WOOD, Anthony à (1632-1695), antiquary, was the fourth son of Thomas Wood (1580-1643), B.C.L. of Oxford, where Anthony was born 17th December 1632. He was sent to New College school in that city in 1641, and at the age of twelve was removed to the free grammar school at Thame, where his studies were interrupted by civil war skirmishes. He was then placed under the tuition of his brother Edward (1627-55), of Trinity College; “while he continued in this condition his mother would alwaies be soliciting him to be an apprentice which he could never endure to heare of” {Life, 1848, p. 33). He was entered at Merton College in 1647, and made postmaster. In 1652 “he began to exercise his natural and insatiable genie he had to musick” (ibid., 53), and was examined for the degree of B.A. He engaged a musicmaster, and obtained permission to use the Bodleian, “which he took to be the happiness of his life.” He was admitted M.A. in 1655, and in the following year published a volume of sermons of his late brother Edward. Dugdale’s Warwickshire came into his hands, and he describes how “his tender affections and insatiable desire of knowledge were ravished and melted downe by the reading of that book. What by musick and rare books that he found in the public library, his life, at this time and after, was a perfect Elysium” (ibid., p. 68). He now began systematically to copy monumental inscriptions and to search for antiquities in the city and neighbourhood. He went through the Christ Church registers, “at this time being resolved to set himself to the study of antiquities.” Dr John Wallis, the keeper, allowed him free access to the university registers in 1660; “here he layd the foundation of that book which fourteen years afterwards he published, viz., Hist, et Antiq. Univ. OxonP He steadily investigated the muniments of all the colleges, and in 1667 made his first journey to London, where he visited Dugdale, who introduced him into the Cottonian library, and Prynne showed him the same civility for the Tower records. On October 22, 1669, he was sent for by the delegates of the press, “that whereas he had taken a great deal of paines in writing the Hist. and Antiq. of the Universitie of 0xon, they would for his paines give him an 100 li. for his copie, conditionally, that he would suffer the book to be translated into Latine” (ibid., 167). He accepted the offer and set to work to prepare his English MS. for the translators, Richard Peers and Richard Reeve, both appointed by Dr Fell, dean of Christ Church, who undertook the expense of printing. The translation was supervised by Fell, with whom and the translators Wood has endless quarrels about alterations of his text. In 1674 appeared Historia et Antiquitates Universitatis Oxoniensis, handsomely printed “e Theatro Sheldoniano,” in two folio volumes, the first devoted to the university in general and the second to the colleges. Copies were widely distributed, and university and author received much praise. On the other hand, Bishop Barlow told a correspondent that “not only the Latine but the history itself is in many things ridiculously false” (Genuine Remains, 1693, p. 183). In 1678 the university registers which had been in his custody for eighteen years were removed, as it was feared that he would be implicated in the Popish Plot. To relieve himself from suspicion he took the oaths of supremacy and allegiance. During this time he had been gradually completing his great work, which was produced by a London publisher in 1691-92, 2 vols, folio, Athenae Oxonienses: an Exact History of all the Writers and Bishops who have had their Education in the University of Oxford from 1500 to 1690, to which are added the Fasti, or Annals for the said time. On 29th July 1693 he was condemned in the vice-chancellor’s court for certain libels against the late earl of Clarendon, fined, banished from the university until he recanted, and the book burnt. The proceedings were printed in a volume of Miscellanies published by Curll in 1714. Wood was attacked by Bishop Burnet in a Letter to the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, 1693, 4to, and defended by his nephew Dr Thomas Wood, in a Vindication of the Historiographer, to which is added the Historiographer's Answer, 1693, 4to, reproduced in the subsequent editions of the Athenae. The nephew also defended his uncle in An Appendix to the Life of Bishop Seth Ward, 1697, 8vo. On 9th October 1695 Wood had an interview with the earl of Clarendon, but was not able to get his fine remitted. After a short illness he died 28th November 1695, in his sixty-third year, and was buried in the ante-chapel of St John Baptist (Merton College), in Oxford, where he superintended the digging of his own grave but a few days before.

He is described as “a very strong lusty man,” of uncouth manners and appearance, not so deaf as he pretended, of reserved and temperate habits, not avaricious, and a despiser of honours. He received neither office nor reward from the university which owed so much to his labours. He never married, and led a life of self-denial, entirely devoted to antiquarian research. Bell-ringing and music were his chief relaxations. His literary style is poor, and his taste and judgment are frequently warped by prejudice, but his two great works and unpublished collections form a priceless source of information on Oxford and her worthies. He was always suspected of being a Boman Catholic, and invariably treated Jacobites and Papists better than Dissenters in the Athenae, but he died in communion with the Church of England.

