TUB 'ART OF c I W. E. LONDON O? D U 1 T i| AMSTERDAM J Cfte Xxt of tl)e titan ♦ i JULIUS II. By Raphael ; in the Pitti Palace, Florence Wt)t &rt of ti)t Vatican A Brief History of the Palace and an Account of the Principal Works of Art within its Walls By Mary Knight Potter London George Bell and Sons 1903 v y ( ilJ preface To describe even superficially all the art treasures of the Vatican would require many fat volumes. To consider fully the contents of only one of its many departments would take the entire space allowed for the present work. The question then has been, under the title of " The Art of the Vatican/' what shall be chosen as representative of that art, and how much room shall be given to each subject. Into this choice, of course, the personal equation must largely enter. Probably all will agree that none of the galleries, museums, and chapels included here could be omitted. The only doubt would be concerning the exclusion of other divisions. The reason for ignoring the Library, the Egyptian and Etruscan Museums, and the Pauline Chapel, may seem to many difficult of comprehension. The pre- eminence of the sections selected being acknowl- edged, however, there remain but two ways to admit others within these covers. The first, of course, would be to devote less space to each subject. That, however, in the opinion of the writer, would V vi preface be to defeat the principal object of the book. If the descriptions were much shortened, the volume be- comes little more than a bare catalogue. And there are already plenty of catalogues of the Vatican collections. The other method would be to cut out the chapter devoted to the palace as a whole, and give its place to the collections above mentioned. This has seemed an undesirable alternative. It was felt that the preliminary account of the building, and the brief mention of the part it has played in the history of the centuries, gave the work a homo- geneity, a unity, not otherwise attainable. The same reasoning applies to the actual paintings and sculptures described in each gallery or chapel. It has been thought better to devote as much considera- tion as possible to the most noted of the works rather than to speak more briefly of many. In this way it is hoped that the book may be valuable both for travellers, who wish to have something more than mere guide-book information of the great treasures of Rome, and for the amateur who has not sufficient time or desire to consult the many original works necessary for a thorough art training. It is probably not necessary to remind the reader that a book of this kind can be little more than a compilation of a few of the opinions of the critics, archaeologists, and historians who are recognised authorities, each in his own field. There is practi- preface Vll cally no room for original research or criticism. The most that can be claimed is an honest endeavour to cull the very best from a tremendous mass of often conflicting opinions, and to present the result as clearly and succinctly as possible. If a deep personal love for some particular works has sometimes led the writer to give undue prominence to them, at least she has been able to fortify her position by the equally strongly expressed likes of the greatest of the art critics. One thing more. Even at the risk of being tire- some, much space has been given to very exact and literal descriptions of the composition of pictures and of the attitudes of statues. Nothing fastens a scene in one's mind so firmly as to know how it is actually depicted. To discuss, for instance, the grandeur of pose of a certain figure means comparatively little unless one knows where the figure is to be found and what it is doing in any given composition. In other words, the verbal descriptions, it is hoped, will help to recall more quickly the picture or statue to those who have already seen it, and will also bring it more distinctly before the mental vision of those who have not. Guide-books and even art books are singularly silent regarding the amount of modern restoring that has often nearly remade many of the masterpieces of a bygone day. The young traveller in consequence, • VIU preface when he first sees the fresh, vivid colours of frescoes and pictures and the unbroken arms and legs of statues, must be greatly perplexed to know what is of to-day and what of yesterday. For this reason efforts have been made to give at least a general impression as to how far this work of restoration has been carried on. The writer is particularly indebted to Wolfgang Helbig for his explicit statements con- cerning the additions made since their discovery to ancient statues. Finally, it is certainly unnecessary to remark that, in such a volume as this, it is practically impossible wholly to keep mistakes from creeping in. The writer claims no infallibility in her judgment or selections, but she sincerely hopes that her earnest efforts have succeeded in keeping the book moder- ately free from errors. i I contents CHAPTER PAGE I. The Vatican Palace . I II. Chapel of Nicholas V. III. The Borgia Apartments . 6l IV. The Sistine Chapel . 91 V. The Stanze of Raphael . 142 VI. Raphael's Loggie .... . 197 VII. Raphael's Tapestries . . 220 VIII. The Sculpture Galleries . • 237 IX. The Pinacoteca . • 3 02 list of Illustrations PAGE Julius II Frontispiece By Raphael; in the Pitti Palace ', Florence. Vatican Palace; from the Piazza di San Pietro 3 Leo X., Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, and De* Rossi 27 By Raphael ; in the Pitti Palace, Florence* SlXTUS V 35 By Sasso/errato. Vatican Library 39 Ordination of St. Lawrence by Sixtus II. . 53 By Fra A ngelico ; in tlie Chapel of Nicholas V. St. Buonaventura 57 By Fra A ngelico ; in the Chapel of Nicholas V. Alexander VI 67 Detail from Resurrection, by Pinturicchio ; in the Hall of Mys- teries. Demon Women 75 Detail from Visit of St. A nthony to Paul, By Pinturicchio ; in the Hall of Saints. St. Catherine 79 Detail from Dispute of St. Catherine, by Pinturicchio ; in the Hall of Saints. Moses Calling Heaven's Vengeance upon the False Priests 97 By Botticelli; in Sistine Chapel. Baptism of Christ 103 By Pinturicchio ; in Sistine Chapel. xi xii %ist of Wlustrattons PAGE Design of the Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel . 1 1 1 One of the "Young Athletes" . . . .115 By Michelangelo ; from Sistine Ceiling. Creation of Man 121 By Michelangelo ; from Sistine Ceiling. Daniel 131 By Michela?igelo ; from Sistine Ceiling. Last Judgment 137 By Michelangelo ; in Sistine Chapel. Detail from the "Disputa" 153 By Raphael ; in the Stanze. School of Athens 157 By Raphael ; in the Stanze. Portrait of Raphael and Perugino . . .161 Detail from School of A thens } by Raphael ; in the Stanze. Detail from Jurisprudence 169 By Raphael; in the Stanze. Attila and Leo 1 179 By Raphael; in the Stanze. Incendio del Borgo 187 By Raphael; in the Stanze. Raphael's Loggie 199 Story of Adam and Eve ...... 207 In Raphael's Loggie. Story of Joshua 215 In Raphael's Loggie. Preaching at Athens 233 From Drawing by Raphael; in the Galleria degli Arazzi. Apollo Belvedere 241 In the Cortile del Belvedere, Laocoon 247 In the Cortile del Belvedere. Head of Mercury 253 In the Cortile del Belvedere. Crouching Venus 263 In the Gabinetto delle Maschert. %ist of miustrations Museo Chiaramonti . Galleria delle Statue . Venus Anadyomene . In the Gabinetto delle Maschere. Head of Augustus . In the Sala dei Busti. The Biga In the Sala delta Biga. Transfiguration By Raphael ; in the Pinacoteca. Madonna di Foligno By Raphael ; in the Pinacoteca. Last Communion of St. Jerome By Domenichino ; in the Pinacoteca. Madonna di Frari . By Titian ; in the Pinacoteca Annunciation .... By Baroccio ; in the Pinacoteca, PARTIAL PLAN OF THE VATICAN PALACE AND GALLERIES 10 1 LOWER FLOOR 1 Staircase to the Pi 0 Clementine. Museum 2 Square Vestibule 3 Round Vestibule 4 Room of the Meleager 6 I Cabinets of the 7 Belvedere 9 Cabinet of the Masks 10 Hall of the Muses 1 1 Rotunda 12 Archivio Segreto 13 Christian Antiquities 1 4 Papyri 15 Early Christian Paint ings 16 Roman Frescoes, Mo- saics 17 Printed Books 18 Museo Profano 19 Hemicycle of the Pigna 20 Aurelian Column THE VATICAN UPPER FLOOR 1 Anticamera delle stanze 2 Chapel of S. Lorenzo 3 Hall of the Biga 4 Sculpture 5 Terra Cottas 6, 7, 8, Vases 9 Bronzes to Paintings 1 1 Halls of Papal Audiences 12 Hall of the Immaculate Conception !