amulet considered efficacious in this distemper represents a union of three heads, one that of the afflicted individual, another, the aged face of Esculapius, with full beard, and the third, the head of an elephant, holding in its proboscis either a caduceus or a branch of cedar,-the juice of the bark of which, the Basilidian physician, Quintus Serenus Samonicus, says was a cure for the disease.1 The snakes which intwine the caduceus of Mercury and the staff of Esculapius were adopted by the Gnostics as the symbolic icon of the Redeemer, the primal idea being drawn from the brazen serpent which Moses "set upon a pole" in the wilderness, and which gave health to all who looked upon it; hence the appropriateness of placing the serpent upon a medical amulet. Other charms for the cure of elephantiasis represent a bird with its breast fashioned into the face of the sufferer, and its back into the head of the elephant.

Beger, in his account of the Brandenburg collection (iii, 421), has engraved a curious object compounded of the bust of a female, a bearded, cornuted Priapus, and the head of a boar. He considers this the handle of some instrument; but it is more probably the apex of a wand employed in some Gnostic ceremony.

The foregoing observations will enable us to better understand a few examples of polycephalic amulets which have been brought together for examination by the Association. The first specimen which claims our attention is one of complex design, consisting of six faces (pl. 1, fig. 1). We will begin with the head of the ram; next, we behold the profile of Hygeia, or Salus, with a pendant jewel in her ear. At the opposite extremity to the ram is a small bust, something like the emperor Nero with his full throat; this represents the party suffering under disease. Reverse this head, and we obtain the portraiture of Silenus, who wears an arched and lascivious expression of features. On the opposite side to Hygeia, the cornuted head of Jupiter Ammon makes its appearance; and reverse this, and we have the muscular form of Hercules, with his curled and bushy beard. This amulet is wrought out of a piece of giallo antico, measuring 2 inches by 1 inches wide; and

1 Serenus flourished in the third century, and was put to death by order of Caracalla, A.D. 212.

though the more prominent parts of the features are injured, it is still sufficiently perfect to show, that when entire, it must have been a beautiful piece of sculpture.. From its being flat at the back, it was probably once cemented to a tablet.

Our associate, F. H. Davis, esq., F.S.A., kindly lays before us a penta-cephalic amulet, admirably modelled in reddish-brown terra-cotta (fig. 2). The first head to notice is that of a beardless Priapus, whose horns are formed of two dolphins, their pectoral fins serving as side-locks to the head of the god. It will be remembered that the dolphin was a phallic emblem. The throat of the smiling Priapus is fashioned into a lion's mask. Next comes the head of a tusked boar; and reversing the object, we find the face of an individual in whose lineaments physical sufferings are palpably pourtrayed. In the mouth is placed a ring, produced by the union of the tails of the dolphins which serve as horns to Priapus, and which is probably intended to typify that the party is shackled or oppressed by disease. The head of the boar forms a high cap, somewhat like the Phrygian cap seen upon the figures of Mithras, Atys, Paris, etc. A fifth head (inserted between the dolphins, but omitted in the sketch) with its plump silly face, is a modern addition, and has nothing to do with the original design. It appears to have been inserted to fill up a vacancy occasioned by the loss of some other figure. Through the chin of the bust, which represents the afflicted person, has passed a metal loop, by which the amulet could be suspended round the neck, or hung up in the chamber of the sufferer. The specimen measures 3 inches long and 24 inches wide; it has been much fractured, and has evidently lain for a long period in the earth, but nothing is known of its place of exhumation. Mr. Davis states that he purchased this amulet some ten or twelve years back in a curiosity shop in London.

An amulet, much like to that exhibited by Mr. Davis in general design, but differing in detail, is submitted to the Association by my friend Dr. Iliff (fig. 3). In it we find the profile of Hygeia or Salus, her head covered with that of an ox, and her throat fashioned into the head of a serpent, presenting at once an emblem of the goddess of health and of her father Esculapius. Next succeeds the head of

a large tusked boar, and when the object is turned, we discover the bearded wrinkled face of a diseased person under the influence of pain. This amulet is of bronze, nearly three inches long, by about two inches wide; flat at the back, and was once provided with a loop above the forehead of the ox, by which it could be suspended. If I may venture upon a date for this specimen, I should assign it to the middle of the sixteenth century, at which period the Paduan artists produced their exquisite forgeries of ancient medals.

Dr. Iliff also exhibits a beautiful tetra-cephalic amulet wrought out of white shell, and now cemented upon an oval piece of opal glass, and set in a finger ring (fig. 4). One bust is that of a female, capped with the head of a ram, the pelt of whose neck forms the bearded profile of Esculapius, and at the opposite extremity to the ram is the face of a person suffering under some malady. A bronze bulla, bearing a somewhat similar design to this amulet, is given in Beger's account of the Brandenburg collection, iii, 427; and in La Chausse's Grand Cabinet Romain, Amsterdam, 1706, p. 102, fig. 1.

The specimens which have now been laid before the Association furnish a fair sample of this curious class of objects other varieties, however, are occasionally to be met with in collections, sometimes of a nature which will not permit of description. It is no easy matter to determine at what period some of these polycephalic amulets were wrought. It is certain that many are of ancient fabrication, but it is also certain that some are of medieval workmanship. It is generally believed that the Gnostic heresy was extirpated by the arms of Diocletian about the commencement of the fourth century, but the German writer Von Hammer shows that it was not so, and labours to fasten the crime of gnosticism upon the order of Knight Templar. That the tenets of this corrupt and obscene sect existed long after the days of Diocletian is a fact not to be doubted. The name of Gnostic was annihilated, but the heretical venom which was elaborated by Simon Magus in the first century, was secretly imbibed by many in later ages: hence it is that we find the Gnostic amulets reproduced in Italy in almost, comparatively speaking, modern times.

The German opponents of the Romish Church issued, about the time of the meeting of the Council of Trent, in 1545, a number of satirical medals, in which they embodied the Gnostic idea of uniting the heads of two individuals into one design, substituting however for the gods of the Basilidians the dignitaries of the papacy, rendering their sarcasm doubly poignant by this significant hint that the heresies of Simon the sorcerer and the Roman pontiff were identical. The medals which were issued represent the combined forms of a cardinal and fool, and a bishop and a nun; a cardinal and bishop, and a king and a pope; a cardinal and fool, and the pope and the devil.

To the polycephalic amulets of the Gnostics may be traced not only the satirical productions of Germany, but the many ludicrous combinations which we frequently meet with in our own time, which require but to be turned to present an entire change of features. So late as 1850 appeared little toy-mugs with double-heads, on which, over a smiling countenance was inscribed "Marriage Day"; and above a frowning face," After Marriage". Thus the ideas which owed their being in the mystic fancies of an obscene creed in Samaria eighteen centuries ago, have floated down the stream of time; and, divested of their lascivious character, still live in the playthings of our children.

ON EARLY CHURCH WINDOWS.

BY JOHN ADEY REPTON, ESQ.. F.S.A.

It is a common error to believe that the most ancient windows are those composed of only a single day, or light; for many without mullions may be found as late as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The small dimensions of windows has also been regarded as a proof of antiquity, without considering the respective purposes of such apertures, or the relative dimensions of the buildings to which they originally belonged.