Wood’s original manuscript (purchased by the Bodleian in 1846), was first published by John Gutch, as The History and Antiquities of the Colleges and Halls in the University of Oxford, with a continuation, 1786-90, 2 vols. 4to, and The History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford, 1792-96, 3 vols. 4to, with portrait of Wood. To these should be added The Antient and Present State of the City of Oxford, chiefly collected by A. a ÌVood, with additions by Sir J. Peshall, VJ73, 4to. A new edition is in preparation by the Oxford Historical Society. Modius Salium, a Collection of Pieces of Humour, chiefly ill-natured personal stories, was published at Oxford in 1751,12mo. Some letters between Aubrey and Wood were given in the Gentleman's Magazine (3d ser., ix., x., xi.). Wood consulted Dr Hudson about getting a third volume of the Athenae printed in Holland, saying, “When this volume comes out I’ll make you laugh” (Reliq. Hearnianae, i, 59). This was included in a second edition of the Athenae published by Tonson in 1721, 2 vols, folio, “very much corrected and enlarged, with the addition of above 500 new lives.” The third appeared as “a new edition, with additions, and a continuation by Philip Bliss,” 1813-20, 4 vols. 4to. The Ecclesiastical History Society proposed to bring out a fourth edition, which stopped at the Life, ed. by Bliss, 1848, 8vo (see Gfeηt. Mag., N.S., xxix. 135, 268). Dr Bliss's interleaved copy is in the Bodleian, and Dr Griffiths announced in 1859 that a new edition was contemplated by the Press, and asked for additional matter (see Notes and Queries, 2d ser., vii. 514, and 6th ser., vi. 5, 51). Wood bequeathed his library (127 MSS. and 970 printed books) to the Ashmolean Museum, and the keeper, William Huddesford, printed a catalogue of the MSS. in 1761. In 1860 the whole collection was transferred to the Bodleian, where 25 volumes of Wood’s MSS. had been since 1690. Many of the original papers from which the Athenae was written, as well as several large volumes of Wood’s correspondence and all his diaries, are in the Bodleian.

The chief authority is the Life of wood written by himself, and first published by Hearne in the appendix to T. Caii Vindicte, 1730; the memoirs after 1672 were compiled by Rawlinson from the original diaries, and printed by Huddesford with the Lives of Leland and Hearne, 1772,2 vols. 8vo. A new edition was issued by Bliss, 1848. See also Reliquiae Heαrniαnx, ed. Bliss, 2d ed., 1869, 3 vols. 12mo · Hearne’s Remarks and Collections (Oxford Hist. Soc., 1885, <fcc.); Macray’s Annals of the Bodleian Library, 1868; Nichols’s Literary Anecdotes, i., iv., v., viii. ∙ Noble’s Biogr. History of England, i. (∏. R. τ.)' ’

