Chapter 14

"When you enter the church of Santissima Annunziata, at Florence, your attention is drawn at once to a sort of miniature temple on the left hand. It is of white marble; but the glare and flash of crimson hangings and silver lamps scarcely allow your eye the quiet necessary to appreciate either form or material. A picture hangs there. It is the _Miraculous Annunciation_. The artist who was employed to paint it, had finished all except the head of the Virgin Mary, and fell asleep before the easel while the work was in that condition. On awakening, he beheld the picture finished; and the short time which had elapsed, and his own position relative to the canvas, made it clear (so says the tradition) that a divine hand had completed a task which, to say the least, a mortal could only attempt with despair.

"Less than this has made many pictures in Italy the objects of attentions which our Puritan fathers condemned as idolatrous. The miraculous 'Annunziata' became, accordingly, the divinity of a splendid shrine. The fame of her interposition spread far and wide, and her tabernacle was filled with the costly offerings of the devout, the showy tributes of the zealous. The prince gave of his abundance, nor was the widow's mite refused; and to this day the reputation of this shrine stands untouched among all papal devotees.

"The Santissima Annunziata is always veiled, unless her interposition is urgently demanded by the apprehension of famine, plague, cholera, or some other public calamity. During my own residence at Florence, I have never known the miraculous picture to be uncovered during a drought, without the desired result immediately following. In cases of long continued rains, its intervention has been equally happy. I have heard several persons, rather inclined to skepticism as to the miraculous qualities of the picture, hint that the _barometer_ was consulted on these occasions; else, say they, why was not the picture uncovered before the mischief had gone so far? What an idea is suggested by the bare hint!

"I stood on the pavement of the church, with an old man who had himself been educated as a priest. He had a talent for drawing, and became a painter. As a practical painter, he was mediocre; but he was learned in everything relating to art. He gradually sank from history to portrait, from portrait to miniature, from miniature to restoration; and had the grim satisfaction, in his old age, of mending what in his best days he never could make--good pictures. When I knew him, he was one of the conservators of the Royal Gallery. He led me before the shrine, and whispered, with much veneration, the story I have related of its origin. When I had gazed long at the picture, I turned to speak to him, but he had left the church. As I walked through the vestibule, however, I saw him standing near one of the pillars that adorn the façade. He was evidently waiting for me. Me-thinks I see him now, with his face of seventy and his dress of twenty-five, his bright black wig, his velvet waistcoat, and glittering gold chain--his snuff-box in his hand, and a latent twinkle in his black eyes. 'What is really remarkable in that miraculous picture,' said he, taking me by the button, and forcing me to bend till his mouth and my ear were exactly on a line--'What is really remarkable about it is, that the angel who painted that Virgin, so completely adopted the style of that epoch! Same angular, incorrect outline! Same opaque shadows! eh? eh?' He took a pinch, and wishing me a good appetite, turned up the Via S. Sebastiano."

THE CHAIR OF ST. PETER.

"La Festra di Cattreda, or commemoration of the placing of the chair of St. Peter, on the 18th of January, is one of the most striking ceremonies, at Rome, which follow Christmas and precede the holy week. At the extremity of the great nave of St. Peter's, behind the high altar, and mounted upon a tribune designed or ornamented by Michael Angelo, stands a sort of throne, composed of precious materials, and supported by four gigantic figures. A glory of seraphim, with groups of angels, shed a brilliant light upon its splendors. This throne enshrines the real, plain, worm-eaten wooden chair, on which St. Peter, the prince of the apostles, is said to have pontificated; more precious than all the bronze, gold, and gems with which it is hidden, not only from impious, but holy eyes, and which once only, in the flight of ages, was profaned by mortal inspection.

