Alexander the Great and His Celestial Journey

Abstract

PHOTOGRAPHS were given in NATURE of A August 23, 1917, and March 14, 1918, of traditional representations of Alexander, seated in a car drawn by flying griffins, from St. Mark's, Venice, and Bâle Cathedral, and it was conjectured that a diligent hunt would t reveal many similar examples in Europe and England. Since then an article by Prof. R. S. Loomis has appeared in the Burlington Magazine of April and May, which shows that the author had been engaged already in a research on the subject of Alexander's celestial journey. Prof. Loomis gives copious references to earlier authorities, with the addition of more than a score of photographs of other examples of the representation, in which we are pleased to find some ten are taken from English churches and cathedrals, as Wells, Chester, Lincoln, Gloucester (surely Canterbury), and Beverley Minster, Cartmel Priory, Whalley Church, St. Mary's Darlington, and Charney Bassett, Berks.