garters are lying discarded beside her. And so (5) in the centre of the picture, all is ready for the wedding : This markis hath hir spoused with a ring Brought for the same cause, and then hir sette Upon an hors, snow-whyt and wel ambling. Before the second act (913) a few years are supposed to have elapsed. (1) On the left Griselda's two children—a boy and a girl-(in the likeness of two very wooden dolls) are being carried off, as if by a villain in a transpontine tragedy. They are supposed to have since died miserably. (2) The marquis tires of his love for Griselda, and is divorced in the centre of the picture we see her giving back the wedding ring. (3) Then she is stripped of her fine clothes, and (4) sent away to her father's house, but "The smok," quod he, "that thou hast on thy bak, Two young gallants, in absurd attitudes, look on in half-pitying amusement, while nearer to us two serving-men are disgusted at the cruel shame. (5) On the extreme right she is at home again, tending, as before, her father's sheep. In the last act (914), a grand banquet is prepared for the marquis's second wedding, and Griselda is sent for to the castle to do menial work. On the left we see her sweeping; on the right she is waiting at table. Then, on the left again, it is discovered that the marquis's new bride is none other than Griselda's long-lost daughter, accompanied by her brother. They had all the while been tended in a distant city with the utmost care. Griselda is thereupon affectionately embraced by her husband, publicly reinstated in her proper position, and presented to all the court as a model of wifely obedience and patience 755. No wedded man so hardy be tassaille RHETORIC. 756. MUSIC. } Melozzo da Forli (1438-1494). Melozzo, born at Forli in the Romagna, near Ravenna, is classed with the Umbrian School, both because he studied (it is believed) under H Piero della Francesca, and because he worked at Urbino. He is especially praised by Giovanni Santi, who was his friend, for his skill in perspective; and, like many other artists of these times, he was an architect as well as a painter. These pictures are two of a series of seven, which were painted to decorate the library of the Ducal Palace at Urbino. The series represented symbolically the seven arts-grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomywhich, until the close of the Middle Ages, formed the curriculum of a liberal education. Notice in both pictures that the figures of the learners are kneeling-an attitude symbolical of the spirit of reverence and humility which distinguishes the true scholar ("I prayed, and the spirit of wisdom came upon me"); whilst the figures representing the sciences to be learned are seated on thrones-symbolical of the true kingship that consists in knowledge ("And I set her before kingdoms and thrones"), and are clothed about with pearls and other precious stones ("She is more precious than rubies"). In the picture of Rhetoric (755) the youth is being taught not to speak, but to read—“You must not speak,” the Queen of Rhetoric seems to tell him, "until you have something to say." Notice, too, that Rhetoric is robed in cold gray. "You think Rhetoric should be glowing, fervid, impetuous ? No. Above all things,-cool." But Music (756) is robed in bright red, the colour of delight. The book now is closed. "After learning to reason, you will learn to sing; for you will want to. There is so much reason for singing in this sweet world, when one thinks rightly of it.” Music points her scholar to a small organ—“not that you are never to sing anything but hymns, but that whatever is rightly called music, or work of the Muses, is divine in help and healing" (Mornings in Florence, v. 128, 134). Hanging from the wall on the left, almost above the scholar's head, is a sprig of bay, the Muses' crown. 913. See above under 912-914. 755. See above under 755, 756. 914. See above under 912-914. 703. MADONNA AND CHILD. Pinturicchio (Perugia: 1454-1513). See under 693, p. 105. 1103. VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH SAINTS. Fiorenzo di Lorenzo (Perugia: 1472-1521). These are the dates not of his birth and death (which are unknown), but of the earliest and latest events recorded of him. In 1472 he was commissioned to paint an altar-piece, and was elected a member of the Town Council of Perugia. In 1521 he was commissioned to value some works by another painter. The resemblance of his style to that of Benozzo Gozzoli may be seen by comparing II. 283, p. 42. See also Morelli, p. 263. The accompanying figures are-in front of the throne, St. Francis (on the right of the Child), St. Bernardino, a saint of Siena (on the left), and in smaller size the donor of the altarpiece; in the left-hand compartment St. John the Baptist; and in the right-hand one St. Bartholomew, carrying his familiar attribute-a blood-stained knife, the instrument of his martyrdom. 1092. ST. SEBASTIAN. Zaganelli (Ferrarese: about 1500). The only known work by a master who signs himself Bernardino (of) Cotignola (in the Duchy of Ferrara). He was a brother of Francesco Zaganelli, and is believed to have worked towards the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century. For the story of St. Sebastian, see under V. 669, p. 91. 