"The sacrilegious curiosity of the French, however, broke through all obstacles to their seeing the chair of St. Peter. They actually removed its superb casket, and discovered the relic. Upon its mouldering and dusty surface were traced carvings, which bore the appearance of letters. The chair was quickly brought into a better light, the dust and cobwebs removed, and the inscription (for an inscription it was), faithfully copied. The writing is in Arabic characters, and is the well known confession of Mahometan faith--'There is but one God, and Mahomet is his prophet.' It is supposed that this chair had been, among the spoils of the Crusaders, offered to the church at a time when a taste for antiquarian lore, and the deciphering of inscriptions, were not yet in fashion. The story has been since hushed up, the chair replaced, and none but the unhallowed remember the fact, and none but the audacious repeat it. Yet such there are, even at Rome!"--_Ireland's Anecdotes of Napoleon._

THE SAGRO CATINO, OR EMERALD DISH.

"The church of St. Lorenzo, at Genoa, is celebrated for containing a most sacred relic, the 'Sagro Catino,' a dish of one entire and perfect _emerald_, said to be that on which our Saviour ate his last supper. Such a dish in the house of a Jewish publican was a miracle in itself. Mr. Eustace says, he looked for this dish, but found that the French, 'whose delight is brutal violence, as it is that of the lion or the tiger,' had carried it away. And so indeed they did. But that was nothing. The carrying off relics--the robbing of Peter to pay Paul, and spoliating one church to enrich another--was an old trick of legitimate conquerors in all ages; for this very '_dish_' had been carried away by the royal crusaders, when they took _Cesarea_ in Palestine, under _Guillaume Embriaco_, in the twelfth century. In the division of spoils, this emerald fell to the share of the _Genoese Crusaders_, into whose holy vocation some of their old trading propensities evidently entered; and they deemed the vulgar value, the profane price, of this treasure, so high, that on an emergency, they pledged it for nine thousand five hundred livres. Redeemed and replaced, it was guarded by the _knights of honor_ called _Clavigeri_; and only escaped once a year! Millions knelt before it, and the penalty on the bold but zealous hand that touched it with a diamond, was a thousand golden ducats."

The French seized this relic, as the crusaders had done in the twelfth century; but instead of conveying it from the church of San Lorenzo to the abbey of St. Denis (_selon les règles_), they most sacrilegiously sent it to a _laboratory_. Instead of submitting it, with a traditional story, to a _council of Trent_, they handed it over to the _institute of Paris_; and chemists, geologists, and philosophers, were called on to decide the fate of that relic which bishops, priests and deacons had pronounced to be too sacred for human investigation, or even for human touch. _The result of the scientific investigation was, that the emerald dish was a piece of green glass!_

When England made the King of Sardinia a present of the dukedom of one of the oldest republics in Europe, and restitutions were making "_de part et d'autre_;" _Victor Emmanuel_ insisted upon having his emerald dish; not for the purpose of putting it in a cabinet of curiosities, as they had done at Paris, to serve as a curious monument of the remote epoch in which the art of making colored glass was known--(of its great antiquity there is no doubt)--but of restoring it to its shrine at San Lorenzo--to its guard of knights servitors--to the homage, offerings, and bigotry of the people! with a republished assurance that this is the invaluable _emerald dish_, the '_Sagro Catino_,' which _Queen Sheba_ offered, with other gems, to King Solomon (who deposited it, where all gems should be, in his church), and which afterwards was reserved for a higher destiny than even that assigned to it in the gorgeous temple of Jerusalem. The story of the analysis by the institute of Paris is hushed up, and those who would revive it would be branded with the odium of blasphemy and sedition; none now remember such things, but those who are the determined enemies of social order, or as the Genoese Royal Journal would call them, '_the radicals of the age_.'--_Italy, by Lady Morning_.

"THE PAINTER OF FLORENCE."

There is an old painting in the church of the Holy Virgin at Florence, representing the Virgin with the infant Jesus in her arms, trampling the dragon under her feet, about which is the following curious legend, thus humorously described by Southey, in the Annals of the Fine Arts:

There once was a Painter in Catholic days, Like Job who eschewed all evil, Still on his Madonnas the curious may gaze With applause and amazement; but chiefly his praise And delight was in painting the devil.

