FOOTNOTES
[1]: St. Francis's hymn (Sabatier, St. François d'Assise):—
| Laudato sie, mi signore, cum tucte le tue creature, |
| Spetialimento messer lo frate sole, |
| Lo quale jorna, et illumini per lui; |
| Et ello è bello e radiante cum grande splendore. |
| Laudato si, mè signore per frate Vento |
| Et per aere et nubilo et sereno et omne tempo |
| Laudato, si, mi signore, per sor acqua |
| La quale è multo utile et humele et pretiosa et casta; |
| Laudato si, mi signore, per frate focu |
| Per lo quale ennallumini la nocte |
| Et ello è bello et jocundo e robustioso e forte. |
In its rudeness, how magnificent is this last line!
[2]: St. Francis's sermon to the birds in the valley of Bevagna (Fioretti xvi.): "Ancora gli (a Dio) siete tenuti per lo elemento dell' aria che egli ha diputato a voi … e Iddio vi pasce, e davvi li fiumi e le fonti per vostro bere; davvi li monti e le valli per vostro rifugio e gli alberi alti per fare li vostri nidi … e però guardatevi, sirocchie mie, del peccato della ingratitudine, e sempre vi studiate di lodare Iddio … e allora tutti qugli uccilli si levarons in aria con maraviglios canti."
Fioretti xxviii. "… Questo dono, che era dato a frate Bernardo da Quintevalle, cioè, che volando si pascesse come la rondine." Fioretti xxii., Considerazioni i.
[3]: The Cathedral of Assisi, a very early mediæval building, affords a singular instance of the meeting of the last remnant of that serene symbolism of Roman and Byzantine-Roman churches with the usual Lombard horrors. A fine passion-flower or vine encircles the porch, peacocks strut and drink from an altar, while, on the other hand, lions mangle a man and a sheep, and horrible composite monsters, resembling the prehistoric plesiosaurus, bite each other's necks. A Madonna and Christ are enthroned on Byzantine seats, the weight resting on human beings, not so realistically crushed as those of Ferrara and Milan, but suffering. There is a similar meeting of symbols in the neighbouring Cathedral of Foligno; and, so far as I could see, the Umbrian valley is rich in very early churches of this type, sometimes lovely in ornamentation, like S. Pietro of Spoleto, sometimes very rude, like the tiny twin churches of Bevagna.
[4]: Here are a few dates, as given by Murray's Handbooks. Fiesole Cathedral begun 1028; S. Miniato a Monte, 1013; Pisa Cathedral consecrated 1118; baptistery (lower storey), 1153. Lucca façade (interior later), 1204; S. Frediano of Lucca begun by Perharit 671, altered in twelfth century; S. Michele façade, 1188. Pistoia: S. Giovanni Evangelista by Gruamons, 1166; S. Andrea, also by Gruamons; S. Bartolomeo by Rudolphinus, 1167. Pulpit of S. Ambrogio of Milan, 1201; church traditionally begun about 868, probably much more modern.
[5]: Mme. Darmesteter's charming essays "The End of the Middle Ages," contain some amusing instances of such repressed love of finery on the part of saints. Compare Fioretti xx., "And these garments of such fair cloth, which we wear (in Heaven) are given us by God in exchange for our rough frocks."
[6]: Probably executed from Botticelli's design, by Raffaellino del Garbo.
[7]: I learn from the learned that the Florence and Louvre Madonnas, with the roses, are not Botticelli's; but Botticelli, I am sure, would not have been offended by those lovely bushes being attributed to him.
[8]: This quality, particularly in the Adoration of the Magi, is already very marked in the very charming and little known frescoes of Ottaviano Nelli, in the former Trinci Palace at Foligno. Nelli was the master of Gentile, and through him greatly influenced Venice.
[9]: I believe now unanimously given to Pinturicchio.
[10]: Alas! no longer among the living, though among those whose spiritual part will never die. Walter Pater died July 1894: a man whose sense of loveliness and dignity made him, in mature life, as learned in moral beauty as he had been in visible.
[11]: And the circular so-called Botticelli (now given, I believe, to San Gallo) in the National Gallery.
[12]: How peccable is the individual imagination, unchastened by tradition! I find among the illustrations of Mr. Berenson's very valuable monograph on Lotto, a most curious instance in point. This psychological, earnest painter has been betrayed, by his morbid nervousness of temper, into making the starting of a cat into the second most important incident in his Annunciation.
[13]: I am confirmed in these particulars by my friend Miss Eugenie Sellers, whose studies of the ancient authorities on art—Lucian, Pausanias, Pliny, and others, will be the more fruitful that they are associated with knowledge—uncommon in archæologists—of more modern artistic processes.
[14]: This becomes overwhelmingly obvious on reading Professor Furtwängler's great "Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture." Praxiteles appears to have been exceptional in his preference for marble.
[15]: Interesting details in Vasari's treatise, and in his Lives of J. della Quercia, Ferrucci, and other sculptors.
[16]: At all events, Greek painting preceding or contemporaneous with the great period of sculpture. Later painting was, of course, much more pictorial.
[17]: Several Greek vases and coins show the sculptor modelling his figure; while in Renaissance designs, from that of Nanni di Banco to a mediocre allegorical engraving in an early edition of Vasari, the sculptor, or the personified art of Sculpture, is actually working with chisel and mallet.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE The following changes have been made and can be identifiedin the body of the text by a grey dotted underline: | |
| and will bare (…) new spiritual wonders | and will bear (…) new spiritual wonders |
| per speculum et ænigmata | per speculum in ænigmate |
| In was in this church that | It was in this church that |