The church was nearly full of people in bright holiday attire, quite absorbed in their devotions, and, though mostly of the lower classes, so-called, they all responded in Latin to the litany at the close of the service. Near by us, in the pavement, was a tomb-stone with the bas-relief of a boy with a book under his head, another in his hand, and one at his feet. This was a promising youth named Fabrizio Manlio, who so loved the Mergellina that, when ill, he wished to be brought here to die, and here be buried, as his touching epitaph relates. But that was three hundred years ago, and the father who here records the tears he shed long since rejoined his son, and now there is not a smile the less at sunny Naples. Why lay aught too much to heart?
In a recess at the right is a noted painting, generally known at Naples as the Diavolo di Mergellina. This is no new fiend, but the old outcast from heaven vanquished by St. Michael, the great captain of the heavenly host, a picture by Leonardo da Pistoja, a Tuscan painter of the Da Vinci school. The archangel, “severe in youthful beauty,” is girded with a vest of heavenly azure, and from his shoulders spring broad wings of many hues—green, yellow, and purple—with rays like long arrows of gold. His right hand seemingly disdains to use its sword—“Satan’s dire dread”—but holds it behind him, while with the left he thrusts his long spear through the demon’s neck and nails him to the ground. His face is perfectly passionless, as if not even so terrible a combat could ruffle the serenity of his angelic nature. The Diavolo is one of those strange demons that entice souls down to the gulf of perdition, common in the middle ages, with two faces, not Janus-wise, but with the second face on the bowels, of most startling character. The fiend before us has the beautiful face and bust of a woman, said to be the genuine portrait of a lady who became passionately enamored of Diomedes Carafa, Bishop of Ariano, who lies buried at the foot of the altar beneath, with the triumphant inscription: Et fecit victoriam, halleluja! which may be applied both to the bishop and the archangel. The round arms of this fair demon are drawn up under her head. Her long, golden locks
“In masses bright
Fall like floating rays of light”
around her shoulders and half-veil her bosom. Her youthful face is deadly pale, but not contracted, and her eyes are cold and vigilant. The lower face, on the contrary, is old and convulsed, as if crying with pain. The hair is grizzled and witch-like. The legs are like two scaly serpents, twisted and writhing, and the bat-like wings shade off to a lurid brown and yellow. The contrast in these two faces is very striking and has a deep moral. It is a common proverb at Naples to compare too tempting a project, or too seducing a beauty, to the Diavolo di Mergellina.
The high altar of the church is of inlaid marble. At the sides are niches containing statues of SS. Jacobo and Nazzaro, the patrons of the founder. On what is called the arch of triumph over the head of the nave is an old painting of the Annunciation, the Virgin in one spandrel with the dove on her hand, and the angel in the other with the lily stem. Along the connecting arch is the distich from Sannazzaro:
“Virginitas Partus discordes tempore longo,
Virginia in gremio fœdera pacis habent.”[[82]]
In a neighboring recess is an Adoration of the Magi, which contends with that of the Castello Nuovo as being the one given Sannazzaro by Frederick of Aragon, painted by Van Eyck, and said by Vasari to be the first oil-painting ever brought to Italy.
We searched a long time in vain for the tomb of Sannazzaro. Chapels, flagstones, and mural inscriptions, all underwent a severe scrutiny; and, supposing it must have been destroyed in some political convulsion, when even death itself is not respected, we were on the point of leaving the church when it occurred to us to go behind the high altar. We found there a door which we made bold to enter, remembering how often we had been repaid for exploring sacristies and odd nooks. There was the tomb directly before us, in the smallest of choirs in which ever monk lost his voice “with singing of anthems.” It is the most quiet, secluded spot in the world—dim, frescoed, and crowded with a dozen stalls, on which cherubs’ heads are carved. It is more like a little chantry than a choir, and nothing ever breaks the silence but the voice of holy psalmody. The poet’s tomb is of white marble, chiefly sculptured by Fra Giovanni da Montorsoli. It is surmounted by his bust crowned with laurel. The face is somewhat haggard, but the features are noble. He wears a cap like that we see in pictures of Dante. Beside him are two putti, one with a book and the other bearing a helmet, in allusion to the different ways in which Sannazzaro distinguished himself. The sarcophagus beneath rests on an entablature, below which, in delicate relief, are Neptune and his trident—doubtless in allusion to the Piscatoriæ—and Pan with his reeds, accompanied by fauns and satyrs, with jovial faces and shaggy sides, as if to sing the praises of the author of the Arcadia. Along the base of the monument is an inscription by Bembo, which shows he believed Virgil to have been buried at Naples: