The Eastern artists, driven away by the persecutions of the Iconoclasts, sought an asylum in Italy, where the Latin Church, obedient to the prescriptions of the Council of Nice, seemed determined to multiply sacred images as much as possible. The arrival of the Grecian artists in the West was also singularly promoted by the commercial relations which from that time were established between all points of the Mediterranean shore and the maritime or mercantile towns of Italy--Pisa, Genoa, and Venice. Thus was brought about the movement which, although taking place on Italian soil, drew from an entirely Eastern source the inspiration of the revival of the Fine Arts; thus was continued the so-called Byzantine school, destined to be the foundation of all modern art. In 817 some Greek artists, by order of Pope Pascal I., executed under the portico of the Church of St. Cecilia in Rome a series of frescoes, the subjects of which were taken from the life of the saint. To the same school we are indebted for the sitting figures of Christ and His mother (Fig. 239), in the old Church of Santa-Maria Trans-Tiberia, in Rome; the large Madonna painted on the walls of Santa-Maria della Scala, Milan, which, at the time when this church was destroyed and replaced by the theatre of La Scala, was taken away and carried to the Church of Santa-Fidelia, where it still remains; a series of portraits of the Popes after St. Leo, a collection of which a large portion perished in the fire of St. Paul-extra-Muros, Rome (Fig. 240); and lastly, the paintings in the vaults of the Cathedral of Aquila. [Illustration: Fig. 239.--Christ and His Mother. Fresco-Painting of the Ninth Century, in the Apse of Santa-Maria Trans-Tiberia, Rome.] “The works of these earliest painters,” observes M. Breton, “seem to mark the transition from painting to sculpture: they are long figures as stiff as columns, single or arranged symmetrically, forming neither groups nor compositions, without perspective or effects of light and shade, and having nothing to express their meaning than a sort of legend proceeding out of the mouths of the characters. These frescoes, which are so weak when looked at in an artistic point of view, are remarkable for their material execution, being extremely solid in their workmanship. It is astonishing to see the wonderful preservation of some pictures of saints that adorn the pilasters of St. Nicholas in Treviso and the walls of the church in Fiesole, whereon are preserved the frescoes of Fra Angelico.”