These games ( ludi ) or other liberalities offered to the people by the consul were frequently represented on the tablets of the diptychs.įirst Communion, Baptism & Confirmation gifts 15% off On the diptych of Boetius at Brescia (487) and several others of the same type the consul is clad in a trabea (a kind of toga) he holds in his left hand the scipio (consular sceptre) and in his right the mappa circensis, or white cloth which he used to wave as the signal for the games in the circus. The consular diptychs are recognizable by their inscriptions or by the figure of the consul which they bear. The tablet at the Mayer Museum in Liverpool, bearing the image of Marcus Aurelius (d. The Theodosian Code (384) forbade the offering of ivory diptychs to any but the regular (i.e. The latest is that of the Eastern consul, Basilius (541), one tablet of which is at the Uffizi Museum in Florence and the other at the Brera in Milan. The oldest dated consular diptych is that of Probus (406) it is kept in the treasury of the cathedral of Aosta, Piedmont. Strzygowski holds it to be of Egyptian origin and thinks that the portrait is that of Constantine the Great, defender of the Faith. Some believe it to be the binding of a books offered to the emperor. The (undated) Barberini ivory at the Louvre is thus constructed and once served as an ecclesiastical diptych (see below). Their tablets often exhibited on a central plate the portrait of the sovereign, surrounded by four other plates. Those presented to the latter often had a border of gold and were quite large. The consuls, on the day of the installation, were wont to offer diptychs to their friends and even to the emperor. It was customary to commemorate in this way one's elevation to a public office, or any event of personal importance, e.g. In the fourth and fifth centuries a distinction arose between profane and ecclesiastical (liturgical) diptychs, the former being frequently given as presents by high-placed persons. They were generally made out of ivory with carved work, and were sometimes from twelve to sixteen inches in height. The term diptych is often restricted to a highly ornamented type of notebooks. Between the two tablets others were sometimes inserted and the diptych would then be called a triptych, polyptych, etc. The Roman military certificates, privilegia militum, were a kind of diptych. They served as copy-books for the exercise of penmanship, for correspondence, and various other uses. Diptychs were known among the Greeks from the sixth century before Christ. Their inner surfaces had ordinarily a raised frame and were covered with wax, upon which characters were scratched by means of a stylus. These tablets were made of wood, ivory, bone. (Or diptychon, Greek diptychon from dis, twice and ptyssein, to fold).Ī diptych is a sort of notebook, formed by the union of two tablets, placed one upon the other and united by rings or by a hinge.
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