II. Of the Distinction to be drawn between the Devotional and the Historical Subjects.

At first, when entering on a subject so boundless and so diversified, we are at a loss for some leading classification which shall be distinct and intelligible, without being mechanical. It appears to me, that all sacred representations, in as far as they appeal to sentiment and imagination, resolve themselves into two great classes, which I shall call the DEVOTIONAL and the HISTORICAL.

Devotional pictures are those which portray the objects of our veneration with reference only to their sacred character, whether standing singly or in company with others. They place before us no action or event, real or supposed. They are neither portrait nor history. A group of sacred personages where no action is represented, is called in Italian a ‘sacra conversazione:’ the word conversazione, which signifies a society in which there is communion, being here, as it appears to me, used with peculiar propriety. All subjects, then, which exhibit to us sacred personages, alone or in groups, simply in the character of superior beings, must be considered as devotionally treated.

But a sacred subject, without losing wholly its religious import, becomes historical the moment it represents any story, incident, or action, real or imagined. All pictures which exhibit the events of Scripture story, all those which express the actions, miracles, and martyrdoms of saints, come under this class; and to this distinction I must call the attention of the reader, requesting that it may be borne in mind throughout this work.

We must also recollect that a story, action, or fact may be so represented as to become a symbol expressive of an abstract idea: and some scriptural and some legendary subjects may be devotional, or historical, according to the sentiment conveyed: for example, the Crucifixion and the Last Supper may be so represented as either to exhibit an event, or to express a symbol of our Redemption. The raising of Lazarus exhibits, in the catacombs, a mystical emblem of the general resurrection; in the grand picture by Sebastian del Piombo, in our National Gallery, it is a scene from the life of our Saviour. Among the legendary subjects, the penance of the Magdalene, and St. Martin dividing his cloak, may be merely incidents, or they may be symbolical, the first of penitence, the latter of charity, in the general sense. And, again, there are some subjects which, though expressing a scene or an action, are wholly mystical and devotional in their import; as the vision of St. Augustine, and the marriage of St. Catherine.

Among the grandest of the devotional subjects, we may reckon those compositions which represent the whole celestial hierarchy; the divine personages of the Trinity, the angels and archangels, and the beatified spirits of the just. Such is the subject called the ‘Paradiso,’ so often met with in pictures and ecclesiastical decoration, where Christ is enthroned in glory: such is also the Coronation of the Virgin, that ancient and popular symbol of the triumph of Religion or the Church; the Adoration of the Lamb; and the Last Judgment, from the Apocalypse. The order of precedence in these sacred assemblages was early settled by ecclesiastical authority, and was almost as absolute as that of a modern code of honour. First after the Trinity, the Virgin Mary, as Regina Angelorum, and St. John the Baptist: then, in order, the Evangelists; the Patriarchs; the Prophets; the Apostles; the Fathers; the Bishops; the Martyrs; the Hermits; the Virgins; the Monks, Nuns, and Confessors.

As examples, I may cite the Paradiso of Angelico, in the Florence Academy; the Coronation of the Virgin by Hans Memling, in the Wallerstein collection, which contains not less than fifty-two figures, all individualised with their proper attributes; and which, if it were possible, should be considered in contrast with the Coronation by Angelico. The Flemish painter seems to have carried his intense impression of earthly and individual life into the regions of heaven; the Italian, through a purer inspiration, seems to have brought all Paradise down before us upon earth. In the Adoration of the Lamb by Van Eyck, there are not fewer than two hundred figures. For the Last Judgment, the grand compositions of Orcagna in the Campo Santo,—of Luca Signorelli and Angelico at Orvieto,—and the fresco of Michael Angelo in the Sistine Chapel, may be consulted.

Where the usual order is varied, there is generally some reason for it; for instance, in the exaltation of a favourite saint, as we sometimes find St. Dominick and St. Francis by the side of St. Peter and St. Paul: and among the miniatures of that extraordinary MS., the Hortus Deliciarum, now at Strasbourg, painted for a virgin abbess, there is a ‘Paradiso’ in which the painter, either by her command or in compliment to her, has placed the virgins immediately after the angels.

