It struck me, when wandering over the grand old churches of Ravenna, where the ecclesiastical mosaics are the most ancient that exist, and still in wonderful preservation, that St. Peter and St. Paul do not often appear, at least are in no respect distinguished from the other apostles. Ravenna, in the fifth century, did not look to Rome for her saints. On the other hand, among the earliest of the Roman mosaics, St. Peter is sometimes found sustaining the throne of Christ, without his companion St. Paul; as in S. Maria-in-Trastevere, S. Maria Nuova, and others. At Rome, St. Peter is the Saint, the Santissimo. The secession of the Protestant Church dimmed his glory as Prince of the Apostles and universal Saint; he fell into a kind of disrepute as identified with the See of Rome, which exposed his effigies, in England and Scotland particularly, to a sweeping destruction. Those were disputatious days; and Peter, the affectionate, enthusiastic, devoted, but somewhat rash apostle, veiled his head to the intellectual, intrepid, subtle philosopher Paul.
Let us now see how Art has placed before us the sturdy Prince of the Apostles.
I have already mentioned the characteristic type which belongs to him, and his prevalent attributes the key, the cross, the book. When he figures among the disciples in the Gospel stories, he sometimes holds the fish as the symbol of his original vocation: if the fish be given to him in single devotional figures, it signifies also Christianity, or the rite of Baptism.
The figures of St. Peter standing, as Apostle and Patron Saint, with book and keys, are of such perpetual occurrence as to defy all attempts to particularise them, and so familiar as to need no further illustration.[164]
Representations of him in his peculiar character of Head and Founder of the Roman Church, and first universal bishop, are less common. He is seated on a throne; one hand is raised in the act of benediction; in the other he holds the keys, and sometimes a book or scroll, inscribed with the text, in Latin, ‘Thou art Peter, and on this rock have I built my Church.’ This subject of the throned St. Peter is very frequent in the older schools. The well-known picture by Giotto, painted for Cardinal Stefaneschi, now in the sacristy of the Vatican, is very fine, simple and solemn. In a picture by Cima da Conegliano,[165] St. Peter is not only throned, but wears the triple tiara as pope; the countenance is particularly earnest, fervent, almost fiery in expression: the keys lie at his feet; on one side stands St. John the Baptist, on the other St. Paul.
As a deviation from the usual form of this subject, I must mention an old bas-relief, full of character, and significantly appropriate to its locality the church of San Pietro-in-Vincoli, at Rome. St. Peter, enthroned, holds in one hand the keys and the Gospel; with the other he presents his chains to a kneeling angel: this unusual treatment is very poetical and suggestive.
There are standing figures of St. Peter wearing the papal tiara, and brandishing his keys, as in a picture by Cola dell’ Amatrice (70). And I should think Milton had some such picture in his remembrance when he painted his St. Peter:—