Chapter X: Part 10

In those days there reigned over the country a certain queen whose name was Lupa, and she and all her people were plunged in wickedness and idolatry. Now, having come to shore, they laid the body of the apostle upon a great stone, which became like wax, and, receiving the body, closed around it: this was a sign that the saint willed to remain there; but the wicked queen Lupa was displeased, and she commanded that they should harness some wild bulls to a car, and place on it the body, with the self-formed tomb, hoping that they would drag it to destruction. But in this she was mistaken; for the wild bulls, when signed by the cross, became as docile as sheep, and they drew the body of the apostle straight into the court of her palace. When Queen Lupa beheld this miracle, she was confounded, and she and all her people became Christians: she built a magnificent church to receive the sacred remains, and died in the odour of sanctity.

But then came the darkness and ruin which during the invasion of the Barbarians overshadowed all Spain; and the body of the apostle was lost, and no one knew where to find it, till, in the year 800, the place of sepulture was revealed to a certain holy friar.

Then they caused the body of the saint to be transported to Compostella; and, in consequence of the surprising miracles which graced his shrine, he was honoured not merely in Galicia, but throughout all Spain. He became the patron saint of the Spaniards, and Compostella, as a place of pilgrimage, was renowned throughout Europe. From all countries bands of pilgrims resorted there, so that sometimes there were no less than a hundred thousand in one year. The military Order of Saint Jago, enrolled by Don Alphonso for their protection, became one of the greatest and richest in Spain.

Now, if I should proceed to recount all the wonderful deeds enacted by Santiago in behalf of his chosen people, they would fill a volume. The Spanish historians number thirty-eight visible apparitions, in which this glorious saint descended from heaven in person, and took the command of their armies against the Moors. The first of these, and the most famous of all, I shall now relate.

In the year of our Lord 939, King Ramirez, having vowed to deliver Castile from the shameful tribute imposed by the Moors, of one hundred virgins delivered annually, collected his troops, and defied their king Abdelraman, to battle:

The king call’d God to witness, that, came there weal or woe,
Thenceforth no maiden tribute from out Castile should go.—
‘At least I will do battle on God our Saviour’s foe,
And die beneath my banner before I see it so!’

Accordingly he charged the Moorish host on the plain of Alveida or Clavijo: after a furious conflict, the Christians were, by the permission of Heaven, defeated, and forced to retire. Night separated the combatants, and King Ramirez, overpowered with fatigue, and sad at heart, flung himself upon his couch and slept. In his sleep he beheld the apostle St. Jago, who promised to be with him next morning in the field, and assured him of victory. The king, waking up from the glorious vision, sent for his prelates and officers, to whom he related it; and the next morning, at the head of his army, he recounted it to his soldiers, bidding them rely on heavenly aid. He then ordered the trumpets to sound to battle. The soldiers, inspired with fresh courage, rushed to the fight. Suddenly St. Jago was seen mounted on a milk-white charger, and waving aloft a white standard; he led on the Christians, who gained a decisive victory, leaving 60,000 Moors dead on the field. This was the famous battle of Clavijo; and ever since that day, ‘SANTIAGO!’ has been the war-cry of the Spanish armies.

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But it was not only on such great occasions that the invincible patron of Spain was pleased to exhibit his power: he condescended oftentimes to interfere for the protection of the poor and oppressed, of which I will now give a notable instance, as it is related by Pope Calixtus II.

There was a certain German, who with his wife and son went on a pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella. Having come as far as Torlosa, they lodged at an inn there; and the host had a fair daughter, who, looking on the son of the pilgrim, a handsome and a graceful youth, became deeply enamoured; but he, being virtuous, and, moreover, on his way to a holy shrine, refused to listen to her allurements. Then she thought how she might be avenged for this slight put upon her charms, and hid in his wallet her father’s silver drinking-cup. The next morning, no sooner were they departed, than the host, discovering his loss, pursued them, accused them before the judge, and the cup being found in the young man’s wallet, he was condemned to be hung, and all they possessed was confiscated to the host.

Then the afflicted parents pursued their way lamenting, and made their prayer and their complaint before the altar of the blessed Saint Jago; and thirty-six days afterwards as they returned by the spot where their son hung on the gibbet, they stood beneath it, weeping and lamenting bitterly. Then the son spoke and said, ‘O my mother! O my father! do not lament for me, for I have never been in better cheer; the blessed apostle James is at my side, sustaining me and filling me with celestial comfort and joy!’ The parents, being astonished, hastened to the judge, who at that moment was seated at table, and the mother called out, ‘Our son lives!’ The judge mocked at them: ‘What sayest thou, good woman? thou art beside thyself! If thy son liveth, so do those fowls in my dish.’ And lo! scarcely had he uttered the words, when the fowls (being a cock and a hen) rose up full-feathered in the dish, and the cock began to crow, to the great admiration of the judge and his attendants.[212] Then the judge rose up from table hastily, and called together the priests and the lawyers, and they went in procession to the gibbet, took down the young man, and restored him to his parents; and the miraculous cock and hen were placed under the protection of the Church, where they and their posterity long flourished in testimony of this stupendous miracle.

There are many other legends of St. James; the Spanish chroniclers in prose and verse abound in such; but, in general, they are not merely incredible, but puerile and unpoetical; and I have here confined myself to those which I know to have been treated in Art.

