We visited the Pauline and Sistine Chapels, the latter of which contains Michael Angelo's awful and in some sense revolting picture of the Last Judgment; and many marvellous frescoes from scripture history by the same great master. Wonderful and magnificent as these pictures are in an artistic sense, I never see depicted these imaginary "heavens and hells" without thinking—
"What is the heaven our God bestows?
No prophet yet, nor angel knows;
Was never yet created eye
Could see across eternity."
While doing this great work, Michael Angelo was only too evidently under the bondage of the Papacy; for in this picture the Virgin Saint usurps the place of our all-sufficing, merciful, and loving Saviour. All must be saved (or lost?) only through Popes and Saints; no peace, even for the dead, without money payment! It is in the Sistine Chapel that the cardinals meet in conclave on the decease of a pope, to elect his successor.
Still we wandered on through miles of pictures and sculpture, wondering in amazement how these great men could have performed so much in a single lifetime, remembering how little—how very little, we ourselves accomplish, one day like another repeating, alas! the same sad story of "Nothing done."
Perhaps the culminating centre of these galleries is the Pinacoteca, which contains the choicest works of all. Chiefest among them is Raphael's sublime and wonderful painting of The Transfiguration. "A calm, benignant beauty shines over all this picture, and goes directly to the heart. It seems almost to call you by name. The sweet and sublime face of Jesus is beyond praise, yet how it disappoints all florid expectations! This familiar, simple, home-speaking countenance is as if one should meet a friend. The knowledge of picture-dealers has its value, but listen not to their criticisms when your heart is touched by genius. It was not painted for them; it was painted for you—for such as had eyes capable of being touched by simplicity and lofty emotions." Transcendentalists do not often indulge in remarks on material objects, but when Emerson speaks about a picture it is worth quoting.
Only second to the Transfiguration is Raphael's lovely Madonna, so full of true womanly loveliness and purity of soul—a beauty that expands the heart, and makes one feel purer and happier for having gazed thereon. The inspired aim of these great painters seems to have been to show us the marvellous love of God, and the exceeding beauty of his creation. Many of the pictures represent painful scenes of the sufferings of the early Christian martyrs. While looking at these dreadful conceptions, so truthfully portrayed, and also when visiting the Mamertine Prison, the Tarpeian Rock, and the Catacombs, I could not but feel ashamed at the miserable little sacrifices we present-day Christians are content to make for our religion. We can never be sufficiently thankful that we are no longer required to prove our faith in such a terrible and utterly self-denying way.
The sculpture-gallery came next. "Painting," says Hawthorne, "is sunlight; sculpture is moonlight." Here group after group of beautifully chiselled marble claimed our attention. The Minerva Medica, Niobe, Apollo, the Faun, the Torso Belvedere, the Apollo Belvedere, and a thousand others; above all, that miracle of ancient art—the Laocoon:
"A father's love and mortal's agony,
With an immortal's patience blending:—vain
The struggle; vain, against the coiling strain
And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp,
The old man's clench; the long envenom'd chain
Rivets the living links,—the enormous asp
Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp."
By the way, both here and at St. Peter's much of the natural beauty of the nude figures is artificially covered, which certainly greatly detracts from the effect. This was done by the command of some prudish Pope, who was as surely wanting in right and pure feeling as in a proper comprehension and appreciation of art.
"The heathen
[132] Veiled their Diana with some drapery;
And when they represented Venus naked
They made her, by her modest attitude,
Appear half clothed."