- Etruscan Museum TLbe Hrt of tbe Datican CHAPTER I. THE VATICAN PALACE In mighty, irregular, unbeautiful masses, the Palace of the Popes rears itself beside St. Peter's, its huge, angular pile almost dwarfing the great cathedral itself. The product of many centuries, its construction the result of many differing minds as well as times, its appearance from the outside suggests a helter-skelter conglomeration of big factories or towering tenements. It is as if giants, standing on the seven hills of Rome, had played a monstrous game in which walls, windows, por- ticoes, loggie, courts, and roofs were hurled down into the Borgo, striking where they would and adhering where they struck. So little apparent plan is there in this mountainous pile of buildings. The dull, muddy yellow of the walls does not make its architectural sins any less aggressive. In fact, i 2 Ubc Htt of tbe Wattcan outwardly, as a composite achievement of the gen- erations that have lavished untold gold upon its building, it must be accounted an egregious architec- tural failure. There is little chance, however, for viewing the Vatican as a whole. Only from the balcony around the lantern of St. Peter's can the entire extent of the sprawling mass be seen. Practically, the palace must be studied as it was built, — piecemeal. Thus considered in detachments, it shows much of beauty and interest. Unfortunately, the very worst of it is that part seen first and last by the visitor in Rome. The ugly divisions that rise at the right of St. Peter's, over Bernini's colonnade, do not hint of the loggie about the Court of St. Damasus or the long lines of galleries leading to the graceful Belvedere. These fiercely windowed, jaundiced walls suggest the many real beauties of the Vatican as little as they proclaim the marvellous treasures of art col- lected within them. To get a true appreciation of these architectural triumphs, it is necessary to view them not only with the eye of present sight, but with the eye of retrospection as well. Even a short and necessarily incomplete account of the why and when they were built will tend to give a truer basis for opinion as to their worth and success. The Vatican as it is to-day, with its outbuildings, gardens, and grounds, covers a space equal in area Ube IDatfcan palace 5 to a city with a population of a hundred and thirty- thousand. Compared in size with the palace alone, even the Colosseum sinks into insignificance. For the Colosseum would not quite fill up the ground plan of St. Peter's. And it would take all of St. Peter's and more than half as much again to equal the extent of the Vatican. Roughly speaking, the shape of the Vatican is that of two separate and wholly dissimilar groups of buildings on the slope of the hill at the foot of which is St. Peter's. These groups are connected by two narrow parallel galleries about a thousand feet long and two hundred and forty feet apart. These in turn are joined near the middle by two cross-galleries, dividing the enclosed space into two rectangular courts. The huge edifice at the southern end of these galleries is connected with St. Peter's, and is really the palace proper. Here, within its vast, irregular walls, are the Pope's private apartments, those of several cardinals, the Sistine Chapel, Paul- ine Chapel, Borgia Tower, the Stanze and Loggie of Raphael, and the Court of St. Damasus. The group at the other end, made more beautiful in line and mass, is smaller as well as more homogeneous. This still keeps its old appellation of the Belvedere, given it when it was the summer house of the Popes, and entirely unconnected with the palace. Named the Belvedere because of the lovely views from it, 6 Ube art of tbe Vatican the windows still look out over the walls of the Eternal City. There have been fabulous stories told of the number of rooms in the palace. Including anterooms, closets, guard-rooms and the like, they have been computed as high as twenty-two thousand. The best authorities, however, give them as about seven thousand, with over two hundred staircases and twenty courts. By far the larger and more im- portant of these are given up to the galleries, libraries, and chapels. The Pope's own apartments are, in comparison, most insignificant. They are in the east wing of the part surrounding the Court of St. Damasus, and the windows of his rooms can be seen over the colonnade from the Piazza di San Pietro. He thus, though to a certain extent the prisoner he has been called, can overlook the whole of the city that once was the capitol of the Church's temporal kingdom. Viewed from a certain standpoint, the Vatican may be called a history in stone of the rise, the decline, and the temporal fall of the Roman Catholic Church. Originally built when days of martyrdom for Christians were not far behind, it was three hundred years after that it was the scene of the greatest height of the Pope's power, — the crowning of the emperor of the world by the Pontiff of the Church. A thousand years after that the same office was demanded of his successor by the man whose Ube IDatican palace 7 ambitions seemed about to make him the veritable ruler of all Europe. Since then, the museums and galleries of this mighty pile have indeed grown in extent. But the priceless paintings and tapestries within have undergone the inevitable spoliation of that time aided by zealous restorers. No longer at the Vatican is held the dazzling court that rivalled the splendours of fabulous Eastern monarchs. No longer the sceptre of him whom policy must keep close within its limits can claim unquestioned obedience from the greatest of the kingdoms of the world. It does not require abnormal imagination to feel in the dead palace itself the infinite changes the years have brought. In the extreme quiet that pervades all its vastness, in the subdued, noiseless, almost furtive air of its custodians, in the away-from- the-world effect of the whole place, there are num- berless hints of the different days that have descended upon it. But most of all in the blackened, dulled, or villainously rebrightened frescoes that make its chief treasures, does the change appear in all its glaringness. One can dream what were the glories of the Sistine Chapel under Leo X. ; one can guess how the Pinturicchio golden stucco-studded ceilings gleamed under Alexander VI. ; one can imagine the Stanze of Raphael in all their freshness and clarity ; but, like the temporal power of the most ancient hierarchy of Christendom, these things can be actu- s Ube Hrt of tbe Dattcan ally seen no more. Perhaps it is an artistic heresy to suggest that to him of vivid poetic imagination these art works of the great Renaissance have after all in some ways gained by the ravages of the years. Surely, he who studies them with the sympathetic appreciation of their possibilities ever before him hardly needs to see them as they were fresh from their creator's brush. Perhaps, even, he builds from what he feels are wrecks of one time perfection, a glorious whole more wonderful than could ever come from the painter's palette. For though time destroys, it casts a glamour over the past that recreates in even lovelier forms the ruins it has made. So, in looking back at the history in which this palace of the Popes bore so> large a share, the days of its splendour and omnipotence linger long after the wars and pestilence, the bloodshed, the crime, the immorality that made it the* very centre of their rioting course, have been forgotten. There are various opinions as to the actual found- ing of the original Vatican palace. The Emperor Constantine and St. Sylvester have both been cred- ited with its inception. The probability seems to be that somewhere about 500 a. d. Pope Symmachus built near the ancient basilica of St. Peter's an epis- copal residence. This was the Pope who appealed to Theodoric to confirm his election, there being on the field at the time a rival, Lawrence, who claimed Zbc IDatican palace 9 the papal chair. Not till Symmachus's successor came to the pontifical throne did the wars and blood- shed caused by his accession cease. Gregorovius states that, having in spite of Lawrence and his adherents kept the seat, in gratitude for being spared to what was perhaps not a blameless life, Symmachus built and adorned many churches, as well as founded the Episcopia on the right and left of the stairway of St. Peter's. Before long this had increased to a number of different, if connected, buildings, for various churchly purposes. There were cardinals' apartments, presumably some sort of treasury or counting-house, a dwelling for strangers and Church dignitaries who were passing through Rome, and perhaps even some kind of school or exercise rooms for novices in the priestly ranks. The name, Vati- can, belonged really to the whole region about. " Mons Vaticanus " is said to be derived from Vati- cinis, — oracles. And it is stated that the ancients used to receive prophecy from certain oracles there living or officiating. This Mons Vaticanus was not one of the seven hills of Rome, but was quite outside the walls. It was here where Caligula had his gardens, and it was here that Nero built the circus where hundreds of Christians were put to frightful deaths. According to Roman Catholic teaching also, the crucifixion of St. Peter took place not far from where is now his tomb in the cathedral. Thus hal- io Zbc Htt of tbe Watican lowed by the blood of saints and martyrs, it followed almost as a matter of course that the