[316] Vasari, v.
[317] A scholar of Bronzino.
[318] See Vasari, vol. vii.
[319] It is interesting to observe that the same vision was seen under the same circumstances in other periods of history.
"So the Lord sent pestilence upon Israel, and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men. And God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it ... and David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the Lord stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem."—1 Chron. xxi. 14—16.
"Before the plague of London had begun (otherwise than in St. Giles's), seeing a crowd of people in the street, I joined them to satisfy my curiosity, and found them all staring up into the air, to see what a woman told them appeared plain to her. This was an angel clothed in white, with a fiery sword in his hand, waving it, or brandishing it over his head: she described every part of the figure to the life, and showed them the motion and the form."—Defoe, Hist. of the Plague.
[320] The pictures at Ara Cœli and Sta. Maria Maggiore both claim to be that carried by St. Gregory in this procession. The song of the angels is annually commemorated on St. Mark's Day, when the clergy pass by in procession to St. Peter's; and the Franciscans of Ara Cœli and the canons of Sta. Maria Maggiore, halting here, chaunt the antiphon, Regina cœli, lætare.
[321] Hemans' Story of Monuments in Rome.
[322] "Deus, qui apostolo tuo Petro collatis clavibus regni celestis ligandi et solvendi pontificium tradidisti; concede ut intercessionis ejus auxilio, a peccatorum nostrorum legibus liberemur: et hanc civitatem, quam te adjuvante fundavimus, fac ab ira tua in perpetuum permanere securam, et de hostibus, quorum causa constructa est, novos et multiplicatos habere triumphos, per Dominum nostrum," &c.
[323] The same whom Alexander VI. had intended to poison, when he poisoned himself instead.