Chapter 21

TAPESTRY FROM THE CARTOONS.

"For, round about, the walls yclothed were With goodly Arras of great majesty, Woven with gold and silk so close and nere, That the rich metal lurked privily, As faining to be hidd from envious eye; Yet here, and there, and every where unwares It shew'd itselfe and shone unwillingly; Like to a discolour'd Snake, whose hidden snares Through the greene gras his long bright burnisht back declares."

Faerie Queene.

Raphael, whose name is familiar to all "as a household word," seems to have been equally celebrated for a handsome person, an engaging address, an amiable disposition, and high talents. Language exhausts itself in his eulogy.[118] But the extravagant encomiums of Lanzi and others must be taken in a very modified sense, ere we arrive at the rigid truth. The tone of morals in Italy "did not correspond with evangelical purity;" and Raphael's follies were not merely permitted, but encouraged and fostered by those who sought eagerly for the creations of his pencil. His thousand engaging qualities were disfigured by a licentiousness which probably shortened his career, for he died at the early age of thirty-seven.

Great and sincere was the grief expressed at Rome for his untimely death, and no testimony of sorrow could be more affecting, more simple, or more highly honourable to its object than the placing his picture of the Transfiguration over his mortal remains in the chamber wherein he died.

It was probably within two years of the close of his short life when he was engaged by Pope Leo the Tenth to paint those cartoons which have more than all his works immortalised his name, and which render the brief hints we have given respecting him peculiarly appropriate to this work.

The cartoons were designs, from Scripture chiefly, from which were to be woven hangings to ornament the apartments of the Vatican; and their dimensions being of course proportioned to the spaces they were designed to fill, the tapestries, though equal in height, differed extremely in breadth.

The designs were,

1. The Nativity.

2. The Adoration of the Magi.

3. } } 4. } The Slaughter of the Innocents. } 5. }

6. The Presentation in the Temple.

7. The Miraculous Draught of Fishes.

8. St. Peter receiving the Keys.

9. The Descent of Christ into Limbus.

10. The Resurrection.

11. Noli me tangere.

12. Christ at Emmaus.

13. The Ascension.

14. The Descent of the Holy Ghost.

15. The Martyrdom of St. Stephen.

16. The Conversion of St. Paul.

17. Paul and Barnabas at Lystra.

18. Paul Preaching.

19. Death of Ananias.

20. Elymas the Sorcerer.

21. An earthquake; showing the delivery of Paul and Silas from prison: named from the earthquake which shook the foundations of the building. The artist endeavours to render it ideally visible to the spectator by placing a gigantic figure, which appears to be raising the superincumbent weight on his shoulders; but the result is not altogether successful.

22. St. Peter healing the cripple.

23-24. Contain emblems alluding to Leo the Tenth. These are preserved in one of the private apartments of the Vatican palace.

25. Justice. In this subject the figures of Religion, Charity, and Justice are seen above the papal armorial bearings. The last figure gives name to the whole.

When the cartoons were finished they were sent into Flanders to be woven (at the famous manufactory at Arras) under the superintendence of Barnard Van Orlay of Brussels, and Michael Coxis, artists who had been for some years pupils of Raphael at Rome. Two sets were executed with the utmost care and cost, but the death of Raphael, the murder of the Pope, and subsequent intestine troubles seem to have delayed their appropriation. They cost seventy thousand crowns, a sum which is said to have been defrayed by Francis the First of France, in consideration of Leo's having canonised St. Francis of Paola, the founder of the Minims.

Adrian the Second was a man "alienissimo da ogni bell'arte;" an indifference which may account for the cartoons not being sent with the tapestries to Rome, though some accounts say that the debt for their manufacture remained unliquidated, and that the paintings were kept in Flanders as security for it. They were carried away by the Spanish army in 1526-7 during the sack of Rome, but were restored by the zeal and spirit of Montmorenci the French general, as set forth in the woven borders of the tapestries Nos. 6 and 9. Pope Paul the Fourth (1555) first introduced them to the gaze of the public by exhibiting them before the Basilica of St. Peter on the festival of Corpus Domini, and also at the solemn "function of Beatification." This use of them was continued through part of the last century, and is now resumed.

In 1798 they were taken by the French from Rome and sold to a Jew at Leghorn, and one of them was burnt by him in order to extract the gold with which they were richly interwoven; but happily they did not furnish so much spoil as the speculator hoped, and this devastation was arrested. The one that was destroyed represented Christ's Descent into Limbus; the rest were repurchased for one thousand three hundred crowns, and restored to the Vatican in 1814.

We have alluded to two sets of these tapestries, and it is believed that there were two; whether _exactly_ counterparts has not been ascertained. We have traced the migrations of one set. The other was, according to some authorities, presented by Pope Leo the Tenth to our Henry the Eighth; whilst others say that our king purchased it from the state of Venice. It was hung in the Banqueting House of Whitehall, and after the unhappy execution of Charles the First, was put up, amongst other royal properties, to sale. Being purchased by the Spanish ambassador, it became the property of the house of Alva, and within a few years back was sold by the head of that illustrious house to Mr. Tupper, our consul in Spain, and by him sent back to this country.

These tapestries were then exhibited for some time in the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, and were afterwards repurchased by a foreigner. Probably they have been making a "progress" throughout the kingdom, as within this twelvemonth we had the satisfaction of viewing them at the principal town in a northern county. The motto of our chapter might have been written expressly for these tapestries, so exquisitely accurate is the description as applied to them of the gold thread:--

"As here and there, and every where unwares It shew'd itselfe and shone unwillingly; Like to a discolour'd snake, whose hidden snares Through the greene gras his long bright burnisht back declares."