greatest of the Christian cathedrals should rise from the ground so full of sacred memories. After that, though the heads of the ever-widening church had their palace as far away as the Lateran, the very needs of the basilica demanded some sort of royal abode near by. So the Vatican grew, till, by the time of Pope Stephen II., there were already chapels, oratories, mausoleums, a pontifical palace, the presbytery, dwellings for canons and choristers, convents and monasteries. Stephen II. made additions to the palace, and less than fifty years later it had grown to such proportions and magnificence that Charle- magne spent the winter of 800 under its roof. It was at the end of this, his third visit to the city, that the Pope crowned him Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. In three hundred years the Popes' power had mightily advanced. Symmachus had appealed to Theodoric to confirm his own election. Leo III. claimed and exercised the right to confer the greatest temporal title of the world upon this conquering Frankish king. Almost from this time till the return of the Popes from Avignon, the Vati- can, like the rest of Rome, was the scene of never- ending bombardment, plague, pillage, fire, and misery. In 846, the whole of the city was devastated by Saracens, and St. Peter's and all the surrounding Uhc IDatican palace n buildings left in nearly total ruins. Up to now, this quarter had been, as in the ancient days, out- side the city walls. Consequently it was quite at the mercy of any foes who chose to attack it. Leo IV. put an end to such untrammelled invasions. Under his orders a heavy protecting wall was raised, en- circling the whole region. The name of the Leonine city has ever since been associated with the en- closure. In Raphael's Ineendio del Borgo, he glori- fies the miracle said to have been performed by this pontiff. The wall of Leo IV. still exists in part, and one of its towers serves for a summer-room for Pope Leo XIII. This is a large, round chamber, with a half-spherical ceiling painted with the symbolical figures of the constellations. One of these, the lion, has two stars for eyes, which, by some system of lighting, shine and sparkle all through the night. The walls are so thick and impenetrable that, while the city is boiling under the pitiless August sun, here is a coolness like a tomb. After Leo IV., internal and external wars rav- aged the city of Rome with little pause. One long line of battle and siege after another raged, contest- ing now the supremacy of the Popes, now the ancient rights of the senate and people of Rome, now cham- pioning the attempts of neighbouring towns, anon establishing the absolute reign of the German sov- ereigns. Whatever the cause, the Popes were in- 12 TTbe Hrt of tbe IDattcan variably on one side or the other, till by the beginning of the fourteenth century, for very fear of life and possessions, they abandoned their ancient throne and took their court to Avignon. Up to this time the Lateran had always been the chief resi- dence of the Popes. Occasionally, however, when hard pressed by enemies, they had been forced to take up their abode in the Vatican, that being better fortified. Eugenius III. fled here for awhile, and to him are ascribed some of the foundations of the pres- ent palace. Celestine III., in spite of the troublous days, made further additions and extended the forti- fications. It was by now practically nothing but a barricaded fortress, and as such was subject to attacks and sieges. By the twelfth century it was in an almost ruined condition. Innocent III., who for awhile lived there, built more walls and towers to protect it, and is said to have employed the Flor- entine architects, Fra Sista and Ristori, to aid him in his plans. To Innocent IV. are due the Gardens of the Vatican. An inscription, says Perate, that was preserved up to the last century in the garden of Pius IV. related in detail the laying out of these. Nicholas III., in 1277, also lived at the Vatican, and his additions are supposed to have occupied the site of the Borgia Tower. Boniface VIII. died here at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Kept a prisoner there by the Orsini, who believed him in- Ube IDatxcan palace 13 sane, it is more probable that it was grief and rage over the triumph of his old enemies the Colonna, which drove him to his unhappy end. During the thousand years of papal residence in Rome, invasion and bloodshed often enough had scourged the city of the Caesars. The seventy years following the transfer of the head of the Roman Church to Avignon witnessed such a devastation as can hardly be conceived. Castles, palaces, churches, houses, whole streets lay demolished in the dust. Cattle were grazing in the Lateran and St. Peter's. All kinds of government had practically ceased. In 1347 Cola di Rienzo declared that the Eternal City was more like a den of thieves than the abode of civilised man. All who could get away had fled from the scene of desolation. It has been stated that at the time of Urban V. there were scarcely five hundred people left within the broken walls. Amid the wreckage of two epochs — pagan and Christian — Rome seemed no longer to exist. For many hundreds of years the Lateran was the official palace of the Popes. When Urban V. was finally persuaded to come to Rome, this palace was too ruinous for habitation. The Vatican, being bet- ter fortified and protected by its nearness to Castle St. Angelo, was in somewhat better condition. Be- fore the Pope left Avignon, he sent orders ahead for the Vatican to be made as livable as possible. In 14 ZCbe art of tbe IDattcan spite of hurried restorations and renovations the bare, half-ruined pile must have looked desolate indeed to this prince of the Church used to the royal magnificence of Avignon. The corps of artists he brought with him, among whom were Giottino, Giovanni, and Angelo Gaddi, could have made little impression upon the hapless heaps. It is hardly surprising that he did not stay long. Even St. Bridget's woful prophecy could not keep him from the waiting ease and joys of the Church's adopted capital. History states that his chief desire to re- turn to Avignon was to be near the protection of the French king. He could there better wreak his revenge upon Charles IV., Emperor of Germany, who had manifested an independent spirit galling to the pontiff. But there is little doubt that the lux- uries and culture of the city near the Rhone had something to do with his decision. Rome, the den of thieves, as Rienzo styled it, could offer nothing that was attractive or stimulating. The Vatican palace itself, gaunt, gloomy, ill-supplied with even fourteenth century comforts, must have been a daily contrast to the kingly splendour in the halls at Avignon. But St. Bridget's prophecy came true. Urban was taken sick the very day of his arrival at Avignon, and died nineteen days after. Meanwhile Rome, and indeed a large part of the Italian peninsula, XCbe IDatican palace is had grown more and more indignant that the head of the Church should no longer be in the city of its birth. The demands became so vigorous and imperative that Gregory XL, Urban's successor, at length decided to give in to the popular clamour, and returned to the Holy City. Wars and inter- nal disturbances prevented him from doing much in the way of embellishment of church or palace. At his death the magistrates locked the conclave into the Vatican to select his successor. Outside the walls the Roman populace thronged, yelling with threatening cries that unless an Italian were chosen the whole assembly of cardinals should be put to instant death. And while the uneasy priests were debating, a fearful storm arose that bellowed and boomed through the shaking halls and extinguished all the lights. The black darkness was only broken by sharp lightning flashes, and in one of them the cardinals saw drawn up under the rafters a deter- mined body of soldiers. In consternation they de- layed no longer. Bartholomew Prignano of Naples was proclaimed Urban VI. But this was the begin- ning of schism and worse disorders. There was no peace or safety for the Popes in Rome. In spite of one and sometimes two rival pontiffs in different parts of the world, the Romans continued to elect their own man. They were forced, however, to flee from one city to another, pursued by enemies both 16 Zbc Hrt of tbe IDatfcan within and without the Church. While Innocent VII. was Pope, Ladislas of Naples seized the Vati- can, and the Pope escaped to Viterbo. Later, in 1413, the Neapolitans again triumphed, and then there began such a sack as recalled the days of the Vandals. Finally the end of the schism was the election of the Roman, Otto Colonna, who took the title of Martin V. Before him Alexander XXIIL had built the covered way to the castle of St. Angelo, thus giving an outlet to safety for many a future Pope. Once more the whole of the city was a fearful ruin. There