The representation of the Virgin and Child with saints grouped around them, is a devotional subject familiar to us from its constant recurrence. It also frequently happens that the tutelary saint of the locality, or the patron saint of the votary, is represented as seated on a raised throne in the centre; and other saints, though under every other circumstance taking a superior rank, become here accessories, and are placed on each side or lower down in the picture: for example, where St. Augustine is enthroned, and St. Peter and St. Paul stand on each side, as in a picture by B. Vivarini,[2] or where St. Barbara is enthroned, and Mary Magdalene and St. Catherine stand on each side, as in a picture by Matteo di Siena.[3]

In such pictures, the votary or donor is often introduced kneeling at the feet of his patron, either alone or accompanied by his wife and other members of his family: and to express the excess of his humility, he is sometimes so diminutive in proportion to the colossal object of his veneration, as to be almost lost to sight; we have frequent examples of this naïveté of sentiment in the old mosaics and votive altar-pieces; for instance, in a beautiful old fresco at Assisi, where the Magdalene, a majestic figure about six feet high, holds out her hand in benediction to a little Franciscan friar about a foot in height: but it was abandoned as barbarous in the later schools of Art, and the votary, when retained, appears of the natural size; as in the Madonna del Donatore of Raphael[4], where Sigismond Conti is almost the finest and most striking part of that inestimable picture: and in the Madonna of the Meyer family by Holbein.[5]

When a bishop is introduced into a group of saints kneeling, while all the others are standing, he may be supposed to be the Donatore or Divoto, the person who presents the picture. When he is standing, he is one of the bishop-patrons or bishop-martyrs, of whom there are some hundreds, and who are more difficult to discriminate than any other pictured saints.

And this leads me to the subject of the so-called anachronisms in devotional subjects, where personages who lived at different and distant periods of time are found grouped together. It is curious to find the critics of the last century treating with pity and ridicule, as the result of ignorance or a barbarous unformed taste, the noblest and most spiritual conceptions of poetic art. Even Sir Joshua Reynolds had so little idea of the true object and feeling of such representations, that he thinks it necessary to apologise for the error of the painter, or the mistaken piety of his employer. We must remember that the personages here brought together in their sacred character belong no more to our earth, but to heaven and eternity: for them there is no longer time or place; they are here assembled together in the perpetual ‘communion of saints,’—immortal contemporaries in that kingdom where the Angel of the Apocalypse proclaimed ‘that there should be time no longer.’

Such groups are sometimes arranged with an artless solemnity, all the personages standing and looking straight out of the picture at the worshipper. Sometimes there is a touch of dramatic sentiment, which, without interfering with the solemn devotional feeling, lights up the whole with the charm of a purpose: as in the Correggio at Parma, where St. Jerome presents his translation of the Scriptures to the infant Christ, while an angel turns the leaves, and Mary Magdalene, symbol of redemption and reconciliation, bends to kiss the feet of the Saviour.

Our ancestors of the middle ages were not particular in drawing that strong line of demarcation between the classical, Jewish and Christian periods of history, that we do. They saw only Christendom every where; they regarded the past only in relation to Christianity. Hence we find in the early ecclesiastical monuments and edifices such a strange assemblage of pagan, scriptural, and Christian worthies; as, Hector of Troy, Alexander the Great, King David, Judas Maccabeus, King Arthur, St. George, Godfrey of Boulogne, Lucretia, Virginia, Judith, St. Elizabeth, St. Bridget (as in the Cross of Nuremburg). In the curious Manual of Greek Art, published by Didron, we find the Greek philosophers and poets entering into a scheme of ecclesiastical decoration, as in the carved stalls in the Cathedral of Ulm, where Solon, Apollonius, Plutarch, Plato, Sophocles, are represented, holding each a scroll, on which is inscribed a passage from their works, interpreted into an allusion to the coming of Christ: and I have seen a picture of the Nativity in which the sibyls are dancing hand-in-hand around the cradle of the new-born Saviour. This may appear profane to some, but the comprehension of the whole universe within the pale of Christianity strikes me as being in the most catholic, as well as in the most poetical, spirit.

It is in devotional subjects that we commonly find those anthropomorphic representations of the Divinity which shock devout people; and which no excuse or argument can render endurable to those who see in them only ignorant irreverence, or intentional profaneness. It might be pleaded that the profaneness is not intentional; that emblems and forms are, in the imitative arts, what figures of speech are in language; that only through a figure of speech can any attempt be made to place the idea of Almighty Power before us. Familiar expressions, consecrated by Scripture usage, represent the Deity as reposing, waking, stretching forth his hand, sitting on a throne; as pleased, angry, vengeful, repentant; and the ancient painters, speaking the language proper to their art, appear to have turned these emblematical words into emblematical pictures. I forbear to say more on this point, because I have taken throughout the poetical and not the religious view of Art, and this is an objection which must be left, as a matter of feeling, to the amount of candour and knowledge in the critical reader.

