597. "ST. VINCENTIUS FERRER."
Francesco del Cossa (Ferrarese: about 1435-1485).
Cossa was a contemporary of Cosimo Tura (772), with whom he exhibits close affinities of style. "But while Tura was fantastic, and inclined to the lavish use of decoration, Cossa, with severer views of his art, sought to give dignity and grandeur to his figures, and kept ornamentation within its proper bounds" (Official Catalogue). "It may be added that Cossa, though 'severer' in one sense, viz. that he saw more clearly and kept more strictly within the true limits of fine art, had more amenity than Tura; his decorative instinct was more refined, his sense of grace less crude. He was also a sweeter, finer, colourist" (Monkhouse). Cossa worked at Ferrara with other artists for Duke Borso, and among other works he executed some of the frescoes for the Schifanoia Palace. These have been copied by the Arundel Society. In 1470 Cossa removed to Bologna, where his best works are to be seen. The finest of them is the "Virgin and Child with St. Petronius" in the Pinacoteca—"a work of singular grandeur."
"Our beautiful panel is, for its size, as characteristic and fine a specimen of the master as exists. The painting throughout is of fine quality, the modelling and expression of the head admirable, the colour strong and fine, but soft withal, and the abundant detail executed with great skill and patience, but kept in due subordination. The strange background, with its fantastic erections, half architecture half rock, is of less beauty, but equally characteristic of the artist" (Monkhouse: In the National Gallery, p. 167). The picture, once ascribed to Marco Zoppo, has been now recognised as the central panel of an altar-piece by Cossa, of which the wings are in the Brera at Milan, and the predella is in the Picture Gallery of the Vatican. The Dominican represented has at various times been supposed to be St. Dominic himself, St. Vincentius Ferrer, and St. Hyacinth. The predella pictures are of scenes in the life of St. Hyacinth, who therefore is probably the subject of our panel also. He was a member of the Dominican Order (whose habit he wears), a Pole by birth, and a missionary in Russia. St. Vincentius Ferrer was a Spaniard of Valencia, who in 1374, at the age of 17, entered the Dominican Order, died in 1419, and was canonised in 1455.
598. ST. FRANCIS WITH THE "STIGMATA."
Filippino Lippi (Florentine: 1457-1504). See 293.
St. Francis, the founder of the Franciscan Order of monks (the Black Friars), was the great apostle of Works, whilst St. Dominic, the founder of the Dominican Order (White Friars), was the great apostle of Faith. It was the teaching of these two orders that gave the impetus to the church building, from which grew the art revival at Florence in the thirteenth century. "The gospel of works, according to St. Francis, lay in three things. You must work without money, and be poor. You must work without pleasure, and be chaste. You must work according to orders, and be obedient." And so truly did he in his own works exemplify the life of Christ, that, according to the legend of the time, he received also in his own person the wounds (or "stigmata") of the Crucified One—here visible on his hands. ("Take my yoke upon you"; or "Take up the cross and follow me.") "His reception of the 'stigmata' is, perhaps, a marvellous instance of the power of imagination over physical conditions; perhaps an equally marvellous instance of the swift change of metaphor into tradition; but assuredly, and beyond dispute, one of the most influential, significant, and instructive traditions possessed by the Church of Christ."
The saint is here represented in glory; choirs of singing angels encompass him; for now "the wounds of his Master are his inheritance, the cross—sign not of triumph, but of trial, is his reward" (Mornings in Florence, i. 8, 13; iii. 64). Inscribed on the picture below are some lines from a Latin hymn to St. Francis, exhorting others to follow him, and to advance as he did the standards of their king ("Let those who depart out of Egypt follow him, and be united to him, in whom the standards of the King come forth for us in clear light").
The floating angels recall those by Botticelli, but the pupil's work is not here so good: these angels seem after all to be standing, Botticelli's to be indeed floating in thin air. Lippi, too, learnt no doubt from him the goldsmith's work, seen here in the indented background to the picture.