Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Nimbus

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

NIMBUS. In its ordinary signification, is applied to gloomy and troubled weather, a dark and stormy cloud, a shower of rain; whence it is also used to express any thing which spreads itself like a cloud, especially the light fleecy vapour which poets assign to their gods when they appear upon earth; as a lustrous veil irradiated by the heavenly splendour which emanates from them, like the nimb round Christian saints, and the annexed example (Nimbus/1.1), representing Iris, in the Vatican Virgil. (Virg. Aen. x. 634. Id. ii. 615.

2. But as an accessory of this extent would be generally embarrassing in the conduct of a picture, the ancient artists resorted to the expedient of representing the same thing in a conventional manner by a circle of light thrown only round the head, as in the annexed example (Nimbus/2.1), from a painting of Pompeii. The later writers designated this circle by the same term (Serv. ad Virg. Aen. ii. 615. iii. 585. Isidor. Orig. xxix. 31. 2.); and it formed the original of the glory or aureole round the heads of Christian saints. Most writers ascribe the use of the nimbus and glory, as now explained, to the Greek μηνίσκος, which was a circular disk of metal placed horizontally over the head of a statue in the open air, to protect it from the weather and bird stains (Aristoph. Av. 1114.); an object of undoubted utility in actual use, but scarcely appropriate, considering the association of ideas connected with it, to be adopted as an ornament for a god or a saint.

3. A linen band (Nimbus/3.1), ornamented with gold embroidery, and worn by females across the forehead (Isidor. Orig. xix. 31. 2. Arnob. ii. 72. Compare Plaut. Poen. i. 2. 138.), in order to contract its size, which produces a more juvenile appearance (compare Pet. Sat. 126. 15. frons minima, as a mark of beauty); for a high forehead is the attribute of age, which bares the temples, not of youth.

4. Nimbus vitreus. A vessel of glass, supposed to be used for cooling wine; and so termed, because, when filled with snow, the steam on the glass gave the appearance of a mist, or the contents of a fleecy cloud. Mart. xiv. 112.

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  Nimbus/1.1
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  Nimbus/2.1
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  Nimbus/3.1