Previous to the twelfth century, St. James is only distinguished among the apostles by his place, which is the fourth in the series, the second after St. Peter and St. Paul. In some instances he is portrayed with a family resemblance to Christ, being his kinsman; the thin beard, and the hair parted and flowing down on each side. But from the thirteenth century it became a fashion to characterise St. James as a pilgrim of Compostella: he bears the peculiar long staff, to which the wallet or gourd of water is suspended; the cloak with a long cape, the scallop-shell on his shoulder or on his flapped hat. Where the cape, hat, and scallop-shells are omitted, the staff, borne as the first of the apostles who departed to fulfil his Gospel mission, remains his constant attribute, and by this he may be recognised in the Madonna pictures, and when grouped with other saints.

The single devotional figures of St. James represent him in two distinct characters:—

1. As tutelar saint of Spain, and conqueror of the Moors. In his pilgrim habit, mounted on a white charger, and waving a white banner, with white hair and beard streaming like a meteor, or sometimes armed in complete steel, spurred like a knight, his casque shadowed by white plumes, he tramples over the prostrate Infidels; so completely was the humble, gentle-spirited apostle of Christ merged in the spirit of the religious chivalry of the time. This is a subject frequent in Spanish schools. The figure over the high altar of Santiago is described as very grand when seen in the solemn twilight.

2. St. James as patron saint in the general sense. The most beautiful example I have met with is a picture in the Florence Gallery, painted by Andrea del Sarto for the Compagnia or Confraternita of Sant’ Jacopo, and intended to figure as a standard in their processions. The Madonna di San Sisto of Raphael was painted for a similar purpose: and such are still commonly used in the religious processions in Italy; but they have no longer Raphaels and Andrea-del-Sartos to paint them. In this instance the picture has a particular form, high and narrow, adapted to its especial purpose: St. James wears a green tunic, and a rich crimson mantle; and as one of the purposes of the Compagnia was to educate poor orphans, they are represented by the two boys at his feet. This picture suffered from the sun and the weather, to which it had been a hundred times exposed in yearly processions; but it has been well restored, and is admirable for its vivid colouring as well as the benign attitude and expression.

3. St. James seated; he holds a large book bound in vellum (the Gospels) in his left hand—and with his right points to heaven: by Guercino, in the gallery of Count Harrach, at Vienna. One of the finest pictures by Guercino I have seen.

Pictures from the life of St. James singly, or as a series, are not common; but among those which remain to us there are several of great beauty and interest.

In the series of frescoes painted in a side chapel of the church of St. Antony of Padua (A.D. 1376), once called the Capella di San Giacomo, and now San Felice, the old legend of St. James has been exactly followed; and though ruined in many parts, and in others coarsely repainted, these works remain as compositions amongst the most curious monuments of the _Trecentisti_. It appears that, towards the year 1376, Messer Bonifacio de’ Lupi da Parma, Cavaliere e Marchese di Serana, who boasted of his descent from the Queen Lupa of the legend, dedicated this chapel to St. James of Spain (San Jacopo di Galizia), and employed M. Jacopo Avanzi to decorate it, who no doubt bestowed his best workmanship on his patron saint. The subjects are thus arranged, beginning with the lunette on the left hand, which is divided into three compartments:

1. Hermogenes sends Philetus to dispute with St. James. 2. St. James in his pulpit converts Philetus. 3. Hermogenes sends his demons to bind St. James and Philetus. 4. Hermogenes brought bound to St. James. 5. He burns his books of magic. 6. Hermogenes and Philetus are conversing in a friendly manner with St. James. 7. St. James is martyred. 8. The arrival of his body in Spain in a marble ship steered by an angel. 9. The disciples lay the body on a rock, while Queen Lupa and her sister and another personage look on from a window in her palace. Then follow two compartments on the side where the window is broken out, much ruined; they represented apparently the imprisonment of the disciples. 12. The disciples escape and are pursued, and their pursuers with their horses are drowned. 13. The wild bulls draw the sarcophagus into the court of Queen Lupa’s palace. 14. Baptism of Lupa. 15 and 16 (lower compartments to the left): St. Jago appears to King Ramirez, and the defeat of the Moors at Clavijo.

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There is a rare and curious print by Martin Schoen, in which the apparition of St. James at Clavijo is represented not in the Spanish but the German style. It is an animated composition of many figures. The saint appears on horseback in the midst, wearing his pilgrim’s dress, with the cockle-shell in his hat: the Infidels are trampled down, or fly before him.

On the road from Spoleto to Foligno, about four miles from Spoleto, there is a small chapel dedicated to St. James of Galizia. The frescoes representing the miracles of the saint were painted by Lo Spagna (A.D. 1526), the friend and fellow pupil of Raphael. In the vault of the apsis is the Coronation of the Virgin; she kneels, attired in white drapery flowered with gold, and the whole group, though inferior in power, appeared to me in delicacy and taste far superior to the fresco of Fra Filippo Lippi at Spoleto, from which Passavant thinks it is borrowed.[213] Immediately under the Coronation, in the centre, is a figure of St. James as patron saint, standing with his pilgrim’s staff in one hand, and the Gospel in the other; his dress is a yellow tunic with a blue mantle thrown over it. In the compartment on the left, the youth is seen suspended on the gibbet, while St. James with his hands under his feet sustains him; the father and mother look up at him with astonishment. In the compartment to the right, we see the judge seated at dinner, attended by his servants, one of whom is bringing in a dish: the two pilgrims appear to have just told their story, and the cock and hen have risen up in the dish (78). These frescoes are painted with great elegance and animation, and the story is told with much naïveté. I found the same legend painted on one of the lower windows of the church of St. Ouen, and on a window of the right-hand aisle in St. Vincent’s at Rouen.

