XIV. Letter from Albert Way, Esq. Director, to Hudson Gurney, Esq. Vice-President, descriptive of the Tabula of Gold, presented by the Emperor Henry II. to the Cathedral of Basle

Abstract

One of the most remarkable existing specimens of the class of art to which, from the peculiar Oriental character which marks either the general design, or the accessary details, the distinctive name of Byzantine has been assigned, is submitted to the inspection of the Society of Antiquaries, by the obliging permission of the proprietor, Colonel Theubet, of Porrentruy, Canton of Berne. It is a golden tabula, which was presented at the commencement of the eleventh century to the Cathedral of Basle, as a votive offering for the decoration of the altar, by the Emperor Henry II. who had raised that structure from ruins, and bestowed upon it numerous rich ornaments, of which one, a precious crucifix, containing a fragment of the true cross, has recently been presented to the Cathedral of Cologne by his Majesty the King of Prussia. The tabula is formed, as it is stated, of cedar-wood, covered with a thin coating of pure gold; the design, which in some parts is in very high relief, being hammered out, or, as it is technically termed, repoussé, and worked up with the tool and burnisher. Its value has been rated in the old Chronicle of Basle at 73000 gulden, “septem aureorum millia” called by another writer “florenorum,” or gold crowns.