They were angels compared to the devils he drew, Who besieged poor St. Anthony's cell, Such burning hot eyes, such a _d----mnable_ hue, You could even smell brimstone, their breath was so blue He painted his devils so well.

And now had the artist a picture begun, 'Twas over the Virgin's church door; She stood on the dragon embracing her son, Many devils already the artist had done, But this must outdo all before.

The old dragon's imps as they fled through the air, At seeing it paused on the wing, For he had a likeness so just to a hair, That they came as Apollyon himself had been there, To pay their respects to their king.

Every child on beholding it, shivered with dread, And screamed, as he turned away quick; Not an old woman saw it, but raising her head, Dropp'd a bead, made a cross on her wrinkles, and said, "God help me from ugly old Nick!"

What the Painter so earnestly thought on by day, He sometimes would dream of by night; But once he was started as sleeping he lay, 'Twas no fancy, no dream--he could plainly survey That the devil himself was in sight.

"You rascally dauber," old Beelzebub cries, "Take heed how you wrong me, again! Though your caricatures for myself I despise, Make me handsomer now in the multitude's eyes, Or see if I threaten in vain."

Now the painter was bold and religious beside, And on faith he had certain reliance, So earnestly he all his countenance eyed, And thanked him for sitting with Catholic pride, And sturdily bid him defiance.

Betimes in the morning, the Painter arose, He is ready as soon as 'tis light; Every look, every line, every feature he knows, 'Twas fresh to his eye, to his labor he goes, And he has the wicked old one quite.

Happy man, he is sure the resemblance can't fail, The tip of his nose is red hot, There's his grin and his fangs, his skin cover'd with scales And that--the identical curl of the tail, Not a mark--not a claw is forgot.

He looks and retouches again with delight; 'Tis a portrait complete to his mind! He touches again, and again feeds his sight, He looks around for applause, and he sees with affright, The original standing behind.

"Fool! idiot!" old Beelzebub grinned as he spoke, And stamp'd on the scaffold in ire; The painter grew pale, for he knew it no joke, 'Twas a terrible height, and the scaffolding broke; And the devil could wish it no higher.

"Help! help me, O Mary," he cried in alarm, As the scaffold sank under his feet, From the canvas the Virgin extended her arm, She caught the good painter, she saved him from harm, There were thousands who saw in the street.

The old dragon fled when the wonder he spied, And curs'd his own fruitless endeavor: While the Painter called after, his rage to deride, Shook his palette and brushes in triumph, and cried, "Now I'll paint thee more ugly than ever!"

LEGEND OF THE PAINTER-FRIAR, THE DEVIL AND THE VIRGIN.

