It is related that Adrian I., who was Pope between the years 772-795, gave permission to Charlemagne to remove several mosaics from churches at Ravenna, the materials of which were used in the decoration of the dome of his chapel at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle). These mosaics were destroyed by fires in the years 1656 and 1730. Some drawings of them were made before the second fire by Ciampini, and published by him at Rome in 1699. These works were not, however, of any great artistic value. The art of the mosaicist was fast becoming only a caricature of its former self, for the work of the ninth century was characterized by exceedingly bad drawing and savage colouring. Uninviting and even terrible representations of Christ, of the Virgin, angels, martyrs, and prophets were only too common. It may be said with good reason that in Rome and in the West during the ninth century, that the zenith of ugliness had been attained in the design of mosaics, and in place of the careful grouping and correct drawing of the works of the fourth to the sixth century we have instead figures of great dimensions and multiplication of attributes. At the time we speak of there was not this decadence of art in the Eastern Empire, for many fine mosaics were executed to the order of Basil the Macedonian (867-886), under whose protection art generally was much encouraged. Some of the mosaics of Santa Sophia and of other churches and palaces at Constantinople were executed during this period. However, from the tenth to the twelfth centuries the art of mosaic decoration, with a few notable exceptions, was in a slow state of decadence in the East, but the old Greek artistic spirit broke in other and in new directions, as we have witnessed in the wealth of Byzantine enamels, carved ivories, bas-reliefs, repoussé work, miniatures, and illuminated manuscripts. In the eleventh century some fine mosaic floors were executed in France. Examples of this date were found in the old churches of Sordes in the Department of Landes, and of Lescar in the Basses-Pyrénées. Some of these pavements have ornamental compositions of geometrical interlacings and conventional foliage, and others have hunting scenes in which animals, figures, and birds are treated flatly, after the Persian or Oriental manner of inlaid work or like textile designs. In the thirteenth century towards the latter end, in the dawn of the Renaissance, design in mosaic began to feel the reviving influence in common with all Italian art. In the mosaics of this century executed at Rome we see something of the poetry and dignity which belonged to the great works of the fifth century. This turning-point was in a great measure due to the influence of Cimabue, the founder of Italian painting (1240-1300), who was then a great personality in Italian art.