Of ST. JOHN, who is the fifth in the series, I have spoken at large under the head of the Evangelists.

ST. PHILIP.

_Ital._ San Filippo Apostolo. _Fr._ Saint Philippe. Patron of Brabant
and Luxembourg. May 1.

Of St. Philip there are few notices in the Gospel. He was born at Bethsaida, and he was one of the first of those whom our Lord summoned to follow him. After the ascension, he travelled into Scythia, and remained there preaching the Gospel for twenty years; he then preached at Hieropolis in Phrygia, where he found the people addicted to the worship of a monstrous serpent or dragon, or of the god Mars under that form. Taking compassion on their blindness, the apostle commanded the serpent, in the name of the cross he held in his hand, to disappear, and immediately the reptile glided out from beneath the altar, at the same time emitting such a hideous stench, that many people died, and among them the king’s son fell dead in the arms of his attendants: but the apostle, by Divine power, restored him to life. Then the priests of the dragon were incensed against him, and they took him, and crucified him, and being bound on the cross they stoned him; thus he yielded up his spirit to God, praying, like his Divine Master, for his enemies and tormentors.

According to the Scripture, St. Philip had four daughters, who were prophetesses, and made many converts to the faith of Christ (Acts, xxi. 9). In the Greek calendar, St. Mariamne, his sister, and St. Hermione, his daughter, are commemorated as martyrs.

When St. Philip is represented alone, or as one of the series of apostles, he is generally a man in the prime of life, with little beard, and with a benign countenance, being described as of a remarkably cheerful and affectionate nature. He bears, as his attribute, a cross, which varies in form; sometimes it is a small cross, which he carries in his hand; sometimes a high cross in the form of a T, or a tall staff with a small Latin cross at the top of it (79). The cross of St. Philip may have a treble signification: it may allude to his martyrdom; or to his conquest over the idols through the power of the cross; or, when placed on the top of the pilgrim’s staff, it may allude to his mission among the barbarians as preacher of the cross of salvation. Single figures of St. Philip as patron are not common: there is a fine statue of him on the façade of San Michele at Florence; and a noble figure by Beccafumi, reading;[214] another, seated and reading, by Ulrich Mair.[215]

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Subjects from the life of St. Philip, whether as single pictures or in a series, are also rarely met with. As he was the first called by our Saviour to leave all and follow him, and his vocation therefore a festival in the Church, it must, I think, have been treated apart; but I have not met with it. I know but of three historical subjects taken from his life:—

1. Bonifazio. St. Philip stands before the Saviour: the attitude of the latter is extremely dignified, that of Philip supplicatory; the other apostles are seen in the background: the colouring and expression of the whole like Titian. The subject of this splendid picture is expressed by the inscription underneath (John, xiv. 14): ‘Domine, ostende nobis Patrem, et sufficit nobis.’ ‘Philippe, qui videt me, videt et Patrem meum: ego et Pater unum sumus.‘[216]

2. St. Philip exorcises the serpent. The scene is the interior of a temple, an altar with the statue of the god Mars: a serpent, creeping from beneath the altar, slays the attendants with his poisonous and fiery breath. The ancient fresco in his chapel at Padua, described by Lord Lindsay, is extremely animated, but far inferior to the same subject in the Santa Croce at Florence by Fra Filippo Lippi, where the dignified attitude of the apostle, and the group of the king’s son dying in the arms of the attendants, are admirably effective and dramatic. St. Philip, it must be observed, was the patron saint of the painter.

3. The Crucifixion of St. Philip. According to the old Greek traditions, he was crucified with his head downwards, and he is so represented on the gates of San Paolo; also in an old picture over the tomb of Cardinal Philippe d’Alençon, where his patron, St. Philip, is attached to the cross with cords, and head downwards, like St. Peter;[217] but in the old fresco by Giusto da Padova, in the Capella di San Filippo, he is crucified in the usual manner, arrayed in a long red garment which descends to his feet.

* * * * *

It is necessary to avoid confounding St. Philip the apostle with St. Philip the deacon. It was Philip the deacon who baptized the chamberlain of Queen Candace, though the action has sometimes been attributed to Philip the apostle. The incident of the baptism of the Ethiopian, taking place in the road, by running water, ‘on the way that goeth down from Jerusalem to Gaza,’ has been introduced into several beautiful landscapes with much picturesque effect. Claude has thus treated it; Salvator Rosa; Jan Both, in a most beautiful picture in the Queen’s Gallery; Rembrandt, Cuyp, and others.

ST. BARTHOLOMEW.

_Lat._ S. Bartholomeus. _Ital._ San Bartolomeo. _Fr._ St. Barthélemi.
Aug. 24.

As St. Bartholomew is nowhere mentioned in the canonical books, except by name in enumerating the apostles, there has been large scope for legendary story, but in works of art he is not a popular saint. According to one tradition, he was the son of a husbandman; according to another, he was the son of a prince Ptolomeus. After the ascension of Christ he travelled into India, even to the confines of the habitable world, carrying with him the Gospel of St. Matthew; returning thence, he preached in Armenia and Cilicia; and coming to the city of Albanopolis, he was condemned to death as a Christian: he was first flayed and then crucified.