In the sacred subjects, properly called HISTORICAL, we must be careful to distinguish between those which are Scriptural, representing scenes from the Old or New Testament; and those which are Legendary.

Of the first, for the present; I do not speak, as they will be fully treated hereafter.

The historical subjects from the lives of the saints consist principally of Miracles and Martyrdoms.

In the first, it is worth remarking that we have no pictured miracle which is not imitated from the Old or the New Testament (unless it be an obvious emblem, as where the saint carries his own head). There is no act of supernatural power related of any saint which is not recorded of some great scriptural personage. The object was to represent the favourite patron as a copy of the great universal type of beneficence, Christ our Redeemer. And they were not satisfied that the resemblance should lie in character only; but should emulate the power of Christ in his visible actions. We must remember that the common people of the middle ages did not, and could not, distinguish between miracles accredited by the testimony of Scripture, and those which were fabrications, or at least exaggerations. All miracles related as divine interposition were to them equally possible, equally credible. If a more extended knowledge of the natural laws renders us in these days less credulous, it also shows us that many things were possible, under particular conditions, which were long deemed supernatural.

We find in the legendary pictures, that the birth of several saints is announced by an angel, or in a dream, as in the stories of St. Catherine, St. Roch, &c. They exhibit precocious piety and wisdom, as in the story of St. Nicholas, who also calms a tempest, and guides the storm-tossed vessel safe to land. They walk on the water, as in the stories of St. Raymond and St. Hyacinth; or a river divides, to let them pass, as in the story of St. Alban. Saints are fed and comforted miraculously, or delivered from prison by angels; or resist fire, like the ‘Three Children.’ The multiplication of bread, and the transformation of water into wine, are standing miracles. But those which most frequently occur in pictures, are the healing of the sick, the lame, the blind; the casting out of demons, the restoration of the dead, or some other manifestation of compassionate and beneficent power.

Some of the pictured legends are partly scriptural, partly historical, as the story of St. Peter; others are clearly religious apologues founded on fact or tradition, as those of St. Mary of Egypt and St. Christopher; others are obviously and purely allegorical, as the Greek story of St. Sophia (i. e. Heavenly Wisdom, ΣΟΦΙΑ) and her celestial progeny, St. Faith, St. Hope, and St. Charity, all martyred by the blind and cruel Pagans. The names sound as if borrowed from the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress;’ and it is curious to find Bunyan’s allegorical legend, the favourite picture-book of the people, appearing just at the time when the legends and pictures of the saints became objects of puritanical horror, and supplying their place in the popular imagination.

Martyrdoms are only too common: they present to us Christianity under its most mystical aspect—the deification of suffering; but to render these representations effective, they should be pathetic without being terrible, they should speak to us

Of melancholy fear subdued by faith,

Of blessed consolations in distress;

but not of the horrid cruelty of man towards man. It has been well remarked by my friend M. Rio, (to whose charming and eloquent exposition of Christian Art I refer with ever-new delight,) that the early painters of Western Christendom avoided these subjects, and that their prevalence in ecclesiastical decoration marked the decline of religious feeling, and the degeneracy of Art. But this remark does not apply to Byzantine Art; for we find from the exact description of a picture of the martyrdom of St. Euphemia (both the picture and the description dating from the third century), that such representations were then common, and were appealed to in the same manner as now, to excite the feelings of the people.

The martyrdoms generally met with are those of St. Peter and St. Paul, St. Stephen Protomartyr, St. Laurence, St. Catherine, and St. Sebastian. These we find everywhere, in all countries and localities. Where the patron of the church or chapel is a martyr, his martyrdom holds a conspicuous place, often over the high altar, and accompanied by all the moving circumstances which can excite the pity, or horror, or enthusiasm of the pious votaries; but in the best examples we find the saint preparing for his death, not suffering the torments actually inflicted; so that the mind is elevated by the sentiment of his courage, not disturbed and disgusted by the spectacle of his agonies.

III. Of certain Patron Saints,
WHO ARE COMMONLY GROUPED TOGETHER IN WORKS OF ART, OR WHO BELONG TO PARTICULAR COUNTRIES, CITIES, OR LOCALITIES.

