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Book VII marbles, gems in rings and other applications

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BOOK VII
151
than one color. I shall start with the white marbles. Some are white per­meated with gray spots. In Rome the columns near the altar in the Temple of St. Bartholomew, at one time sacred to Jove, which is on an island, are of this type of material. Some white marbles are discolored with gray spots such as that found in the mountains between Northusa, Thuringia, and the town of Elderica. This rock is similar to alabastrites. In the Temple of Wisdom in Constantinople there are two bas-reliefs cut from white marble with the gray areas so distributed by nature that the image of St. John the Baptist appears to be covered with a camel's hide. The other shows Turks with Christians.
When a block of stone was broken free with wedges in the marble quarries at Paria, it was found to contain the image of Silenus6 while in the Chian quarries the likeness of the head of Pan has been observed upon a fracture surface. It is difficult to understand how these have been pro­duced. There is a gray marble in the Temple of St. Vitalis in Ravenna in which Nature has portrayed the image of a Franciscan monk. This is one of the famous vari-colored marbles from the Palace of Senator Pintius that stood on the magnificent hill of Gardena in Rome. This was brought to Ravenna by Theodoricus, King of the Ostrogoths, according to the letters of Cassiodorus.
Some marble is white with veins of different colors, for example, that from Noricum which we call Salburgian marble. Another has dark yellow veins through it and since it is in great part translucent is called lapis phengites. According to Pliny this was used by Nero to build the gambling house that was called Sejes since it was dedicated to King Servius. This house was famous for its golden cupola and lighting. During the day, light was let into the building through concealed openings that made it as light as if windows had been used and yet the source of light appeared to have been within it. There is a vase of the type known as buccal in the house of Tiberius in Naples made from this stone. Large pellucid pieces of lapis phengites have been found in Cappadocia near Galatia.
Some marbles are gray with a slightly bluish tint and with white and black spots. One variety, quarried in Misena near the town of Rochlitz, is as lustrous as silver. Another variety which comes from Numidia is gray with yellow spots. Two basins in front of the Pantheon in Rome are said to be made from this variety as well as the twenty foot column erected to C. Ceasar by Antonius and torn down by Dolobella. There are three other basins of the same shape and almost the same size in front of the Pantheon that were cut from a stone similar to the Numidian marble. One stands before a shrine of St. Mark at the end of a wide road, another seventeen feet long, seven feet wide and five feet high before a shrine of St. Peter in chains, and the third before a shrine of St. Salvatori of the Laurel near the hill now called Jordan.
6 Silenus was the tutor of Bacchus who is always portrayed with a bald head, rid­ing on an ass and drunk.
Book VII marbles, gems in rings and other applications Page of 251 Book VII marbles, gems in rings and other applications
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