It was used in Buddhist and other Asian art and by the early Greeks and Romans to designate gods and heroes and appeared in Christian art in the 5th cent. The nimbus is usually of gold and may have a clearly defined outline or the light may be diffused, radiating from the head in lines that melt into the picture. The term aureole may denote a crown or radiance around the head or it may be an oval used as a background for the whole body. When nimbus and aureole are combined for one figure, the illumination is called a glory. An almond-shaped glory is a mandorla.
Halo is a nontechnical term to denote either a disk behind the head or a circle surrounding it.
Listing from Electric Library , a pay service. No relevant pictures or maps found. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright 2000, Columbia University Press. Copyright 2001 Infonautics Corporation . All rights reserved.