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Updated: June 25, 2025
The brow that was pierced by the sharp acanthus wreath, therefore wears the diadem of the universe. The hand that passively held the mockery of the worthless, pithless reed, therefore rules the princes of the earth with the rod of iron. He who was lifted up to the Cross, was, by that very act, lifted up to be a Ruler and Commander to the peoples.
The walls were covered with dun-colored paper, upon which had been printed in oblique reiteration a crimson shape, something of the nature of a curly ostrich feather, or an acanthus flower, that had in its less faded moments a sort of dingy gaiety.
At first sight it seems a wilderness of loveliest reliefs and statues of angel faces, fluttering raiment, flowing hair, love-laden youths, and stationary figures of grave saints, mid wayward tangles of acanthus and wild vine and cupid-laden foliage; but the subordination of these decorative details to the main design clear, rhythmical, and lucid, like a chant of Pergolese or Stradella will enrapture one who has the sense for unity evoked from divers elements, for thought subduing all caprices to the harmony of beauty.
Giuseppe fumed and fretted while the Holy Father put on his spectacles to examine the great silver vase which was to receive the droppings from his table, its richly chased handles and its festoons of acanthus leaves, and its ingenious masks; and its fellow which was to stand in his cupboard and hold water, and had a beautiful design representing St. Ambrogio on horseback routing the Arians.
They were built of the Egyptian thorn, which seems to have been very extensively cultivated, especially in the vicinity of Acanthus: planks of small dimensions were cut from this tree, which were fastened together, or rather laid over one another, like tiles, with a great number of wooden pins: they used no ribs in the construction of their vessels: on the inside, papyrus was employed for the purpose of stopping up the crevices, or securing the joints.
As if pitying nature had striven to appease the manes of the unburied dead, a pall of luxuriant ivy and glossy acanthus covered the bottom and sides of the quarry, one hundred feet below; but out of the dust of centuries stared the rayless eyes of corpses, and the gaunt despairing faces seemed still uplifted, now in invocation, anon in imprecation to the overarching sky, where blistering suns mocked them by day, and glittering moons and silver stars paused in their westward march through dewy night, to tell them tantalizing tales of how musically Aegean wavelets broke against the marbles at Piraeus; how loud the nightingales sang in the plane and poplar groves at home; how the white glory of the Parthenon smiled down on violet-crowned Athens, where their wives and children thronged the temples, in sacrificial rites to insure their safety.
But again, we are rather more tempted to admit those particulars which we know we can describe; and hence those most of all which, having been described very often, have grown to be conventionally treated in the practice of our art. These we choose, as the mason chooses the acanthus to adorn his capital, because they come naturally to the accustomed hand.
It is noticeable, however, that it almost completely ignored the most characteristic and popular of the Greek forms for example, the anthemion and adapted those, such as the acanthus and the scroll, which had been considered of minor importance among the Greeks.
The outer arch of the porch has been rebuilt since the earthquake, but the original door remains inside, with a carved hood-mould, rich abacus, and four orders of mouldings enriched with small balls in their hollows. The eight plain shafts stand on unusually high pedestals and have rather long capitals, some carved with flat acanthus leaves and some with small figures of men and animals.
Not very far from Evora in Portalegre, where a bishop's see was founded by Dom João III. in 1549, there is a very fine monument of this kind to a bishop of the Mello family in the seminary, and also a doorway, while at Tavira in the Algarve the Misericordia has an interesting door, not unlike that at Evora, but more richly ornamented by having a sculptured frieze and a band of bold acanthus leaves joining the two capitals above the arch.
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