Imperial diptych offerings to the emperor. However, the fact that the Barberini ivory was almost certainly not a diptych, but some kind of imperial icon without a second panel is a serious argument against the existence of the imperial diptych type. The two panels representing the empress Ariadne, in the Bargello in Florence and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, also belong to the hypothesied imperial diptych type. They are the only central panels of such a diptych (other than the Barberini ivory) to survive, since all other fragments of such diptychs are from side panels. Imperial diptych In Late Antiquity, an imperial
The Imperial Physician "The Imperial Physician" as an example of how Pu shows that "the dialectics of unexpected but reasonable change of things is not only used in events concerning supernatural power, but also human life". "(T)hat things go from the expected to the contrary direction", as seen in how the imperial physician's advice is dismissed given the rarity of bear and tiger meat, yet Sun Pingshi meets such an "unexpected but fatal" death nonetheless. The Imperial Physician "The Imperial Physician" () is a short story by the Chinese writer Pu Songling collected in "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio" in 1740, and