[151] This head is said to bear a marked resemblance to Mr. Swinburne as a young man (see W. B. Scott's Autobiographical Notes, ii. 18).
[152] It was a practice at Italian weddings that the bride should be presented, as part of her dowry, with a coffer, which was intended to hold her trousseau and wedding presents. Some very fine specimens of these cassoni may be seen in the South Kensington Museum. They belong principally to the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. The typical cassone measured about six feet in length by two in height and two in breadth. The front and ends were decorated with paintings or carvings. The subjects depicted are either marriage scenes or stories borrowed from the Scriptures, from the classics, or from Petrarch. Many of the panel pictures in the National Gallery once adorned these cassoni. See, for instance, Nos. 1218 and 1219. A favourite subject was the allegory entitled "The Triumph of Love, Chastity, and Death," of which an excellent example is at South Kensington. The panel in this Gallery, No. 1196, has a similar subject.
[153] This picture and the tondo of the same subject (1033) are by many critics ascribed to Botticelli. "In my opinion," says Morelli, "the two excellent but somewhat defaced pictures in the National Gallery, 592 and 1033, are works not of Filippino, but of Botticelli, whose dramatic powers are well displayed here" (Italian Masters in German Galleries, p. 236). For a full discussion leading to the same conclusion, see Monkhouse's In the National Gallery, p. 73.
[154] Miss Betham-Edwards, on a visit to the painter at By, was shown some sketches for "The Horse Fair." "'There you have a Boulonnais,' I observed, as we contemplated the study of a fine black cart-horse. This remark gratified her. 'I am glad to find a stranger so much interested in our cart-horses'" (Anglo-French Reminiscences, ch. xxv.). Rosa Bonheur's knowledge of the animal world of France was very wide and precise.
[155] This was Rosa Bonheur's own faith. "I believe," she once said, "in a just God, and a Paradise of the just. But religion (i.e. the religion of Rome) does not altogether satisfy me. I hold it monstrous that animals are supposed to be without souls. My poor lioness loved me. Thus she had more soul than certain human beings who do not know what it is to love anything."
[156] "Giulio Romano did a little of everything for the Dukes of Mantua,—from painting the most delicate and improper little fresco for a bedchamber, to restraining the Po and Mincio with immense dykes, restoring ancient edifices and building new ones, draining swamps and demolishing and reconstructing whole streets, painting palaces and churches, and designing the city slaughter-house" (W. D. Howells's Italian Journeys, "Ducal Mantua"). Giulio's departure from Rome to Mantua was due to the scandal caused by the publication of some obscene designs of his (see Symonds, v. 341).
[157] "The piece of St. Catherine's dress over her shoulders is painted on the under dress, after that was dry. All its value would have been lost, had the slightest tint or trace of it been given previously. This picture, I think, and certainly many of Tintoret's, are painted on dark grounds; but this is to save time, and with some loss to the future brightness of the colour" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. viii. ch. iv. § 17 n.).
[158] Robert Browning, however, notes "the bonne bourgeoisie of his pictures; the dear common folk of his crowds, divinely pure they all are, but fresh from the streets and market-place" (Letters of Robert and E. B. Browning, i. 197). Mr. Langton Douglas in an illustrated monograph on Fra Angelico (1900) lays stress on the painter's "strength and freedom" as shown in the "Adoration of the Magi" at San Marco, or the "San Lorenzo giving alms" in the studio of Pope Nicholas; illustrates the influence of contemporary architecture and sculpture on his work; and characterises him not as "a saint with a happy knack of illustration," but as "an artist who happened to be a saint."
[159] "This," says Mr. Hipkins of the present picture, "is the grandest and most extended mediæval band on record, worthy of the heavenly Host, to declare the praises of the Blessed Trinity." Mr. Hipkins gives an interesting identification and description of the instruments employed. To the left of the centre compartment we may find a viol, a rebec, a clarion, trumpets, harp, cither, double flute, and psaltery—also a tambourine, beaten with the hand, a tabor, and a portable organ. In the centre, under Christ, are two organs. The player on the pipe and tabor, left of the Redeemer, blows what seems to be a short French whistle. "Next to this musician is a cymbal player. The time beater is apparently no less required where time exists no more than he is in our terrestrial world; such discipline of rhythm is hereby sanctified." "In the upper rows, on the left hand of the Redeemer, we see one of those large guitar-viols which were used by the troubadours" (see further The Hobby Horse, No. 1, 1893, pp. 14-16).
[160] "The many small figures which are seen here surrounded by a celestial glory are so beautiful," says Vasari of this picture, "that they appear to be truly beings of paradise; nor can he who approaches them be ever weary of regarding their beauty."