In single figures and devotional pictures, St. Bartholomew sometimes carries in one hand a book, the Gospel of St. Matthew; but his peculiar attribute is a large knife, the instrument of his martyrdom. The legends describe him as having a quantity of strong black hair and a bushy grizzled beard; and this portrait being followed very literally by the old German and Flemish painters, gives him, with his large knife, the look of a butcher. In the Italian pictures, though of a milder and more dignified appearance, he has frequently black hair; and sometimes dark and resolute features; yet the same legend describes him as of a cheerful countenance, wearing a purple robe and attended by angels. Sometimes St. Bartholomew has his own skin hanging over his arm, as among the saints in Michael Angelo’s Last Judgment, where he is holding forth his skin in one hand, and grasping his knife in the other: and in the statue by Marco Agrati in the Milan Cathedral, famous for its anatomical precision and its boastful inscription, _Non me Praxiteles sed Marcus pinxit Agratis_. I found in the church of Nôtre Dame at Paris a picture of St. Bartholomew healing the Princess of Armenia. With this exception, I know not any historical subject where this apostle is the principal figure, except his revolting and cruel martyrdom. In the early Greek representation on the gates of San Paolo, he is affixed to a cross, or rather to a post, with a small transverse bar at top, to which his hands are fastened above his head; an executioner, with a knife in his hand, stoops at his feet. This is very different from the representations in the modern schools. The best, that is to say, the least disgusting, representation I have met with, is a small picture by Agostino Caracci, in the Sutherland Gallery, which once belonged to King Charles I.: it is easy to see that the painter had the antique Marsyas in his mind. That dark ferocious spirit, Ribera, found in it a theme congenial with his own temperament;[218] he has not only painted it several times with a horrible truth and power, but etched it elaborately with his own hand: a small picture, copied from the etching, is at Hampton Court.

ST. THOMAS.

_Ital._ San Tomaso. _Sp._ San Tomé. Dec. 21. Patron Saint of Portugal
and Parma.

St. Thomas, called _Didymus_ (the twin), takes, as apostle, the seventh place. He was a Galilean and a fisherman, and we find him distinguished among the apostles on two occasions recorded in the Gospel. When Jesus was going up to Bethany, being then in danger from the Jews, Thomas said, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’ (John, xi. 16, xx. 25.) After the resurrection, he showed himself unwilling to believe in the reappearance of the crucified Saviour without ocular demonstration: this incident is styled the Incredulity of Thomas. From these two incidents we may form some idea of his character: courageous and affectionate, but not inclined to take things for granted; or, as a French writer expresses it, ‘brusque et résolu, mais d’un esprit exigeant.’ After the ascension, St. Thomas travelled into the East, preaching the Gospel in far distant countries towards the rising sun. It is a tradition received in the Church, that he penetrated as far as India; that there meeting with the three Wise Men of the East, he baptized them; that he founded a church in India, and suffered martyrdom there. It is related, that the Portuguese found at Meliapore an ancient inscription, purporting that St. Thomas had been pierced with a lance at the foot of a cross which he had erected in that city, and that in 1523 his body was found there and transported to Goa.

In Correggio’s fresco of St. Thomas as protector of Parma he is surrounded by angels bearing exotic fruits, as expressing his ministry in India.

There are a number of extravagant and poetical legends relating to St. Thomas. I shall here limit myself to those which were adopted in ecclesiastical decoration, and treated by the artists of the middle ages.

When St. Thomas figures as apostle, alone or with others, in all the devotional representations which are not prior to the thirteenth century he carries as his attribute the builder’s rule, of this form—

Now, as he was a fisherman, and neither a carpenter nor a mason, the origin of this attribute must be sought in one of the most popular legends of which he is the subject.

‘When St. Thomas was at Cesarea, our Lord appeared to him and said, “The king of the Indies, Gondoforus, hath sent his provost Abanes to seek for workmen well versed in the science of architecture, who shall build for him a palace finer than that of the Emperor of Rome. Behold, now, I will send thee to him.” And Thomas went, and Gondoforus commanded him to build for him a magnificent palace, and gave him much gold and silver for the purpose. The king went into a distant country, and was absent for two years; and St. Thomas meanwhile, instead of building a palace, distributed all the treasures entrusted to him among the poor and sick; and when the king returned, he was full of wrath, and he commanded that St. Thomas should be seized and cast into prison, and he meditated for him a horrible death. Meantime the brother of the king died; and the king resolved to erect for him a most magnificent tomb; but the dead man, after that he had been dead four days, suddenly arose and sat upright, and said to the king, “The man whom thou wouldst torture is a servant of God: behold I have been in Paradise, and the angels showed to me a wondrous palace of gold and silver and precious stones,” and they said, “This is the palace that Thomas the architect hath built for thy brother King Gondoforus.” And when the king heard these words, he ran to the prison, and delivered the apostle; and Thomas said to him, “Knowest thou not that those who would possess heavenly things, have little care for the things of this earth? There are in heaven rich palaces without number, which were prepared from the beginning of the world for those who purchase the possession through faith and charity. Thy riches, O king, may prepare the way for thee to such a palace, but they cannot follow thee thither.”’[219]

The builder’s rule in the hand of St. Thomas characterises him as the spiritual architect of King Gondoforus, and for the same reason he has been chosen among the saints as patron of architects and builders.

There is in this legend or allegory, fanciful as it is, an obvious beauty and significance, which I need not point out. It appears to me to be one of those many legends which originally were not assumed to be facts, but were related as parables, religious fictions invented for the instruction of the people, like our Saviour’s stories of the ‘Good Samaritan,’ the ‘Prodigal Son,’ &c., and were rendered more striking and impressive by the introduction of a celebrated and exalted personage—our Saviour, the Virgin, or one of the apostles—as hero of the tale. This beautiful legend of St. Thomas and King Gondoforus is painted on one of the windows of the cathedral at Bourges,—an appropriate offering from the company of builders in that ancient city. It is also the subject of one of the finest of the ancient French _mysteries_, which was acted with great applause at Paris in the fourteenth century.