249. THE MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA. Lorenzo di San Severino (painted 1483-1496). This picture is signed by the artist "Laurentius the second of Severino" -to distinguish himself from the earlier Lorenzo, who was born in 1374, and who painted some frescoes at Urbino in 1416. The date of this picture is approximately fixed by the fact that Catherine is described on her nimbus as "saint," and she was not canonised till 1461; and perhaps also by the influence on Lorenzo of Crivelli (painted 1468-1493), which has been traced in the execution of the details : : see for instance the cucumber and apple on the step of the throne (cf. VIII. 724, p. 186, etc.) St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) is one of the most remarkable figures of the Middle Ages. She was the daughter of a dyer, brought up in the humblest of surroundings, and wholly uneducated. When only thirteen she entered the monastic life as a nun of the Dominican order (St. Dominic is here present on the right), and at once became famous in the city for her good works. She tended the sick and plague-stricken, and was a minister of mercy to the worst and meanest of her fellow creatures. On one occasion a hardened murderer, whom priests had visited in vain, was so subdued by her tenderness that he confessed his sins, begged her to wait for him by the scaffold, and died with the names of Jesus and Catherine on his lips. In addition to her piety and zeal she succeeded as a mediator between Florence and her native city, and between Florence and the Pope; she travelled to Avignon, and there induced Gregory XI, to return to Rome; she narrowly escaped political martyrdom during one of her embassies from Gregory to the Florentine republic; she preached a crusade against the Turks, and she aided, by her dying words, to keep Pope Urban on the throne. But "when she died she left behind her a memory of love more than of power, the fragrance of an unselfish and gentle life. Her place is in the heart of the humble. Her prayer is still whispered by poor children on their mother's knee, and her relics are kissed daily by the simple and devout." The mythical marriage which forms the subject of this picture, where the infant Christ is placing the ring on her finger, suggests the secret of her power. Once when she was fasting and praying, Christ himself appeared to her, she said, and gave her his heart. For love was the keynote of her religion, and the mainspring of her life. In no merely figurative sense did she regard herself as the spouse of Christ; she dwelt upon the bliss, beyond all mortal happiness, which she enjoyed in supersensual communion with her Lord. The world has not lost its ladies of the race of St. Catherine, beautiful and pure and holy, who live lives of saintly mercy in the power of human and heavenly love. See further, for St. Catherine of Siena, J. A. Symonds, Sketches in Italy (Siena), from which the above account is principally taken. 769. ST. MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON. Fra Carnovale (Urbino: died about 1488). Bartolommeo Corradini was a Dominican friar, and (to judge by his nickname, "Brother Carnival") a jovial one. According to Vasari, Bramante studied under him, and he was himself clearly a disciple of Piero della Francesca, between whose angels in 908, p. 120, and the figure of St. Michael here, there is a close resemblance. St. Michael, the angel of war against the dragon of sin, stands triumphant over his foe-emblem of the final triumph of the spiritual over the animal and earthly part of our nature. It is the most universal of all symbols. The victor is different in different ages, but the enemy is always the same crawling reptile. Christian art, from its earliest times, has thus interpreted the text, "The dragon shalt thou trample under feet" (Psalm xci. 13); and in illustrations of Hindoo mythology Vishnu suffering is folded in the coils of a serpent, whilst Vishnu triumphant stands, like St. Michael, with his foot upon the defeated monster. 1107. THE CRUCIFIXION. Niccolò da Foligno1 (painted 1458-1499). The pietism, characteristic of the Umbrian School generally, is conspicuous in Niccolò, of whom Vasari remarks that "the expression of grief in his angels, and the tears they shed, are so natural that I do not believe any artist, however excellent he might be, could have done it much better." In this picture the artist seems to revel in the depiction of emotion, and (as it were) in "piling up the agony." There is the same pleasure here in the use of a new gift-that of expressing emotion—as in III. 583, p. 53, in that of expressing perspective. The central scene of the Crucifixion is surrounded by the Agony in the Garden, Christ bearing his Cross, the Descent from the Cross, and the Resurrection. Note as characteristic of the genius loci in the Umbrian School that St. Francis of Assisi is kneeling at the foot of the cross. Giannicolo Manni (Perugia: 1475-1544). Notice the quaint "arabesques" on the Virgin's prie-dieu, or praying-stool: they are characteristic of this painter, in other things a close imitator of Perugino. Manni painted chiefly at Perugia, of which town it is interesting to know that he was a magistrate. 702. MADONNA AND CHILD. L'Ingegno (Assisi: painted about 1484). 1 He is often called Niccolò Alunno. The origin of this mistake, made first by Vasari, is that on one of his pictures he is described as "Nicolaus alumnus Folignia" (Niccolò, a native, or alumnus, of Foligno). 2 Morelli, p. 259, remarks too on Niccolo's " tendency to exaggeration which marks the inhabitant of a small provincial town." |