The cartoons themselves, the beautiful originals of these magnificent works, remained in the Netherlands, and were all, save seven, lost and destroyed through the ravages of time, and chance, and revolution. These seven, much injured by neglect, and almost pounced into holes by the weaver tracing his outlines, were purchased by King Charles the First, and are now justly considered a most valuable possession. It is supposed that the chief object of Charles in the purchase was to supply the then existing tapestry manufactory at Mortlake with superior designs for imitation. Five of them were _certainly_ woven there, and it is far from improbable that the remaining ones were also.[119]

There was also a project for weaving them by a person of the name of James Christopher Le Blon, and houses were built and looms erected at Chelsea expressly for that purpose, but the design failed.

The "British Critic," for January, this year, has the following spirited remarks with regard to the present situation of the cartoons. "The cartoons of Raffaelle are very unfairly seen in their present locale; a long gallery built for the purpose by William the Third, but in which the light enters through common chamber windows, and therefore is so much below the cartoons as to leave the greater part of them in shade. We venture to say there is no country in Europe in which such works as these--unique, and in their class invaluable--would be treated with so little honour. It has been decided by competent opinions, that their removal to London would be attended with great risk to their preservation, from the soot, damp, accumulation of dust, and other inconveniences, natural or incident to a crowded city. This, however, is no fair reason for their being shut up in their present ill-assorted apartment. There is not a petty state in Germany that would not erect a gallery on purpose for them; and a few thousand pounds would be well bestowed in providing a fitting receptacle for some of the finest productions of human genius in art; and of the full value of which we _alone_, their possessors, seem to be comparatively insensible. Various portions of cartoons by Raffaelle, part of the same series or set, exist in England; and it is far from unlikely that, were there a proper place to preserve and exhibit the whole in, these would in time, by presentation or purchase, become the property of the country, and we should then possess a monument of the greatest master of his art, only inferior to that which he has left on the walls of the Vatican."

Of all these varied and beautiful paintings, that of the Adoration of the Magi, from the variety of character and expression, the splendor and oriental pomp of the whole, the multitude of persons, between forty and fifty, the various accessaries, elephants, horses, &c., with the variety of splendid and ornamental illustrations, and the exquisite grouping, is considered as the most attractive and brilliant in tapestry. As a piece of general and varied interest it may be so; but we well remember being, not so suddenly struck, as attracted and fascinated by the figure of the Christ when, after his resurrection, he is recommending the care of his flock to St. Peter. The colours have faded gradually and equably--(an advantage not possessed by the others, where some tints which have stood the ravages of time better than those around them, are in places strikingly and painfully discordant)--but in this figure the colours, though greatly faded, have yet faded so harmoniously as to add very much to the illusion, giving to the figure really the appearance of one risen from the dead. The outline is majestic; turn which way we would, we involuntarily returned to look again. At length we mentioned our admiration to the superintendent, and the reply of the enthusiastic foreigner precluded all further remark--for nothing further could be said:--

"Madam, I should have been astonished if you had not admired that figure: _it is itself_; it is precisely _the finest thing in the world_."

FOOTNOTES:

[118] For example:--"Egli avea tenuto sempre un contegno da guadagnarsi il cuore di tutto. Rispettoso verso il maestro, ottenne dal Papa che le sue pitture in una volta delle camere Vaticane rimanessero intatte; giusto verso i suoi emuli ringraziava Dio d'averlo fatto nascere a' tempi del Bonarruoti; grazioso verso i discepoli gl'istruì e gli amò come figli; cortese anche verso gl'ignoti, a chiunque ricorse a lui per consiglio prestò liberalmente l'opera sua, e per far disegni ad altrui o dar gl'indirizzo lasciò indietro talvolta i lavori propri, non sapendo non pure di negar grazia, ma differirla."--Lanzi, vol. ii.

Consequently when his body before interment lay in the room in which he was accustomed to paint, "Non v'ebbe sì duro artefice che a quello spettacolo non lagrimasse."--"Ne pianse il Papa."

Of his works:--"Le sue figure veramente amano, languiscono, temono, sperano, ardiscono; mostrano ira, placabilità, umiltà, orgoglio, come mette bene alla storia: spesso chi mira que' volti, que' guardi, quelle mosse, non si ricorda che ha innanzi una immagine; si sente accendere, prende partito, crede di trovarsi in sul fatto.--Tutto parla nel silenzio; ogni attore, _Il cor negli occhi e nella fronte ha scritto_; i piccioli movimenti degli occhi, degli narici, della bocca, delle dita corrispondono a' primi moti d'ogni passione; i gesti più animati e più vivi ne descrivono la violenza; e ciò ch'è più, essi variano in cento modi senza uscir mai del naturale, e si attemperano a cento caratteri senza uscir mai dalla proprietà. L'eroe ha movimenti da eroe, il volgar da volgare; e quel che non descriverebbe lingua nè penna, descrive in pochissimi tratti l'ingegno e l'arte di Raffaello."--p. 65.

"Il paese, gli elementi, gli animali, le fabbriche, le manifatture, ogni età dell'uomo, ogni condizione, ogni affetto, tutte comprese con la divinità del suo ingegno, tutto ridusse più bello."--p. 71.

I have thought this long extract pardonable as applied to one whose finest designs are now, through so many channels, rendered familiar to us.

[119] In a priced catalogue of His Majesty's collection of "Limnings," edited by Vertue, is the following entry. "Item, in a slit box-wooden case, some TWO CARTOONS of Raphael Urbinus for hangings to be made by, and _the other FIVE are by the King's appointment delivered to Mr. Francis Cleen at Mortlake, to make hangings by_."--Cartonensia.