Before entering this court the visitor will do well to examine its external decoration, affording, as it does, not only an excellent notion of the splendid mosaic ornament, we have already alluded to as peculiarly Byzantine, but for its paintings of illustrious characters of the Byzantine period, taken from valuable illuminations and mosaics still in existence; such as the fine portraits of Justinian and his consort Theodora, from Ravenna (by the entrance from the Nave), and those of Charles the Bald of France, and the Emperor Nicephorus Botoniates of Constantinople, copied from valuable existing authorities; whilst an allegorical representation of Night, on the return side, is a proof that the poetry of Art was not altogether dead in the 10th century, to which date it belongs. In front of all the courts facing the Nave, are placed many very interesting examples of Mediæval and Renaissance Art, a brief notice of which will be found later in this volume. The entrance to the gallery at the back of the Byzantine Court is formed by the Chancel Arch of Tuam Cathedral in Ireland, built about the beginning or middle of the 13th century, a most interesting relic of art in the Sister Isle. [Illustration: Arch and Column from Cloister.] Entering through the arches from the North Transept, we turn to the right into a cool cloister of the Romanesque school, a restored copy of a cloister at the church of Santa Maria in Capitolo, at Cologne, an ancient edifice said to have been commenced about the year 700. The cloister is, however, of the close of the 10th century. The restoration gives us an excellent notion of the arches, columns, and capitals of this period, and shows the difference that exists between Byzantine and ancient Greek or Roman art. Proceeding through the cloister, the roof of which is beautifully decorated with Byzantine ornament, in imitation of the glass mosaic work, we remark various pieces of sculpture, chiefly from Venice: at the extreme end, to the left, having our back to the Nave, is a recumbent effigy of Richard Cœur de Lion, from Rouen; at the farthest end, to the right, is placed the Prior’s doorway from Ely, in a late Norman style; and next to this, to the right, a representation of the Baptism of Christ, from St. Mark’s, at Venice. We enter the court itself. The marble fountain in the centre is an exact copy of one at Heisterbach on the Rhine. We may now obtain some notion of the different features which mark the Byzantine, the German Romanesque, and Norman styles; all agreeing in general character, but all varying in treatment. The cloister we have just quitted, with the cubical capitals of its external columns and its profuse mosaics, presents a strongly marked impress of the Byzantine style, the same influence being also remarked in the external mosaic work of the small but beautiful portion of the cloisters of St. John Lateran at Rome; on each side of which are fine