Don José de Valdivielso, one of the chaplains of the gay Cardinal Infant Ferdinand of Austria, relates the following legend in his paper on the Tax on Pictures, appended to Carducho's Dialogos de la Pintura. A certain young friar was famous amongst his order, for his skill in painting; and he took peculiar delight in drawing the Virgin and the Devil. To heighten the divine beauty of the one, and to devise new and extravagant forms of ugliness for the other, were the chief recreations for his leisure hours. Vexed at last by the variety and vigor of his sketches, Beelzebub, to be revenged, assumed the form of a lovely maiden, and crossed under this guise the path of the friar, who being of an amorous disposition, fell at once into the trap. The seeming damsel smiled on her shaven wooer, but though nothing loth to be won, would not surrender her charms at a less price than certain reliquaries and jewels in the convent treasury--a price which the friar in an evil hour consented to pay. He admitted her at midnight within the convent walls, and leading her to the sacristy, took from its antique cabinet the things for which she had asked. Then came the moment of vengeance. Passing in their return through the moonlit cloister as the friar stole along, embracing the booty with one arm, and his false Duessa with the other, the demon-lady suddenly cried out "Thieves!" with diabolical energy, and instantly vanished. The snoring monks rushed disordered from their cells and detected their unlucky brother making off with their plate. Excuse being impossible, they tied the culprit to a column, and leaving him till matins, when his punishment was to be determined, went back to their slumbers. When all was quiet, the Devil reappeared, but this time in his most hideous shape. Half dead with cold and terror, the discomfited caricaturist stood shivering at his column, while his tormentor made unmercifully merry with him; twitting him with his amorous overtures, mocking his stammered prayers, and irreverently suggesting an appeal for aid to the beauty he so loved to delineate. The penitent wretch at last took the advice thus jeeringly given--when lo! the Virgin descended, radiant in heavenly loveliness, loosened his cords, and bade him bind the Evil One to the column in his place--an order which he obeyed through her strength, with no less alacrity than astonishment. She further ordered him to appear among the other monks at table, and charged herself with the task of restoring the stolen plate to its place. Thus the tables were suddenly turned. The friar presented himself among his brethren in the morning, to their no small astonishment, and voted with much contrition for his own condemnation--a sentence which was reversed when they came to examine the contents of the sacristy, and found everything correct. As to the Devil, who remained fast bound to the pillar, he was soundly flogged, and so fell into the pit which he had digged for another. His dupe, on the other hand, gathered new strength from his fall, and became not only a wiser and a better man, but also an abler artist; for the experience of that terrible night had supplied all that was wanting to complete the ideal of his favorite subjects. Thenceforth, he followed no more after enticing damsels, but remained in his cloister, painting the Madonna more serenely beautiful, and the Arch Enemy more curiously appalling than ever.

GERARD DOUW.

This extraordinary artist was born at Leyden, in 1613. He was the son of a glazier, and early exhibited a passion for the fine arts, which his father encouraged. He received his first instruction in drawing from Dolendo, the engraver. He was afterwards placed with Peter Kowenhoorn, to learn the trade of a glass-stainer or painter; but disliking this business, he became the pupil of Rembrandt when only fifteen years of age, in whose school be continued three years. From Rembrandt he learned the true principles of coloring, to which he added a delicacy of pencilling, and a patience in working up his pictures to the highest degree of neatness and finish, superior to any other master. He was more pleased with the earlier and more finished works of Rembrandt, than with his later productions, executed with more boldness and freedom of pencilling; he therefore conceived the project of combining the rich and glowing colors of that master with the polish and suavity of extreme finishing, and he adopted the method of uniting the powerful tunes and the magical light and shadow of his instructor with a minuteness and precision of pencilling that so nearly approached nature as to become perfect illusion. But though his manner appears so totally different from that of Rembrandt, yet it was to him he owed that excellence of coloring which enabled him to triumph over all the artists of his time. His pictures are usually of small size, with figures so exquisitely touched, and with a coloring so harmonious, transparent, and delicate, as to excite the astonishment and admiration of the beholder. Although his pictures are wrought up beyond the works of any other artist, there is still discoverable a spirited and characteristic touch that evinces the hand of a consummate master, and a breadth of light and shadow which is only to be found in the works of the greatest masters of the art of chiaro-scuro. The fame acquired by Douw is a crowning proof that excellence is not confined to any particular style or manner, and had he attempted to arrive at distinction by a bolder and less finished pencil, it is highly probable that his fame would not have been so great. It has been truly said that there are no positive rules by which genius must be bounded to arrive at excellence. Every intermediate style, from the grand and daring handling of Michael Angelo to the laborious and patient finishing of Douw, may conduct the painter to distinction, provided he adapts his manner to the character of the subjects he treats.

DOUW'S STYLE.