But, in the historical subjects from the life of St. Thomas, the first place must be given to the one scriptural incident in which he figures as a principal person. ‘The Incredulity of St. Thomas’ occurs in all the early series of the life of Christ, as one of the events of his mission, and one of the proofs of his resurrection. On the ancient gates of San Paolo it is treated with great simplicity as a sacred mystery, St. Thomas being the principal personage in the action, as the one whose conviction was to bring conviction to the universe. Christ stands on a pedestal surmounted by a cross; the apostles are ranged on each side, and St. Thomas, approaching, stretches forth his hand. The incident, as a separate subject, is of frequent occurrence in the later schools of Italy, and in the Flemish schools. The general treatment, when given in this dramatic style, admits of two variations: either St. Thomas is placing his hand, with an expression of doubt and fear, on the wounds of the Saviour; or, his doubts being removed, he is gazing upwards in adoration and wonder. Of the first, one of the finest examples is a well-known picture by Rubens,[220] one of his most beautiful works, and extraordinary for the truth of the expression in the countenance of the apostle, whose hand is on the side of Christ; St. John and St. Peter are behind. In Vandyck’s picture at Petersburg, St. Thomas stoops to examine the Saviour’s hand. In a design ascribed to Raphael, we have the second version: the look of astonished conviction in St. Thomas.[221] Niccolò Poussin has painted it finely, introducing twelve figures.[222] Guercino’s picture is celebrated, but he has committed the fault of representing the two principal figures both in profile.[223]

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The legendary subject styled ‘La Madonna della Cintola’ belongs properly to the legends of the Virgin, but as St. Thomas is always a principal personage I shall mention it here. The legend relates that when the Madonna ascended into heaven, in the sight of the apostles, Thomas was absent; but after three days he returned, and, _doubting_ the truth of her glorious translation, he desired that her tomb should be opened; which was done, and lo! it was found empty. Then the Virgin, taking pity on his weakness and want of faith, threw down to him her girdle, that this tangible proof remaining in his hands might remove all doubts for ever from his mind: hence in many pictures of the Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin, St. Thomas is seen below holding the sacred girdle in his hand. For instance, in Raphael’s beautiful ‘Coronation’ in the Vatican; and in Correggio’s ‘Assumption’ at Parma, where St. Thomas holds the girdle, and another apostle kisses it.

The belief that the girdle is preserved in the Cathedral at Pistoia has rendered this legend a popular subject with the Florentine painters; and we find it treated, not merely as an incident in the scene of the Assumption, but in a manner purely mystic and devotional. Thus, in a charming bas-relief by Luca della Robbia,[224] the Virgin, surrounded by a choir of angels, presents her girdle to the apostle. In a beautiful picture by Granacci,[225] the Virgin is seated in the clouds; beneath is her empty sepulchre: on one side kneels St. Thomas, who receives with reverence the sacred girdle; on the other kneels the Archangel Michael. In simplicity of arrangement, beauty of expression, and tender harmony of colour, this picture has seldom been exceeded. Granacci has again treated this subject, and St. Thomas receives the girdle in the presence of St. John the Baptist, St. James Major, St. Laurence, and St. Bartholomew.[226] We have the same subject by Paolino da Pistoia; by Sogliani; and by Mainardi, a large and very fine fresco in the church of Santa Croce at Florence.

A poetical and truly mystical version of this subject is that wherein the Infant Saviour, seated or standing on his mother’s knee, looses her girdle and presents it to St. Thomas. Of this I have seen several examples; one in the Duomo at Viterbo.[227]

In the Martyrdom of St. Thomas, several idolaters pierce him through with lances and javelins. It was so represented on the doors of San Paolo, with four figures only. Rubens, in his large picture, has followed the legend very exactly; St. Thomas embraces the cross, at the foot of which he is about to fall, transfixed by spears. A large picture in the gallery of Count Harrach at Vienna, called there the Martyrdom of St. Jude, I believe to represent the Martyrdom of St. Thomas. Two of the idolatrous priests pierce him with lances. Albert Dürer, in his beautiful print of St. Thomas, represents him holding the lance, the instrument of his martyrdom: but this is very unusual.

The eighth in the order of the Apostles is the Evangelist ST. MATTHEW, of whom I have spoken at length.

ST. JAMES MINOR.

_Lat._ S. Jacobus Frater Domini. _Gr._ Adelphotheos. _Ital._ San
Jacopo or Giacomo Minore. _Fr._ St. Jacques Mineur. (May 1.)

The ninth is St. James Minor, or the Less, called also the Just: he was a near relative of Christ, being the son of Mary, the wife of Cleophas, who was the sister of the Virgin Mary; hence he is styled ‘the Lord’s brother.’ Nothing particular is related of him till after the ascension. He is regarded as first Christian bishop of Jerusalem, and venerated for his self-denial, his piety, his wisdom, and his charity. These characteristics are conspicuous in the beautiful Epistle which bears his name. Having excited, by the fervour of his teaching, the fury of the Scribes and Pharisees, and particularly the enmity of the high-priest Ananus, they flung him down from a terrace or parapet of the Temple, and one of the infuriated populace below beat out his brains with a _fuller’s club_.

