This touching kindness greatly affected the Greek, who had been already so deeply moved by the fainting of Beato. He began to comprehend the love with which this pious monk was inflamed for the salvation of his soul. "My brother," said the Dominican to him, while joining his hands, "you have restored me to life, but in promising to do as I wish, and I only desire to save you. You must discharge your conscience of its weight of sin—you must confess." "But I cannot believe in the necessity of confession, or in its divine institution." "O my brother, if you could contemplate your poor soul in its mirror of truth, it would appear so shaded and sullied. Your soul is bound in cords ruder than those that chained your body when they led you to execution. But confession would deliver you from all." "Let me see this with my eyes, or I can never believe it." A sudden inspiration came to the mind of the angelical painter. "My brother, we will speak again of this. I am hurried to finish a picture; would you be pleased I should paint it with you by my side, that I might every morning distract your thoughts and keep you company?" "Oh! yes, my father, I should be most happy, for you are very good to the poor prisoner." The Beato obtained permission from Nicholas V. to suspend for some days his work at the Vatican, and from the next morning he installed himself in the prison, accompanied by his pupil Benozzo Bozzoli, who brought with him an easel, some brushes, and a box of colors. After a fervent prayer, he placed on the easel a small panel of wood, upon which he commenced to paint rapidly, and without retouching, according to his custom; he never perfected his paintings, leaving them according to his first impression, believing, as he said, so God wished them. "His art," says M. de Moutalembert, "was so beautiful in his eyes, and so sacred, that he respected its productions as the fruits of an inspiration much higher than his own intention." He commenced by painting, as a foundation for his picture, some trees, which rose near a house of simple appearance, and a modest church, decorated by a portico supported by four pillars in Florentine style. In a court grown over with herbs and studded here and there with [{678}] flowers, he grouped five personages. At the right our Saviour, clothed in a blue robe and draped in a red mantle, is seen in profile; a large nimbus of gold encircles his tender and majestic countenance, his golden hair falls on his shoulders. The Saviour has an attitude of command, and extends his arm and hand which holds a golden rod. He accomplished one of the greatest acts of his mercy, he institutes the sacrament of penance, he gives to his apostles the power to remit sins: one can almost hear him repeat the words which he addresses to Peter, that he may transmit them to the entire Christian priesthood: "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." [Footnote 192]
[Footnote 192: In the convent of St. Mark at Florence, the Beato has painted the grand scene of Calvary, where he represents St. Benedict holding in his hand the rod of penitence.]
The painter monk put into action these words of Christ. He painted a priest in Florentine costume; a red cap encircled with ermine and a blue dalmatic, which hung in graceful folds; his figure is youthful, and expression benignant. This priest approaches a sinner in a red dress, and turbaned with a cap of gold and ermine. The sinner is bound with cords which are passed several times around his body. The priest approaches him with ineffable compassion. With what care, what delicacy, what respect, what love, he unties the cord with his white and pure hands! With what grace and dignity he fills his office of priest and confessor! The seven capital sins are figured by seven demons chased from his body by absolution, and who are making every effort to re-enter it. Rage and impatience are depicted on the faces of these servants of Satan, and their attitudes are as various as strange. One of them still threatens the sinner with his iron trident. In the second part, Fra Angelico represents a person in a green robe and turban, who expresses, by figure and gesture, his admiration at the sight of this miracle of divine mercy, which is called the institution of confession. Near this man, and right against the Saviour, is a second personage, of whom the face only is seen. His head is bared, and his angelical features seem to recall those of the Beato, such as they are sculptured on his tombstone at Santa Maria sopra Minerva. The Greek had followed with curiosity and profound interest all the details of this picture, accomplished in three days under his own inspection. He had admired the piety of the Angelico, who, according to his custom, had not dared to paint the head of the Saviour but on bended knees. Contrary to his usual manner, he had only lightly sketched the face of the sinner bound with the cord. It was on the third day that he suddenly finished it. But how express the surprise and emotion of Argyropoulos, when he perceived that, under the pencil of the painter-monk, this face became his own portrait! The blessed one had painted his gray beard, his noble profile, and expressed in his face at the same time the grief of being restrained by sin and the hope of a speedy deliverance. Argyropoulos, in the midst of the picture, had truly an expression of contrition in the intensity of his regard. "It is I," cried the Greek, "it is I indeed!" And he burst into tears. The divine touch of grace had vanquished him at last. "My father, my father, untie me also, deliver me from the bonds of many sins." The Angelico seized him in his arms, and in transports of joy pressed him to his breast, then begged him to kneel with him and render thanks to God. He passed several days in explaining to him Catholic truths; then he received the acknowledgment of his faults, baptized him conditionally at St. Jean de Latran, in the baptistry of Constantine. [Footnote 193]
[Footnote 193: The author has here fallen into a mistake; the sacraments of the Greek Church are never reiterated conditionally. —Ed. CATHOLIC WORLD.]