were soldiers in St. Peter's, and wolves in the deserted gardens of the Vatican. Martin V. set to work with enthusiasm, and, while he built churches and monasteries and streets, he made only enough repairs in the Vatican to keep the walls standing. It was in too hopeless a condition for residence, and he lived in a palace near the Church of Saints and Apostles. From his day on the Vati- can became the principal palace of the Popes. As such it was the centre of that power that was ever striving to grasp the world. No history has yet told the secrets its walls have known. It might almost be said that from Martin V. to the time of the French Revolution no event in the history of the time but was known and to a certain extent influenced by the mighty court assembled there. Ube IDadcan palace 17 Fearful wrongs as well as unquestioned virtues have paraded unafraid beneath the shadow of its protec- tion. Humanity in all its journeys from heights near the angels to depths below all devilhood has passed unhindered through its doors. With Mar- tin V. the first signs of the Renaissance appeared in Rome. In art, Rome was far behind the other Italian cities. Not only did she produce none of the great artists that were already beginning to be known beyond her borders, but she woke up to their impor- tance only after others were claiming their work. Eugenius IV. continued the efforts of Martin V. He succeeded in inducing Fra Angelico to come to decorate a chapel he had built in the Vatican. Before it was accomplished — or probably even begun — he died, and it was left to his successor, Nicholas V., to inaugurate with all its possibilities the Renais- sance that was already making Italy the queen of the world. Nicholas V. had vast schemes. Books and art were a passion with him, and he planned to decorate his capital till it should be the envy of Christendom. Almost immediately he began to carry out his designs for the rebuilding of the Vatican palace. To accomplish these designs it is practically certain that he tore down what parts of the old building were still left standing. Some of the foundations he doubtless retained, and Eugen- 18 Ube Hrt of tbe Vatican ius's chapel became his own oratory. It was his idea to keep a plain, almost severe outside, the better to emphasise the richness, elaboration, and luxury within. It was to be something of citadel shape, recalling by its walls and towers the palace of Avi- gnon. A triumphal door would lead into the courts full of rare trees and fountains, about which were grouped the buildings. There was a beautiful thea- tre, whose round arch was supported by columns of marble. At the right were the hall of the conclaves and the coronation, with two smaller halls and the apostolic treasury. Below this the immense Gallery of the Benediction opened its windows toward the Castle of St. Angelo. Upon the left a large chapel with arched roof, which may be said to be the Sis- tine, was entered by a vestibule. In mounting toward the extremity of the palace, one entered a large building of the library, lighted by windows on two sides. A little beyond was another court, and then the kitchens and stables. The apartments of the Pope and the apostolic rooms looked upon the first court. Perate quotes Manetti as saying that the ground floor was used in summer, that above in winter, and the next for spring and autumn. The plan for this is said to be that of Alberti. Before these immense designs had begun to be realised in wood and masonry, Nicholas died. The only parts of the present palace unquestionably his are the XTbe Vatican palace *9 buildings immediately surrounding the Court of the Papagallo, including the Borgia wing. Behind the loggie of Bramante, the stanze, which Raphael afterward painted, served as the apartments of Nicholas. These were first decorated with works at least ordered during his life. Buonfigli da Perugia, one of the masters of Perugino, Bartolommeo da Foligno, Simone di Viterbe, Andrea del Castagno, and Piero della Francesca, were among the artists employed. Francesca's works were once where now one sees the Miracle of Bolsena. They were his- torical compositions full of contemporaneous por- traits, among which were Charles VII. of France, Cardinal Bessarion, Prince of Palermo, and Nich- olas Fortebraccio. Higher than all other artists in the favour of the Pope stood Fra Angelico. By some miracle of oversight or unexpected discrimina- tion the exquisite paintings in the studio of Nicholas are still intact, a joy for all beholders even to the present day. Besides with the work of architect and painter, Nicholas V. filled his palace with exquisite stained glass, with rare marbles, wonderful illuminations, embroidery, and sculptures. He sent to Venice and Florence and still farther afield for every kind of art product that would help to make his palace the most beautiful in the world. He practically founded the Vatican library, and his court became famous 20 ZEbe Htt of tbe IDattcan for the historians, poets, engineers, architects, paint- ers, sculptors, and writers that filled his audience halls. Flemish tapestry had already excited much admiration by its brilliant colouring, and Nicholas established the first school of Roman tapestry weavers in the palace itself, under the direction of the Frenchman, Reginald de Maincourt. After his death Calixtus III. began an entirely different regime. Poets, and painters, architects, and engineers, were no longer in demand. All work toward the completion of the Vatican was stopped. Calixtus did not hesitate to follow to the letter his conviction that the regal appurtenances of his predecessor were so many wiles of the Prince of Darkness, entirely out of character for him who was the successor of the fisherman apostle. Pius II. had no such ascetic views as to the rights and privileges of the See of Rome. He built a tower which commanded a door of entrance to the Vatican, and completed some of the unfinished rooms of Nicholas V. His successor, Paul II., was accused of being a mere u commercial " by the literati of his day. His principal desire was to conquer the Mussulmans. In waging war against them he had little time left to carry on the artistic schemes of Nicholas V. At the Vatican, however, he built a fagade of three stories which, though it had disappeared by the time Zhc IDatican palace 21 of Paul V., served as model for Bramante for his noble Court of St. Damasus. By 1470 the Renaissance could show such names as Brunelleschi, San Gallo, Ghiberti, Donatello, Ver- rocchio, Pollajuolo, Delia Robbia, Rossellino, Mino da Fiesole, Masolino, Masaccio, Castagno, Melozzo da Forli, Gentile Fabriano, Benozzo Gozzoli, and Fra Lippo Lippi. It was not the capital of the Christian world, however, that knew them best, or most encouraged their works. Since Nicholas V. Rome had fallen far behind Florence or Siena or even minor towns in all advancement of art. Sixtus IV. came to the papal throne in 1471, and with him begins a new era. If Rome could not produce native artists, at least she could adopt those of more fortunate regions. So intensely interested was Sixtus IV. in this art advancement that he has been said to occupy to the development of the Re- naissance in Rome a position similar to that of Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence. At the Vatican he continued the work of rebuilding and restoring, fol- lowing largely the plan of Nicholas V. The palace at this date was an irregular quadrilateral triangle, inclosing the Court of the Papagallo and joining by the Loggie of the Benediction with the vestibule of St. Peter's. This, the ground floor of the principal building, was below the rooms which make the Borgia apartments. They were under the Raphael 22 Zf)c Hrt of tbe Datfcan rooms, where Sixtus IV. had his library. Contem- porary accounts state the architectural works of this pontiff to be of considerable extent and beauty, and they praise the magnificence of their decora- tions. Melozzo da Forli was the head of a school of painters whom Sixtus IV. had persuaded to come to Rome, and it was to him the Pope gave the dec- oration of his library. That part of the Vatican most intimately associated with Sixtus IV. is the Sistine Chapel. This was finished even to its side frescoes during his pontificate, and has ever since borne its founder's name. It was during the pontificate of Innocent VIII. that Granada was finally wrested from the Moors, and it was near the end of his life that Columbus set out on his great journey. If he did not continue in quite the lavish way of his predecessor, at least he left substantial additions to the papal palace. His part of the building is more or less mixed up with the constructions of Paul II., and there have been many discussions what to ascribe to each. It seems probable, however, that the large division of the building where the door of the palace connects with the Loggie of the Benediction, belongs to the time of