In single figures and devotional pictures, St. James is generally leaning on this club, the instrument of his martyrdom. According to an early tradition, he so nearly resembled our Lord in person, in features, and deportment, that it was difficult to distinguish them. ‘The Holy Virgin herself,’ says the legend, ‘had she been _capable_ of error, might have mistaken one for the other:’ and this exact resemblance rendered necessary the kiss of the traitor Judas, in order to point out his victim to the soldiers.

This characteristic resemblance is attended to in the earliest and best representations of St. James, and by this he may usually be distinguished when he does not bear his club, which is often a thick stick or staff. With the exception of those Scripture scenes in which the apostles are present, I have met with few pictures in which St. James Minor is introduced: he does not appear to have been popular as a patron saint. The event of his martyrdom occurs very seldom, and is very literally rendered: the scene is a court of the Temple, with terraces and balconies; he is falling, or has fallen, to the ground, and one of the crowd lifts up the club to smite him.

Ignorant artists have in some instances confounded St. James Major and St. James Minor. The Cappella dei Belludi at Padua, already mentioned, dedicated to St. Philip and St. James, contains a series of frescoes from the life of St. James Minor, in which are some of the miraculous incidents attributed in the Legenda Aurea to St. James Major.

1. The Council of the Apostles held at Jerusalem, in which St. James was nominated chief or bishop of the infant Church. 2. Our Saviour after his resurrection appears to St. James, who had vowed not to eat till he should see Christ.[228] 3. St. James thrown down from the pulpit in the court of the Temple. 4. He is slain by the fuller. 5. A certain merchant is stript of all his goods by a tyrant, and cast into prison. He implores the protection of St. James, who, leading him to the summit of the tower, commands the tower to bow itself to the ground, and the merchant steps from it and escapes; or, according to the version followed in the fresco, the apostle lifts the tower on one side from its foundation, and the prisoner escapes from under it, like a mouse out of a trap. 6. A poor pilgrim, having neither money nor food, fell asleep by the way-side, and, on waking, found that St. James had placed beside him a loaf of bread, which miraculously supplied his wants to the end of his journey. These two last stories are told also of St. James of Galicia, but I have never met with any pictures of his life in which they are included. Here they undoubtedly refer to St. James Minor, the chapel being consecrated to his honour.

ST. SIMON ZELOTES (or THE ZEALOT). ST. JUDE (THADDEUS, or LEBBEUS).

_Ital._ San Simone; San Taddeo. _Fr._ St. Simon le Zélé. St. Thaddée.
_Ger._ Judas Thaddäus. (Oct. 28.)

The uncertainty, contradiction, and confusion which I find in all the ecclesiastical biographies relative to these apostles, make it impossible to give any clear account of them; and as subjects of Art they are so unimportant, and so uninteresting, that it is the less necessary. According to one tradition, they were the same mentioned by Matthew as our Lord’s brethren or kinsmen. But, according to another tradition, they were not the same, but two brothers who were among the shepherds to whom the angel and the heavenly host revealed the birth of the Saviour. Those painters who followed the first tradition represent Simon and Jude as young, or at least in the prime of life. Those who adopt the second represent them as very old, taking it for granted that at the birth of Christ they must have been full-grown men; and this, I think, is the legend usually followed. It seems, however, generally agreed, that they preached the Gospel together in Syria and Mesopotamia, and together suffered martyrdom in Persia: in what manner they suffered is unknown; but it is supposed that St. Simon was sawn asunder, and St. Thaddeus killed with a halberd.

In a series of apostles, St. Simon bears the saw, and St. Thaddeus a halberd. In Greek Art, Jude and Thaddeus are two different persons. Jude is represented young, Thaddeus old. St. Simon in extreme old age, with a bald head, and long white beard. In the Greek representation of his martyrdom, he is affixed to a cross exactly like that of our Saviour, so that, but for the superscription Ο CΙΜΩΝ, he might be mistaken for Christ. I do not know of any separate picture of these apostles.

There is, however, one manner of treating them, with reference to their supposed relationship to our Saviour, which is peculiarly beautiful. Assuming that the three last-named apostles, James, the son of Mary Cleophas; Simon and Jude; Joseph or Joses the Just, also named by Matthew among the brethren of Christ; together with James and John, the sons of Mary Salome,—were all nearly related to the Saviour; it was surely a charming idea to group as children around him in his infancy those who were afterwards called to be the chosen ministers of his Word. Christianity, which has glorified womanhood and childhood, never suggested to the Christian artist a more beautiful subject, nor one which it would be more easy, by an unworthy or too picturesque treatment, to render merely pretty and commonplace. This version, however, of the _Sacra Famiglia_ is rarely met with. There is an example in the Louvre, signed ‘Laurentius’ (Lorenzo di Pavia, A.D. 1513), which is remarkable as a religious representation; but the most beautiful instance of this treatment is a _chef-d’œuvre_ of Perugino, in the Musée at Marseilles. In the centre is the Virgin, seated on a throne; she holds the Infant Christ in her arms. Behind her is St. Anna, her two hands resting affectionately on the shoulders of the Virgin. In front, at the foot of the throne, are two lovely children, undraped, with glories round their heads, on which are inscribed their names, Simon and Thaddeus. To the right is Mary Salome, a beautiful young woman, holding a child in her arms—St. John, afterwards the evangelist. Near her is Joachim, the father of the Virgin. At his feet another child, James Major. To the left of the Virgin, Mary the wife of Cleophas, standing, holds by the hand James Minor: behind her, Joseph, the husband of the Virgin, and at his feet another child, Joseph (or Joses) Justus. I have also seen this subject in illuminated MSS., and, however treated, it is surely very poetical and suggestive.[229]

ST. MATTHIAS.