The eve of this great day he had enjoined him, as penance, to go to the Vatican, throw himself at the feet of the Pope, and ask pardon on his knees for the invective he had cast on the holy father in the chapel. Nicholas V. received him kindly, and said: "My son, Jesus Christ has pardoned you, and I could not do otherwise than he of whom I am vicar; I absolve you, not only for what you have said against me, but the crimes committed against society. I grant you full and entire pardon from the punishment you have merited, in the hope that your new life will atone for the past." The Greek prostrated himself with gratitude, and kissed his feet; then showed the picture from which he would never part. The Pope admired it, and said to the painter-monk: "Your pencil has worked another miracle of conversion." The humble artist replied that only to God must be given the glory, and recited the verse of David: "Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam." This was the device of the Templars, and we have seen it in Venice engraved on the wall of the old palace Vendramini. "Most holy father," said the Greek. "I know with what goodness your Holiness has received my compatriots, Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond, Calchondylos, and Gemistos Plethon, who after the taking of Constantinople took refuge on a Venetian galley, and have come to Italy, bringing with them the precious manuscripts of the ancient Greek authors and fathers of the Greek Church, which but for them would have been burned by the infidels. They have been most happy to repay your hospitality by enriching the library of the Vatican with these literary treasures." "It is true," said Nicholas V. "Thanks to their and other conquests, we have become able to reunite in the Vatican nearly five thousand manuscripts; it is, we believe, the richest collection made since the dispersion of the Alexandrian library. But I still have one gap to fill, and I have promised a reward of fifty thousand ducats to him who will bring me the gospel of St. Matthew in the original language." "O holy father, how can I express my happiness! I possess this manuscript, which I brought from Constantinople. After having committed the crime by which I merited death, I hid this book in a place in the Roman campagna, where I could easily find it again. To thank your Holiness for all your goodness, I am only too happy to offer you the gospel of St. Matthew," Nicholas V. was delighted, he who ever thanked God for the taste given him from his youth for literature, and the faculties necessary for its successful cultivation. On the receipt of the manuscript the Pope paid to the Greek the fifty thousand ducats, who, finding himself possessed of so great a fortune, resolved to go to Venice, and engage in commerce with one of his compatriots. He quitted Rome with regret to leave Fra Angelico, but returned at Easter to confess to the saviour of his soul, as he called him, and receive the communion from his hands in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. The mass said by the Beato inspired him with great devotion, and he was happy to receive from such pure hands the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The year that followed 1455, the Greek appeared at the same epoch, carrying ever with him, in a casket of cedar, the precious painting which had been the determining cause of his conversion, [Footnote 194] and which, he never ceased to contemplate with love and, gratitude, repeating what Vasari said of another picture of the Beato: "I can affirm I never contemplate this work that it does not appear new to me, and I am never satisfied gazing upon it."
[Footnote 194: This picture on wood is painted a tempera and enriched with gold. It is twenty-seven centimetres high, and twenty-three broad. After various vicissitudes it was carried from Rome to Venice, from Florence to Turin, and finally found an asylum in Paris, in the celebrated Pourtales gallery. To-day it is in possession of him who relates the story, according to a traditional account received by him at Rome.]
Scarcely landed at Rome, Argyropoulos hastened, according to his custom, to the convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva and asked for Fra Angelico. At this name grief overshadowed the countenance of the brother porter, who replied: "Alas! signor, the blessed one has gone from earth and left us to sorrow. His death was as angelical as his life." The prior, who appeared, confirmed the sad news and gave the details to the heart-broken Greek. The holy father said he was so impatient to enjoy his beautiful chapel that he hurried continually our blessed brother to finish his work; and he, ever willing to be sacrificed to duty, and believing he worked for God in serving this vicar, would not even interrupt his work during the fever season, which is always more pernicious at the Vatican than elsewhere. His health was lost by it entirely, he languished, and died at last of malaria. Argyropoulos shed tears and asked to pray by the tomb of his friend. It is still seen at the left of the church choir, a simple tombstone encased vertically in the wall; the painter-monk is rudely sculptured in bas-relief in his Dominican robe, with hands joined, his head uplifted, and mouth partly opened as in prayer, as he was in life, as he was particularly in death. I have often contemplated this sepulchral stone, and recalled the verse of Dante, which could so well have described the heart of Argyropoulos:
"Come, perche di lor memoria sia,
Sovr' a sepoiti le tombe terragne
Porton segnato quel ch'elli eran pria;
Onde li molte volte siripiagne.
Por la pun ura della rimenbranza
Che solo a pii da della calcagne."