DIPTYCH. - I. ART. - From δίς = twice and πύσσειν = to fold. This name was given to two tablets or leaves joined on one side by a hinge or a cord or rings so that they could be folded one over the other. They were used for writing: therefore the inner faces were smooth and spread with wax, while the outer ones often had ornaments carved, sculpted or embossed according to whether the tablets were of ivory, wood or metal.
In a later period the inner faces of the diptychs, which had become objects of devotion, bore the representation in relief or painted of sacred images.
During the late imperial age it was customary to make a gift of diptychs on the occasion of auspicious events and in particular to celebrate the election of the emperor and the entry into office of the consuls. Naturally in these cases the diptychs were of precious material, almost always of ivory (v.) and adorned in the best possible way.
The wide use that was made of diptychs intended for consuls, besides by a restrictive provision of the year 384, is attested by the conspicuous number of examples that have come down to us. The consul, for whom the diptych was intended, dressed in the garments proper to his dignity, generally stands out at the center of the main face and is depicted either standing or seated on the «sella curulis» with the scepter in his left hand and the «mappa circensis» in his right raised in the act of giving the signal for the beginning of the games. On the two sides, especially in the diptychs of the 6th century, are the personifications of Rome and Constantinople; at the top, in a «tabula» mostly «ansata», is the name of the consul; at the bottom, generally, a scene of various subject. It seems that this type of diptych had Alexandria in Egypt as its original center of production.
Many consular diptychs belonging to cathedral churches owe their preservation to having been donated, starting from the 5th century, by magistrates to bishops, who used them either as covers for gospel books or to write on them series of names for liturgical purposes.
Among the oldest ivory diptychs is remembered that of the Nicomachi and Symmachi, executed perhaps in Rome between 376 and 394 in a technique that reflects the traditional modes of Hellenistic sculpture, and whose leaves are today divided between the Musée de Cluny in Paris and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Stylistically linked to it, but perhaps of somewhat later date, is the diptych of Rufius Probianus, vicar of Rome, preserved in the royal library of Berlin. The diptych of Anicius Probus, consul in 406, preserved in the cathedral of Aosta, also reflects the modes of Hellenistic sculpture, as does the one with the Women at the Sepulchre of the Trivulzio collection in Milan and the other with Stories of St. Paul at the Bargello in Florence, likewise of the 5th century, while the diptych of Felix, consul in 420 (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale), shows in its execution certain pictorial intentions proper to the most advanced Roman sculpture of those times. In the diptych of Asturius, consul in 449 (Darmstadt), on the other hand, the same stylistic intentions pursued in the diptych of Rufius Probianus are evident. While the diptych of Boethius, consul in 487, preserved in the Christian Museum of Brescia, shows a more decided departure from ancient formal decorum in a desire for new expressiveness, on the other hand, there, not achieved.
The diptychs just mentioned were all worked in Italian workshops and show with sufficient clarity the evolution of the sculpture of those times among us.
On the other hand, the diptych preserved in the cathedral of Monza, to be ascribed to the end of the 5th or the beginning of the 6th century and which is said to depict Galla Placidia, Aetius and the young Valentinian, is almost certainly an Oriental product. Moreover, all belong to Oriental workshops, except that of Orestes (Victoria and Albert Museum in London), the consular diptychs of the 6th century reflecting the modes of the late Oriental sculptural tradition: thus that of Areobindus (506), the other of Clementinus (513) and that of Anastasius (517), consuls at Constantinople at the beginning of the 6th century.
The ivory diptych of Rambona worked in Italy and which is from the end of the 9th century (Vatican Christian Museum) in the uncertainty of the cutting and in the labored composition clearly reflects the modes of the sculpture of those times.
Then, as has been said, the diptychs became above all objects of devotion and therefore it should not cause surprise if the figurations of some consular diptychs were transformed into Christian figurations. Thus, for example, in the cathedral of Monza a diptych is preserved (6th century), in which one sees clearly that for one of the two persons represented the scepter has been transformed (probably in the 9th century) into a staff topped by a cross; at the top one reads the inscription SCS Gregor(ius); the right hand, however, still supports the mappa. The person figured on the other leaf has not undergone so many adaptations, but has been indicated with the words DAVID REX.