_Ital._ San Mattia. _Fr._ St. Mathias. (Feb. 24.)

St. Matthias, who was chosen by lot to fill the place of the traitor Judas, is the last of the apostles. (Acts i.) He preached the Gospel in Judea, and suffered martyrdom at the hands of the Jews, either by the lance or by the axe. In the Italian series of the apostles, he bears as his attribute the lance; in the German sets, more commonly the axe.[230] The ceremony of choosing St. Matthias by lot is the subject of a mediocre picture by Boschi. St. Denis says that the apostles were directed in their choice by a beam of divine splendour, for it were impious to suppose that such an election was made by chance. In this picture of Boschi, a ray of light falls from heaven on the head of St. Matthias.

There is a figure of this apostle by Cosimo Roselli, holding a sword _by the point_: what might be the intention of that capricious painter it is now impossible to guess.[231] Separate pictures of St. Matthias are very rare, and he is seldom included in sets of the apostles.

JUDAS ISCARIOT.

_Ital._ Giuda Scariota. _Fr._ Judas Iscariote.

The very name of Judas Iscariot has become a by-word; his person and character an eternal type of impiety, treachery, and ingratitude. We shudder at the associations called up by his memory; his crime, without a name, so distances all possible human turpitude, that he cannot even be held forth as a terror to evil doers; we set him aside as one cut off; we never think of him but in reference to the sole and unequalled crime recorded of him. Not so our ancestors; one should have lived in the middle ages, to conceive the profound, the ever-present, horror with which Judas Iscariot was then regarded. The devil himself did not inspire the same passionate hatred and indignation. Being the devil, what _could_ he be but devilish? His wickedness was according to his infernal nature: but the crime of Judas remains the perpetual shame and reproach of our humanity. The devil betrayed mankind, but Judas betrayed his God.

* * * * *

The Gospels are silent as to the life of Judas before he became an apostle, but our progenitors of the middle ages, who could not conceive it possible that any being, however perverse, would rush at once into such an abyss of guilt, have filled up the omissions of Scripture after their own fancy. They picture Judas as a wretch foredoomed from the beginning of the world, and prepared by a long course of vice and crime for that crowning guilt which filled the measure full. According to this legend, he was of the tribe of Reuben. Before his mother brought him forth, she dreamed that the son who lay in her womb would be accursed, that he would murder his father, commit incest with his mother, and sell his God. Terrified at her dream, she took counsel with her husband, and they agreed to avert the threatened calamity by exposing the child. As in the story of Œdipus, from which, indeed, this strange wild legend seems partly borrowed, the means taken to avert the threatened curse caused its fulfilment. Judas, at his birth, is enclosed in a chest, and flung into the sea; the sea casts him up, and, being found on the shore, he is fostered by a certain king and queen as their own son; they have, however, another son, whom Judas, malignant from his birth, beats and oppresses, and at length kills in a quarrel over a game at chess. He then flies to Judea, where he enters the service of Pontius Pilate as page. In due time he commits the other monstrous crimes to which he was predestined; and when he learns from his mother the secret of his birth, he is filled with a sudden contrition and terror; he hears of the prophet who has power on earth to forgive sins; and seeking out Christ throws himself at his feet. Our Saviour, not deceived, but seeing in him the destined betrayer, and that all things may be accomplished, accepts him as his apostle: he becomes the seneschal or steward of Christ, bears the purse, and provides for the common wants. In this position, avarice, the only vice to which he was not yet addicted, takes possession of his soul, and makes the corruption complete. Through avarice, he grudges every penny given to the poor, and when Mary Magdalene anoints the feet of our Lord he is full of wrath at what he considers the waste of the precious perfume: ‘Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief.’ Through avarice, he yields to the bribe offered by the Jews. Then follow the scenes of the betrayal of Christ, and the late repentance and terrible suicide of the traitor, as recorded in Scripture. But in the old Mystery of the ‘Passion of Christ’ the repentance and fate of Judas are very dramatically worked out, and with all possible circumstances of horror. When he beholds the mild Saviour before the judgment-seat of Herod, he repents: Remorse, who figures as a real personage, seizes on the fated wretch, and torments him till in his agony he invokes Despair. Despair appears, almost in the guise of the ‘accursed wight’ in Spenser, and, with like arguments, urges him to make away with his life:—

And brings unto him swords, rope, poison, fire,
And all that might him to perdition draw,
And bids him choose what death he would desire.

Or in the more homely language of the old French mystery,—

Il faut que tu passes le pas!
Voici dagues et coutelas,
Forcettes, poinçons, allumettes,—
Avise, choisis les plus belles,
Et celles de meilleure forge,
Pour te couper à coup la gorge;
Ou si tu aimes mieux te pendre,
Voici lacs et cordes à vendre.

The offer here of the bodkins and the allumettes reminds us of the speech of Falconbridge:—

If thou would’st drown thyself,
Put but a little water in a spoon,
And it shall be as all the ocean,
Enough to stifle such a villain up.

Judas chooses the rope, and hangs himself forthwith; ‘and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out:’ which account is explained by an early tradition, that being found and cut down, his body was thrown over the parapet of the Temple into the ravine below, and, in the fall, was riven and dashed to pieces.

There required but one more touch of horror to complete the picture; and this is furnished by a sonnet of Giani, which I remember to have read in my youth. When Judas falls from the fatal tree, his evil genius seizes the broken rope, and drags him down to the seething abyss below: at his approach, hell sends forth a shout of rejoicing; Lucifer smooths his brow, corrugated with fire and pain, and rises from his burning throne to welcome a greater sinner than himself:—

Poi fra le braccia incatenò quel tristo,
E colla bocca sfavillante e nera
Gli rese il bacio ch’ avea dato a Christo!

The retribution imaged in the last two lines borders, I am afraid, on a _concetto_; but it makes one shiver, notwithstanding.

Separate representations of the figure or of the life of Judas Iscariot are not, of course, to be looked for; they would have been regarded as profane, as ominous,—worse than the evil-eye. In those Scripture scenes in which he finds a place, it was the aim of the early artists to give him a countenance as hateful, as expressive of treachery, meanness, malignity, as their skill could compass,—the Italians having depended more on expression, the German and Spanish painters on form. We have a conviction, that if the man had really worn such a look, such features, he would have been cast out from the company of the apostles; the legend already referred to says expressly that Judas was of a comely appearance, and was recommended to the service of Pontius Pilate by his beauty of person; but the painters, speaking to the people in the language of form, were right to admit of no equivocation. The same feeling which induced them to concentrate on the image of the Demon all they could conceive of hideous and repulsive, made them picture the exterior of Judas as deformed and hateful as the soul within; and, by an exaggeration of the Jewish cast of features combined with red hair and beard, they flattered themselves that they had attained the desired object. But as if this were not enough, the ancient painters, particularly in the old illuminations, and in Byzantine Art, represent Judas as directly and literally possessed by the Devil: sometimes it is a little black demon seated on his shoulder, and whispering in his ear; sometimes entering his mouth: thus, in their simplicity, rendering the words of the Gospel, ‘Then entered Satan into Judas.’

The colour proper to the dress of Judas is a dirty dingy yellow; and in Spain this colour is so intimately associated with the image of the arch-traitor, as to be held in universal dislike: both in Spain and in Italy, malefactors and galley-slaves are clothed in yellow.[232] At Venice the Jews were obliged to wear yellow hats.

In some of the scriptural scenes in which Judas is mentioned or supposed to be present, it is worth while to remark whether the painter has passed him over as spoiling the harmony of the sacred composition by his intrusive ugliness and wickedness, or has rendered him conspicuous by a distinct and characteristic treatment. In a picture by Niccolò Frumenti[233] of the Magdalene at the feet of our Saviour, Judas stands in the foreground, looking on with a most diabolical expression of grudging malice mingled with scorn; he seems to grind his teeth as he says, ‘To what purpose is this waste?’ In Perugino’s beautiful picture of the washing the feet of the disciples,[234] Judas is at once distinguished, looking askance with a wicked sneer on his face, which is not otherwise ugly. In Raphael’s composition of the Magdalene anointing the feet of Christ, Judas leans across the table with an angry look of expostulation.

Those subjects in which Judas Iscariot appears as a principal personage follow here.

1. Angelico da Fiesole.[235] He is bribed by the Jews. The high-priest pays into the hand of Judas the thirty pieces of silver. They are standing before a doorway on some steps; Judas is seen in profile, and has the nimbus as one of the apostles: three persons are behind, one of whom expresses disapprobation and anxiety. In this subject, and in others wherein Judas is introduced, Angelico has not given him ugly and deformed features; but in the scowling eye and bent brow there is a vicious expression.

In Duccio’s series of the ‘Passion of our Saviour,’ in the Duomo at Siena, he has, in this and in other scenes, represented Judas with regular and not ugly features; but he has a villanous, and at the same time anxious, expression;—he has a bad conscience.

The scene between Judas and the high-priest is also given by Schalken as a candle-light effect, and in the genuine Dutch style.

2. ‘Judas betrays his Master with a kiss.’ This subject will be noticed at large in the Life of Christ. The early Italians, in giving this scene with much dramatic power, never forgot the scriptural dignity required; while the early Germans, in their endeavour to render Judas as odious in physiognomy as in heart, have, in this as in many other instances, rendered the awful and the pathetic merely grotesque. We must infer from Scripture, that Judas, with all his perversity, had a conscience: he would not else have hanged himself. In the physiognomy given to him by the old Germans, there is no trace of this; he is an ugly malignant brute, and nothing more.

3. Rembrandt. ‘Judas throws down the thirty pieces of silver in the Temple, and departs.’[236]

4. ‘The remorse of Judas.’ He is seated and in the act of putting the rope about his neck; beside him is seen the purse and the money, scattered about the ground. The design is by Bloemart, and, from the Latin inscription underneath, appears to be intended as a warning to all unrighteous dealers.

5. ‘Judas hanging on a tree’ is sometimes introduced into the background, in ancient pictures of the Deposition and the Entombment: there is one in the Frankfort Museum.

6. ‘Demons toss the soul of Judas from hand to hand in the manner of a ball:’ in an old French miniature.[237] This is sufficiently grotesque in representation; yet, in the idea, there is a restless, giddy horror which thrills us. At all events, it is better than placing Judas between the jaws of Satan with his legs in the air, as Dante has done, and as Orcagna in his Dantesque fresco has very literally rendered the description of the poet.[238]

THE LAST SUPPER.

_Ital._ Il Cenacolo. La Cena. _Fr._ La Cène. _Ger._ Das Abendmal
Christi.