WOOD, Mrs Henry (1814-1887), novelist, was born on the 17th January 1814. Her maiden name was Ellen Price; her father was a glove manufacturer in Worcester —the original of the cathedral city which, with its church dignitaries and schools, is the scene of so many of her tales. From certain vague memoirs published by her son in the Argosy (of which her novels were the mainstay for the last twenty years of her life) it appears that the industrial distress described in Mildred Arkell is a reminiscence of the collapse of the glove trade in Worcester, consequent on Huskisson’s tariff reforms in 1823, from which her father suffered along with other English glove manufacturers. She married young, it is said, and after her marriage lived for the most part in France, her husband being “at the head of a large shipping and banking firm abroad.” She first came before the public in her own name as the author of a temperance tale (Danesbwry House), which had gained the prize of <£100 offered by the Scottish Temperance League. This was in 1860; but it appears from the memoirs already referred to that “for many years” before this she had been a regular contributor of stories anonymously, month after month, to Mr Harrison Ainsworth’s magazines, Bentley’s Miscellany, and Colburn’s New Monthly. Danesbury House was very favourably reviewed, her genuine gifts as a story-teller making themselves apparent in spite of the didactic purpose of the tale; but Mrs Wood’s first great success was made in the following year with East Lynne, one of the most popular novels of the century. A long review in the Times, in which a place was claimed for her in the foremost rank of novelists, was the loudest note in a general chorus of praise, and fairly established her position. The praise of the critics continued throughout the next half-dozen of her novels, which followed one another with great rapidity: The Channings and Mrs Halliburton' 's Troubles, in 1862; Verner’s Pride and The Shadow of Ashlydyat, in 1863; Lord Oakburn’s Daughters, Oswald Cray, and Trevlyn Hold, in 1864. These works were held to confirm the promise of East Lynne, and The Shadow of Ashlydyat was pronounced to be (as it is still generally considered) the best of them all. Complaints of sameness,—almost inevitable, considering the rate of production, — of commonplaceness of sentiment and material, and of a certain narrowness and insufficiency in her conceptions of poetical justice first began to be heard in connexion with Mildred Arkell (1865), and became louder as the fertile novelist continued to pour forth her stories with inexhaustible fluency. She became owner of the Argosy in 1867, and her stories quickly raised it to an enormous circulation. She had a certain triumph over her critics with the Johnny Ludlow tales, an imitation of Miss Mitford’s Tales of Our Village. Mrs Wood’s name was not put to them as they appeared in the Argosy, and when the first series was collected and published separately in 1874 they excited among reviewers an approach to the enthusiasm with which her first efforts had been welcomed. Undoubtedly Mrs Wood possessed many of the qualities of a first-rate story-teller,—great simplicity of style, unfailing fluency, a lively interest in prominent traits of character, abundant circumstantiality, skill in exciting curiosity and keeping up suspense, and withal a wonderful clearness of method. Amidst her crowd of characters and incidents you are never puzzled or perplexed, and she very rarely lapses into tediousness. If ever she is tedious, it is from repeating herself. Her “criticism of life” is not very broad or very profound, though it is generally for moral edification; she is simply an excellent story-teller out of the ordinary materials of the craft. In private life Mrs Wood seems to have been a most amiable person: her son gives a very lovable picture of her. Her death took place on 10th February 1887, at the age of seventy-three. She was active in her work till the very last, and left several completed stories, short and long, ready for publication.

Some woods, such as pear, lime, and more especially box, are comparatively free from any distinct grain, and may be carved almost like marble, but these woods are only to be had in small pieces, and from their want of fibre are structurally weak, and are therefore only available for decorative purposes on a small scale. It is this absence of grain which makes boxwood the material selected for engraving on wood, a form of wood-carving in which the artist needs to be as little as possible hampered by the structure of his material. In ancient times cedar wood was specially used for decorative carving, and in the East various perfumed woods, such as that of the sandaltree, lιave always been favourites with the carver. In Europe the oak, the chestnut, the fir, and the walnut have been chiefly used, and for sculpture in the round or high relief the sycamore and the plane-tree, as well as the oak.

One objection to using wood for life-sized or colossal sculpture is that large blocks are very liable to crack and split from end to end, owing to the fact that the parts near the surface dry and shrink more rapidly than the core. For this reason the mediaeval carvers usually hollowed out their wooden statues from the back, so as to equalize the shrinkage and prevent splitting. In all cases wood for carving should be very well seasoned, and it is especially necessary to get rid of the natural sap, which causes rot if it is not dried out. It is useful to soak newly cut timber in running water, so that the sap may be washed away; it is then comparatively easy to dry out the water which has soaked into the pores of the wood and taken the place of the sap.

Egyptian.— One of the most remarkable examples of ancient Egyptian art, dating probably from nearly 4000 years b.c., is a life-sized portrait statue of a stout elderly man, now in the Boulak museum. This is carved out of a solid block of sycamore wood, except that the right arm is worked separately and attached by a mortice and tenon; the eyes are formed by inlaid bits of shell and crystal, and the whole is a most wonderful piece of life-like realism (see fig. 1). Although dating from so remote a period, this statue bears witness to an amount of technical skill and artistic knowledge which shows that long centuries of experience and artistic development must have preceded its production,—a period of which we have no remains, this statue being one of the earliest works of art which even Egypt has preserved for us. In the same museum are also some very remarkable wooden panels from the tomb of Hosi, about four feet high, carved in low relief with standing figures of men and hieroglyphs. These large slabs of wood formed part of the wall lining of the tomb. The reliefs are executed with the utmost spirit and extreme delicacy of treatment, and are highly decorative in style; they show, moreover, a keen sense of the special treatment suitable to the material in which they are carved. These also date from nearly 4000 b.c. After the early dynasties in Egypt wood does not seem to have been used for sculpture on a large scale, although it was very commonly employed for mummy cases or coffins, one end carved with a human face and the rest almost plain, except for its elaborate painted ornaments in gold and colours, applied on a thin coat of stucco laid evenly over the wood. A large number of smaller examples of Egyptian wood-carving exist in various museums, such as furniture, boxes, implements for the toilet, and the like, frequently decorated with slight surface reliefs of animals or plants, and graceful patterns formed of the lotus or papyrus flower treated with great decorative skill.

