3. In the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace, there is a very curious and interesting picture of this subject, by Mabuse, which once belonged to King Charles I., and is quaintly described in the old catalogue of his pictures ‘as a very old, defaced, curious altar-piece, upon a thick board, where Christ is calling St. Matthew out of the custom-house; which picture was got in Queen Elizabeth’s days, in the taking of Calus Malus (Cadiz), in Spain. Painted upon a board in a gilded arched frame, like an altar-piece; containing ten big figures, less than half so big as the life, and some twenty-two afar off less figures. Given to the King.’ In the foreground there is a rich architectural porch, from which St. Matthew is issuing in haste, leaving his money-bags behind; and in the background is seen the lake of Gennesareth and shipping. This picture was among the booty taken in Essex’s expedition against Cadiz in 1596, and probably stolen from some church.
4. In the Vienna Gallery I found three pictures of the same subject, all by Hemessen, very quaint and curious.
5. At Dresden the same subject in the Venetian style by Pordenone.
6. By Ludovico Caracci, a grand scenic picture, painted for the Mendicanti in Bologna.
7. In a chapel of the church of San Luigi de’ Francesi, at Rome, there are three pictures by Caravaggio from the life of St. Matthew. Over the altar is the saint writing his gospel; he looks up at the attendant angel, who is behind with outspread wings, and in the act of dictating. On the left is the calling of St. Matthew; the saint, who has been counting money, rises with one hand on his breast, and turns to follow the Saviour: an old man, with spectacles on his nose, examines with curiosity the personage whose summons has had such a miraculous effect: a boy is slyly appropriating the money which the apostle has thrown down. The third picture is the martyrdom of the saint, who, in the sacerdotal habit, lies extended on a block, while a half-naked executioner raises the sword, and several spectators shrink back with horror. There is nothing dignified or poetical in these representations; and though painted with all that power of effect which characterised Caravaggio, then at the height of his reputation, they have also his coarseness of feeling and execution: the priests were (not without reason) dissatisfied; and it required all the influence of his patron, Cardinal Giustiniani, to induce them to retain the pictures in the church where we now see them;—here we sympathise with the priests, rather than with the artist and his patron.
The Feast which St. Matthew made for our Saviour and his disciples is the subject of one of Paul Veronese’s gorgeous banquet scenes; that which he painted for the refectory of the Convent of St. John and St. Paul at Venice. It is now in the Academy, filling up the end wall of one of the great rooms from side to side, and seeming to let in light and air through the lofty marble porticoes, which give us such a magnificent idea of the splendour which surrounded Levi before he left all to follow Jesus.
In all the representations of the death of St. Matthew, except those of the Greek or Byzantine school, he dies by the sword. The Greek artists uniformly exhibit him as dying in peace, while an angel swings the censer beside his bed: as on the ancient doors of San Paolo at Rome.
Pictures from the legendary life of St. Matthew are very rare. The most remarkable are the frescoes in the chapel of San Matteo at Ravenna, attributed to Giotto. They are so much ruined, that, of the eight subjects represented, only three—his vocation, his preaching and healing the sick in Ethiopia, and the baptism of the king and queen—can be made out. In the Bedford missal at Paris I found a miniature, representing St. Matthew ‘healing the son and daughter of King Egyptus of the leprosy;’ but, as a subject of art, he is not popular.
St. Mark.
Lat. S. Marcus. Ital. San Marco Evangelista. Fr. St. Marc. Ger. Der Heilige Marcus. (April 25. A.D. 68.)