A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools / Including by Special Permission Notes Collected from the Works of John Ruskin

by Unknown

747. ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST AND ST. LAWRENCE.

Ascribed to Hans Memlinc. See 686.

St. Lawrence may nearly always be distinguished by his gridiron—the emblem of his martyrdom. He was a pious deacon of the Christian Church, who was put to death by the Romans. A new kind of torture was, says the legend, prepared for him. He was stretched on a sort of bed, formed of iron bars in the manner of a gridiron, and was roasted alive. "But so great was his constancy that in the middle of his torments he said, 'Seest thou not, O thou foolish man, that I am already roasted on one side, and that, if thou wouldst have me well cooked, it is time to turn me on the other?' Then St. Lawrence lifted up his eyes, and his pure and invincible spirit fled to heaven."