The end wall of the Baptistery has Peter Pourbus’s masterpiece, a *triptych painted for the Guild of the Holy Sacrament, attached to the church of St. Sauveur, and allusive to their functions. The outer wings, when closed, represent the Miracle of the Mass of St. Gregory, when the Host, as he consecrated it, was changed into the bodily Presence of the Saviour, to silence a doubter. It thus shows in a visible form the tremendous mystery of Transubstantiation, in honour of which the Guild was founded. Behind, the Brothers of the Confraternity are represented (on the right wing) in attendance on the Pope, as spectators of the miracle. One of them holds his triple crown. These may rank among the finest portraits by the elder Pourbus. They show the last stage in the evolution of native Flemish art before it was revolutionized by Rubens. The inner picture represents, in the centre, the Last Supper, or rather, the Institution of the Eucharist, to commemorate which fact the Guild was founded. The arrangement of the figures is in the old conventional order, round three sides of a table, with Judas in the foreground to the left. The wings contain Old Testament subjects of typical import, as foreshadowing the Eucharist. Left, Melchisedec giving bread and wine to Abraham; right, Elijah fed by the angel in the Wilderness. All the faces have still much of the old Flemish portrait character.
On the R. wall are the wings of a picture, by F. Pourbus (the son), painted for the Guild of Shoemakers, whose chapel is adjacent. The inside contains portraits of the members. On the outside are their patrons, St. Crispinus and St. Crispianus, with their shoemakers’ knives. Also, an early Crucifixion, of the school of Cologne (about 1400), with St. Catherine holding her wheel and trampling on the tyrant Maximin, by whose orders she was executed, and St. Barbara with her tower. (These two also occur together in Memling’s great triptych.) The picture is interesting as the only specimen in Bruges of the precursors of Van Eyck on the lower Rhine. The Baptistery contains, besides, a fine old candlestick, and a quaint ciborium (for the Holy Oil) with coloured reliefs of the Seven Joys of Mary (1536).
The vistas from the North Transept are impressive. It terminates in the Chapel of the Shoemakers’ Guild, with a fine carved wooden door of about 1470, and good brasses, as well as an early crucifix. It is dedicated to the patron saints of the craft, and bears their arms, a boot.
The first two chapels in the Ambulatory (behind the Choir) have good screens.
The third Chapel encloses the tomb of Archbishop Carondelet, in alabaster, (1544,) a fine work of the Italian Renaissance. The Descent from the Cross by Claeissens, with the Crown of Thorns and the Holy Blood in the foreground: on the wings, St. Philip, and the donor, under the protection of (the canonized) Charlemagne. Near this is a *triptych by Dierick Bouts, (falsely ascribed to Memling) representing, in the centre, St. Hippolytus torn to pieces by four horses. (He was the jailor of St. Lawrence, who converted him: see Mrs. Jameson). The faces show well the remarkable power of this bourgeois painter of Louvain. On the left wing are the donors; on the right wing Hippolytus confesses himself a Christian, and is condemned to martyrdom. Over the altar, retable, a Tree of Jesse, in carved woodwork, with the family of Our Lady: on the wings, (painted,) the legend of St. Hubert and the stag, and the legend of St. Lucy.
In the Apse is the Chapel of the Host.
The next chapel, of the Seven Sorrows, has a Mater Dolorosa of 1460 (copy of one at Rome); a fine *brass; and the *portrait of Philippe le Beau, known as Philippus Stok (father of Charles V), and bearing the collar of the Golden Fleece.
The Choir, (admirable architecturally,) contains the *stalls and arms of the Knights of the Golden Fleece, with good carved Misereres.
The Cathedral contains many other pictures of interest, which, however, do not fall within the scope of these Guides.
The Chambre des Marguilliers, or Churchwardens’ Vestry, contains manuscripts and church furniture, sufficiently described by the sacristan.