus est, vel incarnatus est. Christ was itself made in Germany. 2 La Science des Medailles, Amsterdam, But his words will not, I think, bear 1693, p. 129. Because the author in the that interpretation ; all that he means is preceding passage speaks of false coins that the medal is of relatively modern of the Jews, struck, not many years origin. before he wrote, in Germany, he has MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST 49 Rev. — Inscription in good square Hebrew lettering, Fig. 25. Bronze, cast, 49 mm., with loop for suspension. This is in the possession of Dr. Thomas Henderson, whom I have to thank for permission to illustrate it here ; I shall refer to it henceforward as the Henderson medal. The inscription is perfectly straightforward and can only mean ' Messiah- King has come in peace, and Man-God, exalted, made living '. The point which should be noticed is that, unlike all others of the Hebrew group, this medal employs marks of punctuation after the words for ' peace ' and ' God ', and further that the ends Fig. 25. — Medal in the possession of Dr. Thomas Henderson. of two Other words are definitely marked by the final m which is used in the words for ' man ' and ' exalted ' ; in fact, the inscription is much more careful and literate than any that we shall find in the rest of the group. Now with the exception of the word D"i, which Albonesius may have found obscure, this inscription bears the sense that he gives. We may therefore not unreasonably assume that, though our medal may be — as it looks — later than his time, it represents a type similar to that which he saw. The four letters on the obverse are, I would suggest, to be read with the initial aleph as common to both upper and lower Imes thus l, f X, 1. e. | p , 1 C^S, it is true, is rather vir than it contains two of the letters of the homo, but may have been used (i) in name Jesus, order to obtain a short word, (2) because 1715 G 50 MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST We next come to the Hebrew medals of the kind which has been hitherto associated with the observations of Albonesius. Innumerable specimens exist, made at different times from the sixteenth century to the present ; but the great majority are bad casts of quite recent date. They are to be described as follows : Fig, 26. — ' Hebrew ' medals in the British Museum. (2) Obv. —Bust of Christ 1., exactly of the type of the XPS • REX medal, but without the cross ; across the field, square Hebrew inscription MK^* K Rev. — Square Hebrew inscription in five lines : ^ The last letter is frequently made like a tod instead of a waw. MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST 51 Fig. 26, a, b, and c. Bronze and various base metals, cast ; five specimens in the British Museum measure from 42 to 24 mm. ; on one of the smaller the inscription is much blundered. In fig. 26 c the bust is rather difi'erently treated, and on both sides there is a narrow wreath border. In the BerUn Cabinet is a small pendant measuring only 21 mm. A badly-blundered specimen which was found in Peru, and of which there is a photograph in the Department of Coins, British Museum, has, incised on the obverse, the words OS NON COMMINVETIS EX EO (St. John xix. 36). Cf. M. Schwab in Rev. Num., 1892, p. 253, no. 30 ; S. Ferares, ibid., igiy, pp. 269 ff., pi. X, A-F. C. Waser (De ant. Nutnis Hebr., 1605, fol. 62 verso) describes a silver specimen ; and another in the same metal belonged to H. Battandier, Rev. de I'Art chretien, 1899, pp. 418 ff. This is the commonest of all medals of Christ, (3) A variety, unique so far as I know, was included in the Murdoch Collection (fig. 27).^ It is of gold, and much smaller than the usual size. The obverse differs from the others in having a cross at the back of the head of Christ (a feature borrowed from the XPS • REX medal) ; it has also been chased, and is on the whole the most carefully executed speci- j^.. tv/i j 1 r 1 • 1 P 1 . 1 -^ f 111^ I'lg- 27. — Medal formerly m the men ot this class ot medal that Murdoch Collection. I have seen. The inscription on the reverse is, however, no better than is found on most other specimens of the second variety of the Hebrew medal. (4) Another variety of this medal, which I have recently seen, is of base metal, of the same size as the last, and has a wreath-border on both sides ; the hair is arranged in three long plaits, and the treatment of the features shows some attempt at characterization. Unfortunately it is too badly preserved to repay reproduction. (5) Another kind (fig. 28) has no letters on the obverse ; on the reverse is a different inscription in four lines ^)^' in' Fig. 28. Bronze, cast, 34 mm. British Museum. Cf.M. Schwab, Rev. Num., 1892, p. 253, no. 31 ; S. Ferares, ibid., p. 278, pi. X, x. The inscription on this medal means ' Jesus of Nazareth, Messiah, God and Man in one '.^ 1 Sotheby's Sale Catalogue of the ^ M. Schwab's rendering, ' Jesus, Murdoch Collection, 1904, lot 983, Nazareen, oint de Dieu et des hommes PI. XXX. ensemble ', is quite unacceptable. 52 MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF CHRIST It remains to consider the inscription "on'^nos. 2, 3, and 4.^ About the first four words there is little controversy ; they mean ' Messiah- King came in peace '.^ The last two words also offer no difficulty ; there is general agreement that they mean ' has been made living ', i.e. incarnatus est.^ The difficulty is in the middle words, a complex of seven letters. On none of the pieces that I have seen can they be transliterated, as M. Schwab proposes, D1 1 J