Paul II. This is where he put his arms. Inno- cent VIII. restored the door, and continued the large fagade by an edifice which makes a right angle, overlooking on one side the Square of St. Peter's, Ube IDattcan palace 23 and on the other the court of entrance of the palace. This facade, which was after the style of the Palace of St. Mark, was of much inferior beauty to the Loggie of the Benediction. It, as well as the great hall which Innocent VIII. finished, was destroyed to make place for the new St. Peter's in 1610. What does remain as a monument to Inno- cent VIII. is the Villa Belvedere. This is probably almost wholly of his pontificate. At that time it was built for a summer home, and was some distance from the palace. Vasari and others have given Pol- lajuolo as his architect. Miintz says, however, that trustworthy documents ascribe it to Jacopo da Pietra- santa. It is said to have cost sixtv thousand ducats. Mantegna did most of the interior decorations. A story is told that the Pope, often being behindhand with Mantegna's just pay, the artist determined to teach him a lesson. So the Pope one day found him at work upon a figure whose meaning he could not guess. " Who is she? " he asked, curiously. " That," replied Mantegna, with covert emphasis, " is Economy, your Holiness." "Ah!" answered Innocent, " then paint next to her Patience, Mantegna." But it is said that after this the artist's money was promptly ready. His works here, as well as his frescoes in a chapel of the Vatican, have all perished. Gone, too, are 24 Ube art of tbe IDattcan the floors in the Belvedere that were made of tiles from the workshop of the Delia Robbia. It was in this Belvedere that Alexander VI. kept prisoner Catherine Sforza, ex-sovereign of Forli, and it was in one of the rooms of the Borgia apart- ments that he himself died a terrible death, a death generally believed to have been caused by the poison he had meant for another. Apologists for Alexander VI. lay great stress upon his patronage of the arts, many of them, like Muntz, claiming that posterity actually owes him a debt of gratitude for the encouragement he gave to the genius of Bramante, San Gallo, Perugino, Pinturicchio, Caradosso, Michelangelo. There is no doubt that he seized with avidity upon any artist who was capable of adding to the external glory of a reign almost unparalleled for its outward mag- nificence. But indeed all Italy was fairly throbbing with the joy of her awakening from the long sleep of art. Princes, potentates, and even merchants vied with one another in their efforts to secure the ser- vices of new stars in the firmament of sculptors, painters, and architects. In those eager days any real talent was most unlikely to die neglected. It would have been extraordinary if the luxury-loving Pope, he whose very vices required the richest of accessories, had not followed in the lead of the nobles of Florence, Venice, Milan, and Verona. And after Ube Wattcan palace 25 all is said, Alexander VI. completed and added to the works of his predecessors rather than created new. At the Vatican the only part wholly of his era is the Borgia Tower. The so-called Apparta- menta Borgia belongs to Nicholas V. Under Alex- ander it was merely finished and decorated. And though the Pinturicchio frescoes are among the priceless treasures of the palace, yet, as has been truly said, too much of such style of decoration would have ended in the death of painting. The Oriental voluptuousness of the Pope showed itself in the excesses he demanded in gold, ornament, and scintillating colour. A little of such bravura of embroidery is permissible even in highest art. Be- yond this, it becomes merely cloying and degenerate. Under Julius II., nephew of Sixtus IV., began the greatest period in the history of the Vatican. To him and to his follower, Leo X., are due the larger part of the marvellous works of art that to-day still make the Vatican palace the most wonderful museum in the world. It was Julius II. who com- manded Bramante to join the palace to the Belve- dere, who ordered Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and who set Raphael at work on the Stanze. Bramante's plan for making the Belvedere a part of the Vatican proper was simple, dignified, and rational. If it had been allowed to remain as he 26 Ube Htt of tbe Datican designed it, the mass of buildings under the one name would be so much the gainer in coherency and charm. He threw out two long, parallel galleries joining the Villa at one end, the Vatican at the other. These two powerful lines were three stories high, each story an arcade whose columns and pil- lars circled the immense court that to-day is cut by the Library and Museum. Julius II. at first lived in the Borgia Apartment. Tiring, likely enough, of for ever seeing the image of his predecessor, he decided to move into the story above, which had been the part used by Nicholas V. These rooms, decorated by artists of the earlier Renaissance, he ruthlessly ordered entirely refres- coed. Of all the works he saved only the little Chapel of Fra Angelico, where, each morning, he celebrated his mass. By 1508 a whole colony of painters was installed in the venerable apartment. Signorelli, Perugino, Sodoma, Bramantino, Peruzzi, Lorenzo Lotto, and the Flemish Jean Ruysch were hard at work covering walls and ceiling. Then, sud- denly, Raphael, who was working by Perugino's side, stepped into fame at one bound. All the others were dismissed, and to him alone was confided the whole work. Not till the very end of the fifteenth century did a passion for the antique begin to be felt in Rome. In Florence the Medicean collection of ancient sculg- LEO X., CARDINAL GIULIO DE' MEDICI, AND DE' ROSSI By Raphael ; in the Pitti Palace, Florence Ube IDatican palace 29 tures were in existence long before any such effort was made in the city of the Church. Sixtus IV. did open a museum of antique bronzes, and Inno- cent VIII. added some newly found works in brass and a colossal head of Commodus. From then till Julius II. no attempt was made to increase these relics of the past. While Julius was still cardinal he came into possession of a recently discovered Apollo, and when he became Pope he had it put into the Cortile di Belvedere. This court, about one hundred feet square, was laid out as a garden with orange-trees and running streams. Bramante designed semicircular niches for the statues that from then on were placed there. It was the begin- ning of the famous sculpture gallery that so excited Napoleon's admiration and greed. Leo X. added to the sculptures in the Vatican Garden, and went on with the great plans of Julius II. for the beautifying of the palace. Among other constant demands upon Raphael he ordered him to make cartoons for tapestry which was to be hung around the walls of the Sistine Chapel below the paintings. Raphael also built on to the Bramante loggie a third story above the two already completed, and made the faqade to the old pontifical palace. Into the midst of all these wonder-works of art, despoiling the hard-won triumphs of generations, overturning, breaking, ruining precious gems no 30 XTbe Hrt of tbe Datfcan after efforts could replace, came the destroyer from the north. Under Frundesberg and De Bourbon, the Germans and the Spaniards descended upon Rome with the fury of the Vandals of old. The Pope, Clement VII., was forced to flee to St. Angelo with his cardinals, prelates, and household, and there for seven long months he watched the destruction of his city. Houses were razed, churches and convents stripped of vases and vestments; relics, tiaras, chasubles, tabernacles, chalices ornamented by the great artists of the fifteenth century, tapestries, pic- tures, sculptures, manuscripts, — all were broken, torn, dispersed. Nobles, civilians, artists, poets, and scholars fled from the burning, rioting town, and Rome knew once more the desolation she had escaped since the days of the return of Gregory XI. The Vatican suffered equally with the other palaces. In the Borgia apartments open camp-fires of the bar- barians smoked and blackened beyond recognition the golden dreams of Pinturicchio. Every treasure that could be melted or smashed or by any means converted into a commercial value was like kindling- wood to the flames of their greed. After that they wantonly ruined all that could be made of no mone- tary value. Spears, javelins, sabres were thrown at the frescoed walls, till many of them had scarcely a foot unscarred. The costly stained glass windows, the pride of Sixtus IV., were shattered to millions XCbe IDatican palace 31 of glistening splinters. Statues were overthrown and broken, the gardens despoiled, — the whole place turned into a wreck that might be rebuilt but could never be the same. Everything considered, it is only remarkable that the very stones of the foundation were preserved. Conquering, invading armies even of twentieth century civilisation do not pretend