Very few examples now exist of the ceremonial shoe anciently worn by bishops. These were of velvet, or damask, or strong linen embroidered. One is preserved at South Kensington, no. 1290: another, once worn by Waynflete bishop of Winchester, is still at Magdalen college, Oxford. We learn from the York wills that these shoes were a part of the episcopal vestments: bishop Pudsey left his mitre, staff, and sandals, “et cætera episcopalia” to Durham cathedral in 1195. Later the name of “sabatines” was given them; and archbishop Bowet’s inventory mentions two pairs: “pro j pare de sabbatones, brouddird et couch’ cum perell’; pro j pare de sabbatones de albo panno auri.” Collections of textile fabrics are of the highest value to the artist. There is none, anywhere, so rich or complete as that at South Kensington; and before it was purchased for public use, painters were glad to refer to any scanty collection in private hands, or to old pictures or illuminated manuscripts, or engravings. But, now, artists may see pieces of the actual stuffs represented in the pictures, say, of the national Gallery. For example: in Orcagna’s coronation of the blessed Virgin the blue silk diapered in gold, with flowers and birds, hung as a back ground; our Lord’s white tunic diapered in gold with foliage; the mantle of His mother made of the same stuff; St. Stephen’s dalmatic of green samit, diapered with golden foliage, are Sicilian in design and copied from the rich silks which came, in the middle of the fourteenth century, from the looms of Palermo. While standing before Jacopo di Casentino’s St. John our eye is drawn to the orphrey on that evangelist’s chasuble embroidered, after the Tuscan style, with barbed quatrefoils, shutting in the busts of apostles. Isotta da Ramini, in her portrait by Pietro della Francesca, wears a gown made of velvet and gold like the cut velvets at South Kensington. So, again, instead of copying patterns taken from the rich cloth of gold worn by St. Laurence in Francia’s picture, or from the mantle of the doge in that by Cappaccio, or from the foot-cloths on the steps in the pictures by Melozzo da Forli, he may find for his authorities in the same collection existing specimens of contemporary and similar fabrics. Not merely artists of a higher class but decorators also may be equally benefited by the patterns and examples preserved of old wall-hangings and tapestry. From early times up to the middle of the sixteenth century our cathedrals and parish churches, our castles and manorial houses, in short the dwellings of the wealthy everywhere, used to be ornamented with wall-painting done not in “fresco” but in “secco;” that is, distemper. Upon high festivals the walls of the churches were overspread with tapestry and needlework; so, too, those in the halls of palaces, for some solemn ceremonial.