It is very probable that some of the enamels added to the Pala d’Oro at Venice after the sack of Constantinople came from the sanctuary of S. Sophia, possibly from its altar. Sylvester Sguropulus[108] who accompanied John Palaeologus to Venice in 1438, describes the Pala d’Oro as “an icon which is formed out of many, and we heard that some of these were taken from the Church of S. Sophia.” It may be only a coincidence that one of the panels of the Pala contains the figure of Solomon with the Greek inscription, “Wisdom hath builded her house,” that being the usual legend for Solomon. The altar would have been covered, like the altars shown in the mosaics at Ravenna, and the illustrations of the _Menologium_,[109] by a cloth reaching on all sides to the floor. These cloths bear very simple devices--in the centre a plain cross, circle, or star, and at the four corners _gammidae_ ⛶ which in the code of symbolism probably expressed the four corners of that world, for which the daily sacrifice was offered. Others however were more richly embroidered. In the _Liber Pontificalis_ of Agnellus[110] it is said that Maximian, the Archbishop of Ravenna in Justinian’s time, ordered a most precious altar-cloth (_endothis_) of byssus, on which was embroidered the whole history of the Saviour. “It is not possible to imagine the human figures, or the beasts and birds which are made on it.” The figure of the archbishop was represented with the inscription, “Praise the Lord with me, for he hath raised me from the dust.” The Continuator of Theophanes also speaks of an altar-cloth on which “the birth of the Lord was represented.”[111] The general Greek name for altar-cloth was _endute_. Those at S. Sophia are thus spoken of by the Anonymous, and we read that Michael Palaeologus sent to the Pope “an _endute_ of the Great Church, of rose red, with gold and pearls worked on it.”[112] _Ciborium._--The altar stood under a canopy of silver called a _kiborion_, as is fully described by Paulus. According to the Anonymous it was patterned with niello or damascening (see p. 138). Such ciboria are frequently spoken of in the _Lives of the Popes_.[113] Thus Gregory I. made for S. Peter’s a “ciborium with four columns of pure silver,” and Leo III. “made for the basilica of S. Paul a ciborium with large and beautiful columns of the purest silver.” The ciborium of S. Demetrius at Salonica, a fifth-century work described in the _Acta Sanctorum_, was also of silver. It supported at the top “a solid sphere of silver, with wonderful lily-leaves curved round it, and a cross above.”[114]