AUREOLA, AUREOLE, the radiance of luminous cloud (fr. diminutive of Lat. aura, air), surrounding the figures of sacred personages in paintings. In the earliest periods of Chris tian art this splendour was confined to the figures of the persons of the Godhead, but it was afterwards extended to the Virgin Mary and to several of the saints. The luminous disk round the head is a nimbus; nimbus and aureole together constitute a glory. The nimbus in art appeared first in the 5th century, but it was known still earlier in non-Christian art. Thus (though earlier Indian and Bactrian coins do not show it) it is found with the gods on some of the coins of the Indian kings Kanishka, Huvishka and Vasudeva, 58 B.C. to A.D. 41 (Gardner's Cat. of Coins of Greek and Scythic Kings of Bactria and India, Brit. Mus. 1886, plates 26-29). Its use has been traced through the Egyptians to the Greeks and Romans, representations of Trajan (arch of Constantine) and Antoninus Pius (reverse of a medal) being found with it.