Diptychs quite richly carved were also used in the 12th and 13th centuries in the Byzantine East and later assumed the form of icons, ending up being considered as true and proper objects of devotion according to a use that was continued in Europe by the sculptors of the Gothic period.
During the Romanesque age and therefore down to the 15th century the use of sacred images and therefore also of portraits painted on tablets joined to one another by hinges was also frequent in Europe. Flemish art has left us numerous examples, but they were also frequent in the pictorial school of eastern Italy (Marche-Rimini-Venice) and in that of Siena (Simone Martini: diptych of the Madonna with the Child Jesus and the Pietà, Horne Museum, Florence).
Bibliography3 works
Donati, De d. degli antichi profani e sacri, libri III, Lucca 1753; A. Billet, Dissertation sur les diptyques, in Mémoires de la Soc. Acad. de Savoie, 12 (1846), pp. 559-604; A. Chabouillet, Dissertation sur les diptyques consulaires, in Revue des Sociétés savantes, 6 (1863), pp. 272-303; H. Grøven, Heidnische Diptychen, in Röm. Mitt., 28 (1913), p. 246 ff.; H. Leclercq, Diptyques (archéologie), in DACL, IV, coll. 1004-1170; R. Delbrück, Die Consulardiptychen, Berlin-Leipzig 1926; E. Capps, The Style of the Consular diptychs, in The Art Bulletin, 10 (1927), pp. 61-101; E. Weigand, Zur spätantiken Elfenbeinshauptur, in Kritische Berichte, 1930-31, pp. 33-57; L. Becherucci, s. v. in Enc. Ital., XIII (1932), pp. 55-56.
Giuseppe Bovini
II. LITURGY
The inner leaves of the diptychs served, in liturgical use, to record the names of the saints, of the bishops, and of benefactors of the Church, living and dead, which were to be recited in the Memento of the living or of the dead. To be inscribed in the diptychs was, for a living person, proof of communion with the Church and at the same time a great honor. To be struck from them, on the other hand, was a sign of excommunication or of separation from the Church. In certain periods, as in the times of St. Athanasius, of Chrysostom, etc., the inscription of a contested name on the diptychs caused long disputes. Inscription in the diptychs was regarded as a symbol of inscription in the Liber vitae: for this reason the ancient liturgy, especially the Gallican, abounds in allusions to inscription in the Liber vitae, in the oratio super nomina that was said at the reading of the names or after it.
The reading aloud itself of these diptychs during the Mass was done not by the celebrant but by the deacon or by some cleric. The original place for the reading of the diptychs was probably at the Offertory, a place retained in most liturgies; nevertheless the proclamation of the names of the offerers, who had made their offering at the Offertory, gave occasion for abuses and protests; in some places, indeed, the names of the offerers were read first, and afterward the prayer over the offering was said; therefore Innocent I (Epist. ad Decentium, 2: PL 56, 514) ordered: «... ut inter sacra mysteria nominentur, non inter alia quae ante praemittimus, ut ipsis mysteriis viam futuris precibus aperiamus». The text of Innocent shows that around 410 the diptychs were read at the moment of the present Memento of the living. It is therefore certain that from several years the diptychs had already been introduced at Rome into the Canon. It seems that the Memento of the living and the Memento of the dead were joined. Since, however, the celebrating priest, when the list of names was very long, did not wait for the end of the reading, but continued the Canon, the deacon therefore made a pause during the Consecration, in order then to resume: this explains why one part of the names is read before the Consecration, the other after. With the passage of time the living and a part of the saints were commemorated before the Consecration, the dead with other saints after. Since the names were written in the diptychs and read by the deacon, the indication of the names N. N. as the Roman Missal has it, is lacking in the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries. But since in the Romano-Carolingian liturgy the names began to be read by the celebrant, they were inserted into the text of the Canon. The reason for such a commemoration is to bring the persons most dear near to the source of every grace, Christ being present on the altar in the state of a victim, as St. Cyril of Jerusalem explains (Catech. myst 5,8; PG 33, col. 1115): « maximum iuvamen pro quibus offertur precatio sancti illius ac tremendi Sacrifici »; and St. Thomas (Opusc. 57) later said incisively: « Ut omnibus prosit, quod est pro salute omnium institutum ». - See plates CI-CIII.