Greek.— Owing to the perishable nature of the material, almost the only ancient examples of wood-carving which have survived to our time are those from the tombs of Egypt. The many important pieces of wooden sculpture which once existed in Greece and other ancient countries are only known to us by the descriptions of Pausanias and various classical writers. It is probable that the earliest examples of the plastic art among the Hellenic race were the rude wooden images of the gods (£όανα), of which many examples were preserved down to late historic times. The art of sculpture, and especially sculpture in wood, is probably older than that of painting, as it requires less artistic knowledge to rudely fashion a log of wood into a rough body with rounded head, two holes for the eyes and slits for the mouth and nose, than to conceive mentally and set down on a plane surface any attempt even at the rudest outline drawing,—a process which requires a distinct act of abstraction and some notion of treating the subject in a conventionally symbolic way. Real things have of course no enclosing line, and the representation of an object in outline conveys little or no idea to the mind of a man who is yet in a very early stage of culture. The Palladium, or sacred figure of Pallas, which was guarded by the vestal virgins in Rome, and which was fabled to have been brought by Aeneas from the burning Troy, was one of these wooden ξ,oaνa (see Vesta). A wooden figure of the Armed Aphrodite at Cythera is mentioned by Pausanias, iii. 23, 1. Of the same k s ind was the wooden statue of Hermes in the shrine of Athene Polias on the Acropolis of Athens, said to have been the offering of Cecrops (Pausan., i. 27, 1); and the figure of Athene Polias itself was an ancient wooden goανoν. Another very ancient statue, carved out of cedar wood, was the statue of Apollo in his temple, dedicated 428 b.c., in the Campus Martius of Rome; this statue was called Apollo Sosianus, from Sosius the praefect of Syria, who presented it to the temple (Pliny, H. H., xiii. 5 and xxxvi. 4). Pausanias (ii. 24) mentions another early wooden statue at Argos,—that of Zeus Larissaeus, which was remarkable for having three eyes. A very elaborate example of cedar-wood carving enriched with gold and ivory is described by Pausanias (v. 17 to 19). This was a coffer dedicated at Olympia by the children of Cypselus, tyrant of Corinth in the 7th century b.c. It was decorated with bands in relief, with scenes from the lives of various gods and heroes. A cedar box, with two carved dogs attached to it, was found at Mycenae by Dr Schliemann, and is now in the museum at Athens. During the most flourishing period of Greek art wood was sometimes used for important plastic purposes, as, for example, the colossal statue of Athene at Plataea, carved by Phidias. The figure was of gilt or plated wood, with the exception of the nude parts,— the face, hands, and feet,—which were of Pentelic marble.

Roman.— Of the wood-carving of the Roman period almost no important examples now exist; but the carved panels of the main doors of S. Sabina on the Aventine Hill are very interesting specimens of wooden reliefsculpture of early Christian times, dating, as the costumes show, from the 5th century. The doors are made up of a large number of small square panels, each minutely carved with a scene from the Old or New Testament; the whole feeling of these reliefs is thoroughly classical, though of course in a very debased form.

Mediaeval.— The most remarkable examples of early mediaeval wood-carving are the doorways of wooden churches of Scandinavia and Denmark, dating from the 9th to the 13th centuries. These are framed with great planks or slabs of pine wood, the whole surface of which is covered with rich and intricate patterns of interlacing scroll-work, mixed with figures of dragons and serpents, designed with extraordinary wealth of invention, and of the highest decorative value. The relief is very low, except where occasionally a monster’s head projects from the general level; and yet the utmost vigour of effect is gained by the grand sweeping curves of the leading lines. These are masterpieces of wood-carving, designed and executed with the most perfect sense of the necessities of the material. Fig. 2 shows part of the architrave of a door from Aal church, Norway, dating from the 12th century. Unhappily almost the last of these interesting wooden churches have been destroyed in recent years, and merely the wrecks of their grand wooden sculpture have been occasionally preserved in some museum; some very valuable casts of these are in the South Kensington Museum.

