Curiosities of Christian History Prior to the Reformation

by James Paterson

In 1522 Torrigiano, a Florentine sculptor, the same who, when a student and rival, had an altercation with Michael Angelo and broke his nose, received an order from a Spanish grandee, the Duke of Arcos, to carve a Madonna and Child of the natural size, for which he was told he would be well paid. The artist thereupon put forth all his skill, which was admitted to be great, and completed a matchless sculpture, which the purchaser was delighted with, and sent two servants carrying large bags of money wherewith to pay the sculptor and fetch away the gem. The latter, well pleased at the liberal payment, was equally delighted in turn; but on opening the bags, to his intense disgust he found that they were full of copper farthings, which amounted only to a beggarly total of thirty ducats (£13). Enraged at this meanness, he snatched a mallet, and regardless of the sacred character of the image, he followed to the spot where the sculpture stood, and with one blow he shivered it to atoms, and then told the lacqueys to take back their load of farthings to their master. This sacrilegious act the enraged grandee represented at once to the Holy Inquisition, before which tribunal the irascible artist was cited for heresy. He urged that he was entitled, as an author, to do what he liked with his own creation. But not so thought the demon judges, who with little hesitation decreed death with torture. The culprit died in prison before the day of sentence arrived, whether from excitement or refusing his food was never ascertained.

PAINTING THE LUMINOUS FACE OF CHRIST (CORREGGIO, 1534).

Vasari says that there was in his time (1540), in the city of Reggio (and now it is a gem in the gallery at Dresden), a picture by Correggio of the “Birth of Christ.” In this work the light proceeding from the presence of the Divine Child throws its splendour on the shepherds, and around all the figures who are contemplating the Infant. Many other beautiful effects are made manifest by the artist in this picture. Among others is one expressed by the figure of a woman, who, desiring to look fixedly at the Saviour, is not able with her mortal sight to endure the glory of His Divinity, which appears to cast its rays full on the figure. She is therefore shading her eyes with her hand. All this is admirably and wonderfully expressed. Over the cabin where the Divine Child is laid there hovers a choir of angels singing, and so exquisitely painted that they seem to have come direct from heaven, rather than from the hand of the painter. In the same city (now in the Palace at Madrid) there was a small picture, also by Correggio, not more than a foot high, and one of the most extraordinary and beautiful of all his works. The figures are small, the subject “Christ in the Garden,” the time night; and the angel appearing to the Saviour illumines His person with the splendour of his coming, an effect unapproachable for beauty. (Other critics say the disposition of the light in this picture is poetical and Divine.) On a plain at the foot of the mountain are seen the three apostles lying asleep. The shadow of the eminence on which the Saviour is in prayer falls over those figures, imparting to them a degree of force not to be described in words. In the farther distance is a tract of country over which the day is just breaking, and from one side approaches Judas with soldiers. Vasari says that for beauty, depth of thought, and execution no work can equal this. It is said that Correggio gave this gem to pay an apothecary’s bill of thirty shillings then due.

THE MONKS ASSISTING ARTISTS WITH THEIR PRAYERS (1560).

Queen Isabella of the Peace, about 1560, in order to please the Franciscans, to which order her confessor belonged, ordered a statue of the Virgin to be executed for a gift to them, and the best sculptor in Spain was to receive the commission. Becerra was chosen; but after a year’s work the Queen was not pleased, and the image was rejected. The next attempt was better, and it pleased the friars, who said it was worthy of Michael Angelo; but the Queen again rejected it. The Franciscans thereupon betook themselves to redoubled Masses and fasting, and the poor artist racked his memory and imagination for ideas of angelic grace and Divine beauty. Sitting one night in his studio, after much anxious thought, he fell into a slumber, and was aroused by an unknown voice saying to him, “Awake and arise, and out of that log of wood blazing on the hearth shape the thought within thee, and thou shalt obtain the desired image.” He immediately arose, plucked the log from the fire and fell to work upon it, and it proved to be an excellent piece of timber, and in time it grew under his hands into a miracle of art, and became the portentous image of Our Lady of Solitude, which is to this day had in reverence, and in which are expressed beauty, grief, love, tenderness, constancy, and resignation. The Queen at last acknowledged the carving was to her mind. The Virgin was dressed in sable garb and placed in the convent of the Minim Fathers at Madrid, and became renowned for her miraculous powers. Another artist, named Joannes, was engaged by the friars to paint the Virgin, and his first sketches were unsuccessful; but he and his employers betook themselves to religious exercises, and many holy men joined them in their prayers. Every day the artist confessed and communicated before commencing his labours. At last his piety and perseverance overcame all difficulties. It was acknowledged to be of great excellence, and amongst the friars it was soon famous for its miraculous powers.

