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This is Ruskin’s transcription, perhaps seen by him as some form of SYMMACHUS referring to SYMPHORIANUS, one of the four crowned saints.
The Four crowned saints, patrons of architects and stonemasons, are Claudius, Castorius, Nikostratus, Symphorian, Simplicius. They were five Pannonian stonemasons who were martyred under Diocletian for their refusal to acknowledge Aesculapius. They are perhaps known as the four crowned saints because they are conflated with four Roman soldiers who were martyred at the same time and for the same reason. The conflation of the two groups was already a matter for comment in the later part of the thirteenth century in Jacobus de Voragine The Golden Legend (Princeton U.P. edition, 1993, translated by William Granger Ryan Vol. 2 pp.290-291). This is Symphorianus working on a statue. Ruskin’s account of the Nineteenth Capital at Works, 10.416ff is based on the false assumption that Simplicius is a reference to the pope of that name, and that the reference to Symphorianus was a reference to Pope Symmachus.
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[Version 0.05: May 2008]