to preserve for their victims' future use the treasures that come within their triumphal march. In the invasion of 1527 there was a spirit beneath that would have regarded any clemency as sacri- legious. The Protestant Germans under Friindes- berg considered the smashing of images, the ransack- ing of churches, the tearing of priestly vestments, and the razing of convent and monastery as part of their religious duty. They felt to the elaborate paraphernalia of the Roman Church much as the early Christians did to the stone and marble gods and temples of the heathens. In each case the loss to art has been the same. When finally Clement VII. was released and the Imperial army withdrawn, like a true Medici he at once set about the renovating and reornamenting of his palace. Giulio Romano, a pupil of Raphael, was ordered to finish the stanze Raphael had begun, and Del Vaga and Da Udine were set at work in the Borgia Tower. Finally, Michelangelo was com- missioned to paint the Last Judgment in the Sistine 32 TEbe Hrt of tbe IDatican Chapel. In the Pauline Chapel, the Conversion of St. Paul and Crucifixion of St. Peter were also finished during the latter's pontificate. Though the Pope was sixty-five and Michelangelo sixty, so great was the ardour of both that all Rome began to feel as if she were back in the days of Julius II. Antonio San Gallo restored the Court of the Belve- dere, commenced by Bramante, and of which one whole gallery had tumbled down. He also con- structed the entrance of the Sistine Chapel, and Sala Regia, an enormous vestibule with dome in the centre whose two stained glass windows were by Pastorino da Siena. This vestibule, where he wrote the names of the Farnese and Paul III., took the place of very ancient chambers of the palace, part of it being the oratory of the Holy Sacrament, decorated by Angel- ico for Nicholas V. As Perate emphatically says, there can be no excuse for the self-aggrandisement that effaced these souvenirs of bygone times. The same Pope who destroyed this chapel of Nicholas V. blazoned his name upon the door of the Pauline Chapel, a chapel wlhose richness was only equalled by its banality. For Julius III. Michelangelo designed a beautiful flight of steps for the Belvedere, in the shape of a quadrangular staircase with a balustrade of pep- erino marble. By this time the master was getting old, and although his advice was consulted for what- XTbe IDatican palace 33 ever alteration or addition was made to the Vatican, fresco painting had got beyond his failing physical powers. One can imagine his disgust when, unable himself to paint, his great fresco of the Last Judg- ment was ruthlessly altered to suit the prudery of the time. Paul IV. either felt or was persuaded that much that had been sanctioned under the name of art was mere blatant indecency. Accordingly he started in on his crusade against immorality by com- manding that the nude figures in the great fresco should be properly clothed. Red and green and blue and brown robes and capes and scarfs were therefore carefully painted over the undraped angels and saints and martyrs and fiends. The fact that this con- scientious veiling of the " human form divine " was bound to alter the lines of the composition, and greatly to change the distribution of the colour-mass, influenced this encourager of reforms not at all. While Pius IV. was Pope, the great Court of the Belvedere was finished after the plans of Bramante under the superintendence of Michelangelo. Along- side of the Sala Regia were added two other rooms with a vault feebly arched over an arcade. It was decorated with a fresco of landscape alternating with figures of the virtues, the vaulting ornamented with fine arabesques . Since the death of Leo V. the third story of the loggie had remained untouched. This was now dec- 34 ZEbe Hrt of tbe IDatfcan orated with stucco and fresco by Da Udine and Pomarancio. But the most charming achievement of Pius IV. was the erection of a summer-house in the gardens about the palace. This, built by Piero Ligorio, was called the Villa Pia. It was a wonder- fully happy architectural invention, abounding in all the grace of the antique. In form it was an in- genious joining of two small houses by a circular court of marble. Placed in the groves of pines and aloes, with flower beds tier upon tier, fountains and rnarble basins and covered galleries, with the walls ornamented with bas-reliefs and paintings by Baroc- cio, Santo de Tito, and others, nothing was lacking to make this exquisite creation a veritable artist's dream. Built at the very end of the Renaissance, it breathes a delicate fragrance like a last tender bloom upon a dying branch. Gregory XIII., in whose time came the reform of the calendar, added the Torre dei Venti to the Vati- can, and founded its gallery of geographical charts. He also finished the second arm of the loggie on the north of the Court of St. Damasus. In the palace a whole army of painters was at labour. Federigo Zucchero worked on the vaulting of the Pauline Chapel, and with Vasari finished the frescoes of the Sala Regia. These represent the great pontifical deeds from the Carolingian donations to the Battle of Lepanto, the triumph of which Rome had cele- SIXTUS V. By Sassoferrato XTbe IDatican palace 37 brated with the pomp of ancient days. Pomarancio the younger imitated on the first floor of the new loggie the decoration of Giovanni da Udine. On the second floor Sabatini and Tempesta attempted and failed to reproduce the style of Raphael in the series of little frescoes illustrating the life of Christ. The rooms opening into this gallery are the apartments given to foreign potentates, and they as well as a chapel dedicated to St. Paul and Anthony are all overdecorated. Landscapes, Biblical scenes, life of St. Gregory the Great, figures of Virtues, crowd and jostle one another almost, it would seem, without plan. Truly the Renaissance is dead. The third floor continues the ornamentation begun under Pius IV. on the first floor. These are scenes of the life of Pius IV. and Gregory XIII., and all along the ceiling is the solemn procession transporting the body of St. Gregory from the St. Mary of the Campo Marzo to St. Peter's. These loggie lead into an immense gallery of one hundred and twenty metres, constructed in 1581 by Muziano, and enriched by stucco and paintings under the direction of Tem- pesta. Romans felt, when Sixtus V. became Pope, as if the Renaissance were beginning to live again. Fon- tana, who was his chief architect, had worked with pupils of Michelangelo, and the Pope kept him busy altering and making additions to his palace. He 3* Ube Htt of tbe Vatican closed the Court of St. Damasus toward the east by a third body of building where the continuation of the Loggie of Bramante made a new palace. Henceforth this was the habitation of the Popes. It is extraordinarily large, more open and more healthy than the old rooms of Nicholas V. and of Julius II. Fontana made it of bricks, the window- cases and the cornices of travertin. He gave it the form of a rectangle, a little elongated, bounding an interior court and growing about the base of the massive tower of Nicholas V. Not less important but more questionable in taste was the creation of the Vatican library, which vast edifice, cutting across the Court of the Belvedere, interrupted the gracious lines of Bramante's designs. Commenced during the winter of 1587, it was almost entirely finished by the autumn of the following year, and it cost a thousand crowns of gold. In 1590 the windows were provided with glass, and the superb central gallery, divided into nine naves by the pilas- ters of stucco, received a most elaborate decoration. These frescoes, more precious for their history than for their art, are accompanied by Latin inscriptions which tell most ingeniously of all the works of Sixtu's V. Clement VIII., he who condemned Beatrice Cenci to death, completed the palace of Sixtus V. by a third story, where to-day are the apartments of the XTbe IDatican palace 41 Cardinal Secretary of State. A mediocre painter, Giovanni Alberti, covered the walls with gigantic frescoes which represented the baptism of Constan- tine, the death and glorification of St. Clement. Clement VIII. also ordered the completion of the library of Sixtus V. Urban VIII. added to this library a new division, expressly to receive the Palatine collection which had been bequeathed to it. In an effort also to reestab- lish the pontifical army, which since the sixteenth century had amounted to little, he formed an arsenal in the Vatican, placing it over the library. In 1660 Bernini, in constructing his imposing colonnade to the cathedral, changed the entrance to the Vatican, making it as one sees it to-day. Of the old door there remain the " portoni di bronzo," which Innocent VIII. had put in place and which Paul V. had restored. Passing the ever-present Swiss Guards, one comes to the Royal Staircase. This majestic entrance-way has a beautiful roof of caissons, supporting the Ionic columns, and mounts slowly and harmoniously to the Sala Regia. Ber- nini, as has been often said, in his inexhaustible fertility of invention, has perhaps never achieved a more expressive decoration. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Popes assiduously collected all the antique sculp- tures they could find to enrich the Vatican, and to 42 Zhc Hrt of tbe Watican ornament the public squares of Rome. The Gardens of the Belvedere had been changed into the Museo Pio-Clementino, which was fast being filled with innumerable bas-reliefs and inscriptions. The actual founder of the Vatican Museum in its present form is Clement XIV., and his work was finished by his successor, Pius VI., under the guidance of the archi- tect Simonetti. It meant the entire remodelling of the old villa of Innocent VIII. Hardly had Pius got his treasures safely and beau- tifully housed when, after the invasion of the Italian states by the French, the treaty of Tolentino gave the gems of the collection to Napoleon. When Pius VI. died in exile at Valence, the marbles of his palace were in the Louvre in Paris. Despoiled of all the more wonderful of the art treasures of his cap- ital, Pius VII. started bravely to replace them, if not in value, at least in extent and number. It was during his years that Canova produced his once extravagantly admired figures, poorly enough, in reality, taking the place of the antique fragments. The lapidary of Pius VII. extended from the first floor of the Loggie of Bramante to the sill of the library of Sixtus V. Its walls were ornamented with antique inscriptions, and bordered by sarcophagi and all sorts of broken bits. After that began the Museo Chiaramonti, where the statues, farther than eye can see, line the walls. Almost all are too much restored, TEbe IDatican palace 43 and the majority of them are only of inferior artistic value. But meanwhile explorations in Rome and the Campagna were constantly bringing new works to sight. To give them a fitting place, Pius VII. had Raphael Stern construct, in 182 1, a long, rectangular room, called the Braccio Nuovo. This was parallel to the library of Sixtus V., and over the same prin- cipal court of the Belvedere. The Pope bought every- thing he could lay his hands upon, and in 18 18 had already brought to the Vatican the celebrated antique fresco of the Marriage of the Aldobrandines, dis- covered during the pontificate of Clement VIII., near the Arch of Gallier. In 18 19 he formed the Egyp- tian Museum, with the collection of a Roman ama- teur, Andrea Guidi. And then, finally, after Waterloo, in 1815, the Louvre in its turn had to disgorge, and back came the treasures Napoleon a score of years before had sent in triumph to the city on the Seine. The Vati- can gained by the transfer more than she had lost, in spite of the fact that France managed to retain a few minor sculptures. For Pius VII. took from the returned spoils of war enough canvases that once had hung in Italian churches to start a picture-gal- lery in his palace. They were placed in the building of Gregory XIIL, in the third story of the loggie. This brings us almost to the Vatican as it exists to-day. In 1836, Gregory XVI. created the Etrus- 44 Ube art of tbe Datican can Museum in twelve small rooms, and in 1858 Pius IX. added to the chambers of Raphael the room of the Immaculate Conception, decorated in fresco by Francesco Podesti. Pius IX., as well, opened the old balustrade giving access to the Court of St. Damasus by a large covered stairway of travertin and white marble and stucco. His orders repaired with marble and glass the magnificent staircase leading with its three hundred steps to the palace of Sixtus V., and under his direction Alessandro Mantovani repaired the paintings of Da Udine and Pomarancio on the first floor of the loggie. They also decorated the wing of Sixtus V. with landscapes and Christian allegories. In 1870 the temporal power of the Popes no longer existed. Only in the Vatican was that power still omnipotent. If now Italy had the great painters and sculptors of the Renaissance, one can imagine that every means would be employed to secure their ablest efforts for this last remnant of the might that once claimed the world's obeisance. Even w T ith the inadequate talent at his command, Leo XIII. has done much to prove his artistic right to be the successor of the Popes of days for them more for- tunate. He has opened new rooms in the library and archives. He has ornamented the Gallery of the Candelabra with a rich pavement of marble, and a ceiling where are painted in allegories the acts of Uhc Vatican palace 45 his pontificate. His greatest claim to the gratitude of all art-lovers is his restoration and opening to the public the apartments of the Borgia. Perhaps, when the to-be-hoped-far-away future has crumbled to ruins the Stanze and the Sistine Chapel, perhaps the soil of Italy will have ready a new race of giant creators, who can worthily replace the masterpieces of the vanished past, Meanwhile, for us, the embers of that golden era still glow with a brilliancy that dims all present achievement. Only one of many museums where are garnered the art treasures of the world, it is the Vatican which holds more completely than any other worthy ex- amples of the greatest art-epochs of all times. CHAPTER II. CHAPEL OF NICHOLAS V. There is little of the atmosphere of the outside world anywhere in the Vatican Palace. Yet the quiet that pervades the galleries, museums, and chapels in this home of the Popes, seems noise com- pared with the still solemnity of the small room once the studio and now called the Chapel of Nich- olas V. So thoroughly do the paintings of that monk who worked only for the glory of God domi- nate both the room and those who enter it. After more than a decade spent in the Convent of San Marco, Angelico da Fiesole, called lovingly Fra Angelico, was summoned to Rome by Eugenius IV. In the spring of 1447, when Eugenius had been dead some months, the frate began his labours in the Vatican. The painting of the study of Nicholas was preceded by his decoration of the Chapel of St. Peter, a building between the basilica and the palace, and which was destroyed less than a century afterward to give place to the great staircase of the palace. The frescoes thus destroyed contained 46 Cbapel of IFUcbolas X)> 47 portraits of Nicholas V., St. Antonio, and Biondo of Forli. Upon three walls of the vaulted study of the Pope he painted the histories of St. Stephen and St. Lawrence. The St. Stephen series fill the upper lunette-shaped portions of each wiall. They picture his Ordination, his Distribution of Alms, his Preach- ing, his Defence before the Council, his Expulsion from the City, his Death by Stoning. The lower part of each wiall has a scene or scenes from the life of St. Lawrence, corresponding in subject to those above: his Ordination, the Pope Bestowing upon him the Treasures of the Church, his Distri- bution of these Treasures, his Appearance before Decius, Conversion of his Jailer, and his Martyr- dom. These frescoes, painted when Fra Angelico was already an old man, show nothing of the weakness of age. Instead they are a grand culmination of a life that, using art only to express the joys and solace of religion, nevertheless advanced steadily and triumphantly to complete artistic expression. The most splendid are the St. Stephen Preaching, Martyrdom of St. Stephen, Ordination of St. Law- rence, St. Lawrence Giving Alms, and St. Lawrence before the Emperor Decius. St. Stephen Preaching shows the saint on a low step that apparently leads to some building near 48 Zhc Hrt of the Vatican the city wall Before him, a company of women sit listening to his words, while behind them stand a number of men, as deeply interested. The Gothic architecture of the background may possibly be attributed to Benozzo Gozzoli, a pupil of Fra Angelico. There are, in this composition, twenty- two or twenty-three figures. And each and every one, it is not too much to say, has a life, an indi- viduality, an expressiveness scarcely ever before to be found in paintings of the early quattrocento. The saint himself, as he stands before his listeners, has a solidity, a roundness, a reality that might be credited to that great creator of solid, firmly built human forms, Masaccio. But he has as well the grace and charm and spirit that Masaccio never acquired. These were Fra Angelico's birthright. This, too, like the rest of the frescoes, abounds in realistic touches. St. Stephen, gazing intently and with great persuasion at his audience, has grasped his left thumb between the forefinger and thumb of his right hand ; a gesture as natural as it is telling, in marking off the points of his discourse. In the women seated on the ground there are innumerable indications of the study Fra Angelico was constantly making from living models. Though