MICHAEL ANGELO, PAINTER AND SCULPTOR (1564).

Michael Angelo, who was equally celebrated as a painter and sculptor of the first class, as well as architect, was born in 1475. His Madonnas and Holy Families and Christs are all admirable. In 1507 he began frescoes, and afterwards paintings for the Sistine Chapel and Pauline Chapel at Rome. In 1547 he was appointed architect to St. Peter’s at Rome, and at his death in 1564 was succeeded in the latter office by Raphael. Michael Angelo was a man of spare figure and extraordinary activity. When he was at work he was satisfied with a scrap of bread and a drop of wine, which he took without breaking off the business in hand. He lived in this frugal way up to the time when he began his last pictures in the Sistine Chapel at Rome. He was then old, and allowed himself only a simple meal at the end of the day. He used sometimes to remain for whole months absorbed in meditation, without touching a brush or chisel; then, when he had elaborated his composition, he set to work as if inspired by a fury. Vasari says his imagination was so lofty that his hands could not express his sublime thoughts. Generally he used to put an idea hurriedly on paper, then take up each detail, and finish it as he proceeded. He would sometimes draw the same head ten or twelve times over before he was satisfied with it. He took very little sleep, and used often to get up in the night to work out a sudden fancy. He used to wear a sort of cardboard helmet, which he contrived so as to hold a light, and thus the part on which he worked was illumined without his hands being encumbered. He had a round head, high temples, a broad, square forehead, with seven lines straight across it, and a nose disfigured by a blow from the fist of Torrigiano, who, being jealous of him as a student, picked a quarrel with him, and thereby left this mark.

THE GREAT SCULPTOR’S MASTERPIECES (MICHAEL ANGELO, 1564).

Vasari, a contemporary of Michael Angelo, says of his Pieta, a marble figure of the Virgin (now in the chapel of Santa Maria della Febbre at Rome), that no sculptor, however distinguished an artist, could add a single grace or improve it by whatever pains he might take, whether in elegance and delicacy, or force, or careful execution, nor could any surpass the art which the sculptor has here exhibited. In like manner the marble figure of his dead Christ exhibits the very perfection of faithful execution in every muscle, vein, and nerve. There was besides a most exquisite expression in the countenance, and the limbs and veins and pulses are admirably arranged. The love and care which the sculptor had given to this group were such that he there left his name—a thing he never did again for any work—on the cincture which girdles the robe of Our Lady. The reason of this was, that one day he entered the chapel and heard a group of strangers praising it highly, and when one asked the other who was the artist, it was attributed at once to a person called the Hunchback of Milan. The real artist remained silent, but one night soon after he repaired to the chapel with a light and chisel, and engraved his name on the figure of the Madonna, whose “beauty and goodness, piety and grief, dead in the living marble,” are so well spoken of by the poet. This work brought Michael Angelo great fame. Certain stupid people did indeed affirm at the time that he has made Our Lady too young, but that is because they fail to perceive the fact that unspotted maidens long preserve the youthfulness of their aspect, while persons afflicted, as Christ was, do the contrary. The youth of the Madonna therefore did but add to the credit of the master.