The Golden Gospels of St. Médard, like the Centula MS., are similar, but betoken an advance in both taste and execution. The figures are still rude and deformed, but the artist shows a laudable desire, an ambition, in fact, to imitate the work of better artists than himself. Nevertheless, the calligraphy and borderwork are the best parts of his performance. In this MS. the use of silver betrays a tendency to prodigality. In design, the influence of the artists who built the new church of San Vitale at Ravenna, a church which became the model for the Abbey of St. Médard itself, is quite manifest, yet perhaps need not be traced further than Soissons or Pavia. In certain of the illustrations, as, for instance, the "Fountain of Life," there is at once a likeness and a variation as compared with the same symbol in the Evangeliary of St. Sernin. They are both too intricate to describe, but of both it may be said that they show an intimate acquaintance with early Christian symbolism. The ivory carving and architecture of Ravenna have evidently been known to the director of these frames and backgrounds. In the year which saw the completion of Godeschalk's Gospels, Alcuin was at Parma, but when the St. Médard's Gospels were written he was Abbot of St. Martin's at Tours. It was the presence of Alcuin at the Court of Charlemagne that accounts for the prevalence of the Saxon character in the new and beautiful handwriting we now call Carolingian. It was the presence of Paul Warnefrid that accounts for much of the classic and most of the Lombardic features, both of the writing and the illumination. Many other scholars assisted these two in the various centres in which Alcuin established branches of the palatine schools. The intercourse with Italy and England was constant, and led to the frequent interchange of books, and community of methods and models. Another fine MS. of the same period (c. 780) is the Golden Ada-Codex of St. Mesmin or Maximin, of Trèves. In 1794 this MS. was taken from Trèves to Mainz; in 1815 it was transferred to Aix-la-Chapelle, and is now back again at Trèves. The externals of the Ada-Codex are very costly, its binding being a late Gothic pendant to the cover of the Echternach Evangeliary at Gotha. In the centre of the fore-cover there is a magnificent topaz,[15] with several imperial figures. Inside, the work is a handsome example of the early Carolingian.[16] It contains the four Gospels written by order of the "Mother and Lady Ada," sister of Charles the Great, Abbess of St. Mesmin. Next we have in the British Museum another grand example of the style as modified by English or Saxon influence. Also the Zurich Bible, of the same date, executed at Tours--and the Bamberg Bible, said to be a copy of the Alcuin Bible of the same school. Then follow the Drogo Sacramentary, presented by the Emperor to his natural son Drogo, Archbishop of Metz (826-855), perhaps illuminated at Metz, but of the same school as those above mentioned.