English.— For various ecclesiastical purposes a large amount of important sculpture in wood was produced in Britain throughout the Middle Ages. At the time of the Reformation every church had its rood-screen, surmounted by a large crucifix between two standing figures of St Mary and St John. These were of wood, except perhaps in some of the richest cathedral or abbey churches, which occasionally had the rood made of silver. A very large number of churches also had retables over the various altars, with reliefs carved in wood and decorated with gold and colours. Many examples of this class still exist in Germany and Spain, but almost all the English examples perished under the iconoclasm of the Reformation.

Another important class of wood-carving was that of large recumbent effigies from tombs, of which a good many examples still exist. One of the earliest is that of Robert, duke of Normandy, in Gloucester cathedral, illustrated in Sculpture, fig. 5 (vol. xxi. p. 558). It is a work of the 12 th century, but was broken to pieces, and is now much restored. Like most wooden sculpture in England, it is carved out of oak. The finest example of English wood sculpture is a life-sized effigy in the south choir aisle of Abergavenny church, that of the young knight George de Cantelupe (d. 1273). The face is a portrait of very high plastic merit, and the whole treatment of the figure, with the graceful drapery of its tunic, and its carefully carved armour, is very remarkable as an example of the very high level of excellence that was reached by the English contemporaries of Niccola Pisano. The usual treatment of these wooden figures was to cover the whole surface with a thin coating of gesso or fine stucco, in which various details or ornaments were modelled or stamped in relief, and then richly decorated with gold and colour. A similar treatment was adopted for all the wooden sculpture of the mediaeval period throughout Europe.

The church at Abergavenny, already referred to, also contains part of what once must have been a very large and magnificent example of wooden sculpture. This is a colossal recumbent figure of Jesse, and formed the lower part of what was called a “Jesse tree.” Out of the recumbent figure grew a great tree, on the branches of which were figures of the illustrious descendants of Jesse’s line. Merely the stump of this tree now remains, springing from the side of Jesse, but when complete the whole tree must have reached high up towards the roof, with its network of branches forming a sort of screen behind the high altar—very rich and magnificent in effect, when the whole was perfect with its brilliant coloured decoration, and the stained glass of the large east window seen dimly through the open branches of the tree. The existing figure of Jesse, which is 10 feet long, is cut out of a solid block of oak; a figure of an angel at the head is worked out of the same piece of wood.

Another very important application of wood-carving was for the decoration of the church stalls, screens, and roofs, which in the 15th century in England reached so high a pitch of splendour. The development of architectural wood-carving was much slower than that of sculpture in stone. During the “Early English” period wood-work was rather heavy in style and coarse in detail; in “Decorated” times wood-work of much beauty and richness was produced, but forms more suitable to stone were still used, and it was not till the later “Perpendicular” period in the 15th century that the wood-carvers of England learnt to perfectly adapt their designs to the nature of their material. Very beautiful roofs, for example, were produced in the 14th century, such as that at Adderbury, but the principals are frequently constructed with large arched braces, richly moulded and very graceful in effect but constructionally weak, and very wasteful of the material. Enormous balks of oak were required to enable the large curves of the braces to be cut out of the solid. The builders of the 15th century corrected these defects, and designed their sumptuous screens, stall-canopies, and open roofs with straight lines for the leading framework,— only using curves on a smaller scale, and in places where much strain does not fall upon them. Nothing can exceed the beauty, in its own class, of the 15th and early 16th century wood-work in England; the many fine examples that still exist give us some notion of the wealth of the country in this branch of art at a time when every church was obliged by canon law to have its rood-screen, and almost always also possessed carved oak stalls and many other fittings, such as statues and retables, in the same material.

The rich oak work of England was no exception to the universal application of coloured decoration, and nearly every screen, roof, or choir-stall was covered with minute painting in gold and colours. The modern notion that oak should be left unpainted was quite unknown to our mediaeval forefathers; and they, as a rule, preferred even a simple coating of white, red, or other colour to the natural tint of the oak, which would have looked very dull and heavy in tone when surrounded by the polychromatic brilliance of the floor, the walls, and the windows. In most cases, however, the wood-work was not left with its uniform ground of paint; delicate and graceful patterns of diapers or sprigs of foliage were added on to all the main lines of the work, and covered the chief members of all the mouldings, in exactly the same way as was done with the sculpture in stone. Many of the Norfolk screens still have much of their painted ornament in good preservation; and additional richness was gained by the groundwork of delicately moulded stucco with which the whole surface of the wood was covered before the colouring and gilding were applied. Modern “restorers” have in most cases scraped off all that remained of this brilliant decoration, and frequently no signs are now visible of this universal system of decoration. The very rich and graceful “watching gallery” in the abbey church of St Albans is now bare of any colouring, though it was once a very brilliant example of polychromatic decoration.