Douw designed everything from nature, and with such exactness that each object appears as perfect as nature herself. He was incontestibly the most wonderful in his finishing of all the Flemish masters, although the number of artists of that school who have excelled in this particular style are quite large. The pictures he first painted were portraits, and he wrought by the aid of a concave mirror, and sometimes by looking at the object through a frame of many squares of small silk thread. He spent so much time in these works that, notwithstanding they were extremely admired, his sitters became disgusted, and he was obliged to abandon portrait painting entirely, and devote his attention to fancy subjects, in the execution of which he could devote as much time as he pleased. This will not appear surprising, when Sandrart informs us that, on one occasion, in company with Peter de Laer, he visited Douw, and found him at work on a picture, which they could not forbear admiring for its extraordinary neatness, and on taking particular notice of a broom, and expressing their surprise that he could devote so much time in finishing so minute an object, Douw informed them that he should work on it three days more before he should think it complete. The same author also says that in a family picture of Mrs. Spiering, that lady sat five days for the finishing of one of her hands, supporting it on the arm of a chair.

DOUW'S METHOD OF PAINTING.

His mind was naturally turned to precision and exactness, and it is evident that he would have shown this quality in any other profession, had he practiced another. Methodical and regular in all his habits, he prepared and ground his own colors, and made his own brushes of a peculiar shape, and he kept them locked up in a case made for the purpose, that they might be free from soil. He permitted no one to enter his studio, save a very few friends, and when he entered himself, he went as softly as he could tread, so as not to raise the dust, and after taking his seat, waited some time till the air was settled before he opened his box and went to work; scarcely a breath of air was allowed to ventilate his painting-room.

DOUW'S WORKS.

Everything that came from his pencil was precious, even in his life-time. Houbraken says that his great patron, Mr. Spiering the banker, allowed him one thousand guilders a year, and paid besides whatever sum he pleased to ask for his pictures, some of which he purchased for their weight in silver; but Sandrart informs us, with more probability, that the thousand guilders were paid to Douw by Spiering on condition that the artist should give him the choice of all the pictures he painted. The following description of one of Gerhard's most capital pictures, for a long time in the possession of the family of Van Hoek, at Amsterdam, will serve to give a good idea of his method of treating his subjects. The picture is much larger than his usual size, being three feet long by two feet six inches wide, inside the frame. The room is divided into two apartments by a curtain of curiously wrought tapestry. In one apartment sits a woman giving suck to her child; at her side is a cradle, and a table covered with tapestry, on which is placed a gilt lamp which lights the room. In the second apartment is a surgeon performing an operation upon a countryman, and by his side stands a woman holding some utensils. The folding doors on one side shows a study, and a man making a pen by candle light; and on the other, a school, with boys writing, and sitting at different tables. The whole is lighted in an agreeable and surprising manner; every object is expressed with beauty and astonishing force. Nor does the subject appear too crowded, for it was one of his peculiar talents to show, in a small compass, more than other painters could do in a much larger space. His pictures are generally confined to a few figures, and sometimes to a single one, and when he attempted larger compositions, he was generally less successful. The works of this artist are not numerous, from the immense labor and time he bestowed upon a single one; and from this circumstance, and the estimation in which they are held by the curious collectors, they have ever commanded enormous prices. They were always particularly admired in France, in the days of Napoleon, there were no less than seventeen of his pictures gathered into the Louvre, most of which were, after his downfall, restored to their original proprietors, among which was the famous Dropsical Woman, from the collection of the King of Sardinia. At Turin, are several pictures by Douw, the most famous of which is the one just named--the Dropsical Woman, attended by her physician, who is examining an urinal. This picture is wonderfully true to nature, and each particular hair and pore of the skin is represented. In the gallery at Florence is one of his pictures, representing an interior by candle-light, with a mountebank, surrounded by a number of clowns, which is exquisitely finished. The great fame of Gerhard Douw, and the eager desire for his works, have given rise to numerous counterfeits. We may safely say that there is not an original picture by this artist in the United States. Douw died, very rich, in 1674.

ALBERT DURER.