Does not this seem an argument for the universality of the Masonic Brotherhood, even in Byzantine days? Here are certainly Italian artists, Italian basilican forms, and Italian nomenclature, among the Greeks working at Sta Sofia. And here too are Lombard galleries and windows with an Eastern touch added. Which way did the influence come? Was this the origin of that characteristic Eastern mark of the Lombard style in Italy?--or was it an importation from Italy to Byzantium, where Procopius at least seems duly astonished by it? It is a question for experts to solve. There is much for the archæologist to do yet in finding the true pedigree of architecture. FOOTNOTES: [49] Probably the root of our word Lobby. [50] _I Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. chap. i. p. 50. [51] The words _asse_ and _tavole_ for planks of wood still survive in Italy. [52] Hope, _Storia dell' Architettura_, chap. xxv. p. 179, 180. [53] See the illustration of the church of S. Frediano, on page 48, for a perfect specimen of Lombard tower. [54] _Ant. med. aevi_, Tom. I. chap. ii. p. 158. [55] _De' real palazzi_, ch. i. par. 4. [56] That the Longobards were either metal-workers themselves, or had Italian artificers in their pay, we know from the specimens preserved in Monza Cathedral, and especially the crown of Agilulf, of which the _Antichità Longobardica Milanesi_ gives an illustration. CHAPTER IV COMACINE ORNAMENTATION IN THE LOMBARD ERA The Comacine Masters were distinctly sculptor-architects, and their ornamentation was an essential part of their buildings. Yet, to them, sculpture was by no means mere ornament. It was not a mere breaking up of a plain surface, as a beautifying effect; nor a setting of statues and niches for symmetry. It was an eloquent part of a primitive language of religion and art. The very smallest tracery had a meaning; every leaf, every rudely carved animal spoke in mystic language of some great truth in religion. But it was a language as yet artistically unformed, because the mediæval man had more articles of creed than he could express in words, and his hand like his mind was as yet unpractised. Thus it came that, as we have said, the Comacine Masters were much given to symbolism. The old Italian writers class this symbolism under two heads--the _ermetica_ (hermeneutic?), which they define as symbolism of form or number; and _orfica_ (orphic), that of figures or representations. Under the first head would fall the symbolical plan of their churches to which we have referred; the form of the windows, which were double-lighted, and emblematized the two lights of the law and the gospel; the rounded apse, emblem of the head of Christ; the threefold nave shadowing forth the Trinity; the octagonal form of the baptisteries, which St. Ambrose[57] says was emblematical of the mystic number 8, etc.