Acanthus

Rich presents, too, he sends for, saved of old / from Troy, a veil, whose saffron edges shone / fringed with acanthus, glorious to behold, / a broidered mantle, stiff with figures wrought in gold. / Fair Helen's ornaments, from Argos brought, / the gift of Leda, when the Trojan shore / and lawless nuptials o'er the waves she sought.

They praise the boy, his glowing looks divine, / the words he feigned, the royal gifts he brought, / the robe, the saffron veil with bright acanthus wrought.

The picture before which they paused represented one of those ruined fountains so common to Italy. Francesca gazed upon it as if it had been an old friend: many a time, beside such a one, with its curved and broken marble, had she wreathed the acanthus that hung around it, the green and trailing foliage so profuse in the South, into shapes even more fanciful than those which once suggested the Corinthian capital.

It is difficult to imagine that Bernard of Clairvaux was gullible enough to accept dozens of historiated windows, grisaille fields of griffins, mosaic pavements, carved acanthus capitals, inhabited vine columns, and golden altarware on the strength of the justifications offered by a single window, one tympanum, and Suger's libelli.