Great richness of carving is lavished on the church roofs especially of Norfolk and Suffolk. Carved bosses cover the intersections of the moulded timbers, some with bunches of delicate foliage, others carved into figures of angels with outspread wings. Other statuettes of angels often cover the ends of the hammer-beams, and the whole cornice frequently has running foliage inserted in a hollow of the moulding. All this wood-carving is usually of very high artistic merit, and combines delicacy of detail with strength of decorative effect in a way that has never been surpassed by the mediaeval artists of any country of the Continent. These magnificent roofs, which are peculiar to England, and even to certain districts such as East Anglia, are among the most perfect artistic productions of the Middle Ages.

Norfolk, Suffolk, Devonshire, and other counties are still rich in elaborate chancel screens, carved with delicate foliage, especially in the hollows of the cornice, and light open cresting or “brattishing” along the top. The tracery which fills in the upper part of these screens is of wonderful beauty, and executed with the most minute finish and delicate moulding. The ends of the 15th-century stalls were often richly decorated with carving, and are crowned with finials or “poppy-heads” of the most elaborate and spirited design. The underside of the “misericords” of the monastic stalls were specially selected for-minute enrichment, in spite of their very inconspicuous position. The utmost wealth of fancy and minuteness of workmanship is often lavished upon these, and their reliefs are frequently works of art of a very high order. In some cases the carver took his design from contemporary engravings by some distinguished German or Flemish artist, such as Schongauer or Albert Dürer. One of these in the chapel of Henry VII. at Westminster, representing “The Golden Age,” is a work of wonderful beauty and delicacy of touch. Genre and satirical subjects are often selected: the regulars are made fun of in the churches of the secular clergy, and the vices of the secular priests are satirized on the stalls of the monastic churches. This satire is often carried to the verge of indecency, especially in the scenes frequently selected by clerical carvers to set forth the miseries of the married state.

In England during the 16th and 17 th centuries little wood-carving of much merit was produced; the oak panelling, furniture, and other fittings of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods were largely enriched with surface reliefs, coarse in execution, but often decorative in effect, and chiefly remarkable for their showy appearance produced with the minimum of labour, a great contrast to the rich detail and exquisite finish of the pre-Reformation work. Towards the end of the 17 th century a very realistic style of wood-carving came into use, in which great technical skill was displayed but little real artistic feeling. Grinling Gibbons (1648-1721) and his pupils produced the most elaborate works of this class, such as wreaths, scrolls, and friezes carved in high relief, or in the round, with fruit and flowers, modelled and carved with wonderful imitative skill, but weak in true decorative effect. These clever groups of foliage and fruit were carved in pear or lime wood, and fastened on to the surface of wall-panels, mantelpieces, and other wooden fittings. The stalls and screens in St Paul’s Cathedral are some of Gibbons’s best works, and a great deal of his realistic carving still exists at Oxford in Trinity College, at Trinity College, Cambridge, at Chatsworth, at Petworth, and in many of the great country houses of that time. Since then wood-carving has not taken an important position among the lesser arts of the country.

Italian.— During the mediaeval period wood was often used by the greatest sculptors of Italy, especially for crucifixes and statues of saints for ecclesiastical purposes. Fig. 3 shows a magnificent example of the school of Nino Pisano, dating from about the middle of the 14th century. It is a colossal figure of the Angel of the Annunciation, said to have once belonged to Pisa cathedral, and now one of the chief treasures of the South Kensington Museum. It is very remarkable for the delicate beauty of the face, and for the sculpturesque simplicity of the folds of the drapery. The original wings were probably much larger than the present ones, which are restorations.

Many fine roods or crucifixes of life size still exist in the churches of Italy. One attributed to Donatello is preserved at Florence, in the church of S. Croce; another by Brunelleschi still exists. Nothing like the magnificent oak open roofs and choir screens of England were made in Italy. The latter were usually of marble or of metal, and the roofs were of the...