The Cross in the Palace and Daniel at the Fountains

On the other hand, one could see the fountains in the middle of the marketplace adorned with figures of the Good Shepherd, well known to those who study the sacred Scriptures, and of Daniel too with the lions, cast in bronze and shining with plates of gold. Indeed, so great a measure of divine love filled the emperor’s soul that in the principal room of the imperial palace itself, on a huge panel set in the center of its gilded paneled ceiling, he had the symbol of our Savior’s Passion fixed, made of a variety of precious stones richly set in gold. He seemed to have meant this symbol to be, as it were, the safeguard of the empire itself. [a]