 This "seems to have been almost the only theme of apse-pictures" in Carolingian and Ottonian churches, all of which are now lost, although many examples from the period survive in illuminated manuscripts.From the Romanesque period, the image in the West often began to revert to the earliest, more crowded conception, and archangels, apostles and saints, now often all facing inwards towards Christ, appear, as well as the beasts emblematic of the Evangelists and the twenty-four elders.This development paralleled the movement towards a more "realistic" depiction of the "heavenly court" seen in the increasingly popular subjects of the Maestà (the enthroned Virgin and Child) and the Coronation of the Virgin by Christ.