While such assemblages of holy persons as are found grouped together in devotional pictures are to be considered as quite independent of chronology, we shall find that the selection has been neither capricious nor arbitrary, and, with a little consideration, we shall discover the leading idea in the mind of the artist that, at least, which was intended to be conveyed to the mind of the spectator, and which was much more intelligible in former times than it is now.

Sometimes we find certain saints placed in companionship, because they are the joint patrons and protectors of the city or locality for which the picture was painted. Thus in the Bologna pictures we constantly find the bishop St. Petronius, St. Eloy, St. Dominick, and the warrior St. Proculus; while in the Venetian pictures we have perpetual St. Marks, St. Georges, and St. Catherines.

Or, secondly, they are connected by kindred powers and attributes. Thus we find St. Sebastian, the patron against pestilence, in company with St. Roch, who ministered to the sick of the plague. Thus St. Catherine and St. Jerome, the two patrons of school theology, are often found in companionship. Where St. Catherine and St. Barbara are found together, the first figures as patroness of the ecclesiastical, and the second of the military, power—or they represent respectively the contemplative and the active life.

Or, thirdly, they are combined in the fancy by some inevitable association; as St. Augustine and St. Stephen are often in the same picture, because St. Augustine dedicated some of his most eloquent works to the glory of the martyr.

Or they were friends on earth, for which reason St. Cyprian and St. Cornelius are placed together.

Or their relics repose in the same spot; whence St. Stephen and St. Laurence have become almost inseparable. When St. Vincent and St. Laurence are placed together, (as in a lovely composition of Parmigiana where they sit reading out of the same book,) it is because of the similarity of their fate, and that the popular tradition supposed them to be brothers.

A point of more general importance, and capable of more definite explanation, is the predominance of certain sacred personages in particular schools of Art. St. Cosmo and St. Damian, for instance, are perpetually recurring in the Florentine pictures as the patron saints of the Medici family. In the Lombard pictures St. Ambrose is often found without his compeers—not as doctor of the Church, but as bishop of Milan. In the Siena pictures, we may look for the nun St. Catherine of Siena, and St. Ansano, the apostle of the Sienese, holding his banner and palm. And in the Augustine chapels and churches, St. Augustine figures, not as doctor of the Church, but as patriarch of the Order.

A bishop-martyr, holding his palm, and not otherwise designated either by name or attribute, would be—in one if Perugino’s pictures, St. Ercolano or St. Costanzo; in a Florentine picture, St. Donato or St. Romulo; if the picture were painted in the March of Ancona, it would probably be St. Apollinaris of Ravenna; at Naples it would be St. Januarius; at Paris, or in a picture painted for a French church, of which there are many in Italy, it would be St. Denis; and in German prints, St. Boniface or St. Lambert. I need not further multiply examples.

If the locality from which the picture came will sometimes determine the names of the personages, so the personages represented will often explain the purpose and intended situation of the picture. There is in Lord Ashburton’s gallery a noble group representing together St. Peter, St. Leonard, St. Martha, and Mary Magdalene. Such a combination points it out at once as intended for a charitable institution, and, on enquiry, we find that it was painted for the chapel of a brotherhood associated to redeem prisoners, to ransom slaves, to work for the poor, and to convert the sinner to repentance. Many such interesting and instructive analogies will be pointed out in the course of the following pages, and the observer of works of Art will discover others for himself.

I add here, in alphabetical order, those countries and localities of which the patron saints are distinguished in works of Art.[6]

Votive Pictures are those which have been dedicated in certain religious edifices, in fulfilment of vows; either as the expression of thanksgiving for blessings which have been vouchsafed, or propitiative against calamities to be averted. The far greater number of these pictures commemorate an escape from danger, sickness, death; and more especially, some visitation of the plague, that terrible and frequent scourge of the middle ages. The significance of such pictures is generally indicated by the presence of St. Sebastian or St. Roch, the patrons against the plague; or St. Cosmo and St. Damian, the healing and medical saints; accompanied by the patron saints of the country or locality, if it be a public act of devotion; or, if dedicated by private or individual piety, the donor kneels, presented by his own patron saint. In general, though not always, this expressive group is arranged in attendance on the enthroned Madonna and her divine Son, as the universal protectors from all evil. Such pictures are among the most interesting and remarkable of the works of sacred Art which remain to us, and have often a pathetic and poetical beauty, and an historical significance, which it is a chief purpose of these volumes to interpret and illustrate.

A Venetian votive picture against the plague.
St. Damian. St. Mark. St. Roch. A. J. fecit
St. Cosmo. St. Sebastian.