Then came the critics. They proved that it was not Raphael but Sebastian del Piombo who had painted the portrait, and that it represented not “La Fornarina” but an entirely different woman, a beauty of Bologna. Their scepticism, however, stopped short of rejecting the whole story. They cling to that in all its details, and one of them, Signor Valeri, of Rome, has just confirmed it by discovering “La Fornarina’s” name. His method is interesting.
First, he found in somebody’s manuscript life of Goethe that “La Fornarina’s” Christian name was Margarita; next, in a census of Rome made in 1518, two years before Raphael’s death, kept in the Vatican library, he discovered that a baker named Francesco, from Siena, kept a bakery near the Church of Santa Cecilia; finally, he searched in the registers of the nunnery of Santa Apollonia, and found there under the date August 18, 1520, four months after Raphael’s death, the name of “Margarita, daughter of the late Francesco Luti of Siena,” as having been received into the convent as a nun. Therefore this Margarita Luti or Luzzi must necessarily be “La Fornarina.”
This demonstration was hardly needed by the art critics, whose faith in the existence of the Fornarina was unshaken. Having discredited the Uffizi portrait, they looked around among Raphael’s other paintings for her features. For a time they inclined to the “Veiled Woman” in the Pitti Gallery, but finally settled on the Sistine Madonna as representing the painter’s beloved. The evidence for the identification is of the slightest, and surely the simple peasant girl, whose innocence and loveliness alone the painter has transmitted to us, might have been left unsmirched. Such as it is, however, the identification is shaken by another art critic. A lynx-eyed young German iconoclast has cast doubts on the authenticity of the Dresden Gallery’s treasure, and declares boldly that the picture is not the “Madonna di San Sisto,” and that in all likelihood Raphael never painted it. His attack is backed by such a display of erudition that the director of the gallery went to Italy to find out if there might not be some foundation of truth in it.
While critics wrangle over unessentials, however, the Sistine Virgin, the loveliest creation of Raphael’s genius, will grace our homes, the most overpowering figure known to the tablets of art.
The Letter M
Napoleon I. was a fatalist, and among his superstitions was a firmly-rooted notion that places and persons whose names began with the letter M possessed immense power over his fortunes for good or for evil. An ingenious Frenchman, evidently inclined to believe that there was some good ground for Napoleon’s faith, makes up the following strange list of M’s: Six Marshals—Massena, Mortier, Marmont, Macdonald, Murat, and Moncey—without counting twenty-six division Generals. Moreau betrayed him. Marseilles was the place where he encountered the greatest difficulties at the commencement of his career. Marbœuf was the first to suspect his genius and to shove him ahead. His most brilliant battles were Montenotte, Mantua, Millesimo, Mondovi, Marengo, Malta, Mont Thabor, Montmirvil, Mormans, Montereau, Méry, Montmartre (assault), Mont-Saint-Jean, the last at Waterloo. At the siege of Toulon his first point of attack was Fort Malbousquet. There he singled out Muiron, who covered him with his body on the bridge of Arcole. Milan was the capital of his new kingdom. Moscow was the last town that he took. Menon made him lose Egypt. Miollis was selected to capture Pius VII. Malet conspired against him. Metternich beat him diplomatically. Maret was his secretary and his confidant. Montalivet was his Minister, and Montesquin his first Chamberlain. In March, 1796, he married Josephine, and in March, 1810, he married Marie Louise. In March, 1811, the King of Rome was born. Malmaison, a well-named unlucky house, was his last residence in France. He surrendered to Captain Maitland. At Saint Helena, Montholon was his companion in captivity and Marchand his valet de chambre. He died in May, 1821. The letter M also comes to the front in the career of Napoleon III. He married the Countess de Montijo. Morny is not forgotten. In the war of the Crimea we find Malakoff and Mamelon. In the Italian campaign we find Montebello, Marignon, Magenta, Milan, Mazzini. Toward the close of his career Mexico appears with Maximilian, Méjia, and Miramon. In the war with Germany he pinned his faith upon the mitrailleuse, and the names of Moltke and Metz are conspicuous enough in the history of that campaign.
The Iron Maiden
The “Torture Chamber” in the five-sided tower of the old burgh was for many years one of the show-places of Nuremberg. The collection of instruments of fiendishness, made by a Franconian nobleman, numbered between five and six hundred. There were all sorts of repulsive contrivances,—racks, wedges, hammers, clubs, pulleys, thumb-screws, iron boots to crush the limbs, metal collars for the neck, brass masks for the head, copper boilers for scalding water, and headsmen’s axes. Their removal, by purchase, has served as a reminder of the wisdom of the clause in the Constitution of the United States (Art. viii.) forbidding the infliction of “cruel and unusual punishments.”
The central jewel, the Kohinoor of the relics of barbarism and diabolism, is one of the most awful graven images it ever entered into the heart of men to conceive, the world-infamous Eiserne Jungfrau, the “Iron Maiden,” of Nuremberg. This monstrous invention was an improvement in ferocity upon the brazen bull into which the ancient tyrant, after heating it red hot, was wont to thrust his naked victims. Many Americans have seen the Iron Maiden; all Americans ought to see her. The sight of the hideous figure is an excellent tonic for young Yankees of both sexes suffering from “over-culture,” and seduced into a fit of moonlit mediævalism by the picturesque and romantic attractions of such “quaint old towns of art and song” as the city of Hans Sachs and Albert Dürer. For the Iron Maiden was no ingenious toy devised to amuse the idle and frighten the thoughtless into good behavior. Clasped in her stifling embrace, pierced in all parts of the human body not absolutely vital by the sharpened spikes set into the steel valves which had closed upon him, a living man, many a wretch yielded up the ghost in torments not to be conceived of adequately save by the imagination of an Edgar Poe. And this not by the edict of a despot mad with unbridled power, but in the normal course of justice, or of religious persecution, as justice and religion were understood and administered during the “good old times.”