they are all dressed very mudi alike, the position of their hands, the expression of their faces, are as different as if a modern painter were representing them. There Cbapel of IFUcboIas ID* 49 is, perhaps, a slight sameness in their features. Yet this does not make them less individual. While all are deeply engrossed, they show their attention in varying ways and degrees. One woman has her hands crossed on her breast, while she gazes at the saint with her head thrown back, as if she were drinking from the very fount of the Most High. Beside her another has her hands clasped, while with even eyes she follows the words, her whole manner evidence that each sentence is fraught with deep personal application. Farther front, nearly in full face, is one, her hands on her lap, her eyes level, looking out of the picture instead of at the preacher. She listens with veneration but with the calmly quiescent spirit of one who already knows and appre- ciates the Scriptural pleadings she hears. One of the most remarkable faces is that of an older, more closely draped woman, somewhat behind the last mentioned. Only her head and shoulders can be seen. But the dark-eyed face hints of trouble and suffering, and she listens to the words as if her soul was longing for the help she is sure must come. The men in the rear are no less striking in delinea- tion. There is more difference in facial expression, and their attitudes are full of change and action. The two men on the left who stand talking together are especially noteworthy. One is evidently ex- pounding some precept of the saint, while the other, So Ube Hrt of tbe Dattcan wrapped closely in his robe, turns his bearded face in eager attention. The Martyrdom of St. Stephen fills the other half of the lunette that shows him thrust out from the city. The two scenes are separated by the curving wall of the city with its towers and battlements that recede into the distance against the hills of the back- ground. The figures of the latter division are not up to the best work in the chapel. The characterisation of the faces is still penetrating and distinctive, but there is less happy placing, and the forms are thicker and clumsier, and show less intimate knowledge of construction. On the other side, however, the painter-priest returns to his higher level. At the extreme right St. Stephen kneels in prayer, appar- ently unconscious of the stones hurled against him, or of the streams of blood that are trickling down his face and neck. As always with Fra Angelico's saints, his halo is well defined, like a round disc, against which his face comes sharply in profile. Behind him are two of his slayers, one, an old man who, holding his garment away from his feet with his left hand, is about to hurl a rock with his other. His hairy face expresses implacable revenge and fanatic rage, and his figure is tense with the con- centrated passion of the moment. In front of him a younger, equally vigorous figure, has just discharged one of the stones that is crashing against the Cbapel of ffUcbolas ID* 5* martyr's head. Back of these two stand the Phari- sees, sternly relentless, conscientiously vindictive. Prominent is St. Paul, who holds some of the garments of the slayers. No figure by Masaccio ever stood more firmly upon the ground or showed keener sense of what Berenson names " the tactile values." In almost all the frescoes of the chapel, it appears quite possible to walk around these well- constructed figures. They are no mere shells pasted against a background. They stand upon firm foundations, and behind them is a real distance, with ample room between. The figure of St. Paul has these attributes in a marked degree. The painter, too, has portrayed him so well that it is easy to see how that sturdy, uncompromising per- sonality became afterward the fervid, compelling apostle. Next to the St. Stephen Preaching comes the scene before the Council of Jerusalem. The judge in white on the throne-like bench is splendidly con- ceived; the folds of his ample mantle have the dignity of the antique. In the Ordination of St. Stephen, Peter is bending over the kneeling saint before six disciples. The nave and transept of the church in the distance are excellent in proportion, and of a good style. Until very late in his artistic career, Fra Angelico had paid little attention to perspective, — painting 52 Ube Hrt of tbe Dattcan with a flatness like the Japanese or early Byzantines. Here he turns away from all this and gets effects of distance and proportion as accurately as if he had always been striving for them. Time and restoring have greatly injured both St. Stephen's Expulsion and his Martyrdom. St. Stephen Giving Alms is pathetic and lovely in the extreme. Standing on the steps of his church, he slips a piece of money into the hands of a young mother. She is draped in flowing robes that accen- tuate her graceful femininity. A clerk is behind the saint and near the mother is an older woman entranced in prayer. Others press forward for their share of the charity, and at the right two women depart and commune with each other. Fra Angelico here, as in the companion to this, St. Lawrence Dis- tributing Alms, succeeded in showing poverty and frailty without arousing dislike or shrinking in the spectator's mind. He emphasises instead the joy of giving and the thankfulness of the receiver, and fills the picture with a tender feeling for helplessness that does not obscure the excellent pictorial effects of the composition. In the Ordination of St. Lawrence by Sixtus II., which is much damaged, the Pope, with the tiara, is seated in a basilica of a late classic style. Before him kneels the young deacon, to whom he is handing the patten and chalice. Seven or eight ecclesiastics ORDINATION OF ST. LAWRENCE BY S1XTUS II. By Fra Angelico ; in the Chapel of Nicholas V. Cbapei of IFUcbolas ID* ss surround them. One bears a book, another a censer, another an incense boat. But they are of slight character and generally uninteresting. It is upon the Pope and the kneeling saint that the painter has spent his chief efforts. The grave old man and the eager young priest are worthy of closest study. Here, too, as in the St. Stephen, the Pope is a por- trait of Nicholas V. The panel of St. Lawrence Receiving the Treas- ures of the Church has a complicated but correct architectural background. The two soldiers at the door are realistically portrayed and full of action, if slightly twisted in construction. It is in the mate to this, however, St. Lawrence Giving Alms, that Fra Angelico's power is at its height. Standing in front of the nave of a basilica, the saint is surrounded by a pleading, importunate, but cheerful crowd of beggars. In spite of infirmi- ties and needs of all description, they express in every line their confident belief in the generosity of the giver. The mother holding the child close in her arms might almost be the model for one of Fra Angelico's Madonnas. Like one of his saints, too, is the old man with the long beard, who is bending forward and leaning on his cane, while he claims his share. Two little children, one of whom already has his gift, are clasping arms in great content, the childlike naivete of their expressions being no less TTbe Hrt of tbe Vatican true to childhood than to Fra Angelica's art. The architectural background is exact in its lines of perspective, and the delicate ornaments of the pilasters and capitals are exquisitely indicated. On the whole, this may be called the most remarkable of all of Fra Angelico's works. He shows in it his enthusiastic study of the antique, his no less earnest consideration of the human form, and at the same time his own deep spiritual power, and that delight he took in making his religious ecstasies intelligible to his day. It is indeed the culmination of much of the best art of the early quattrocento. In the St. Lawrence before Decius, he has the most florid of all his architectural accessories. The emperor is seated upon a throne in an apse-like recess, on either side of which are two pilasters with Corinthian capitals. The entablature over the arch runs along on the same level over a wall flank- ing the canopy on each side, this wall also divided by Corinthian pilasters placed at even distances. In front of it a rich brocade hangs loosely, and above, on each side of the attic of the canopy is a large flat bowl full of flowers. In Decius, who sits upon his throne " for all the world a king," is a certain sense of aloofness. His eyes are downcast and do not look at St. Lawrence, who faces his accusers squarely. All about are the populace, drawn with much variety of detail and attitude. The head ST. BUONAVENTURA Fra Angelico ; in the Chapel of Nicholas V. Cbapel of VUcbolas ID* 59 of Decius was undoubtedly copied from a Roman bust. The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence is greatly in- jured, but the figures are clearly differentiated and strongly expressive. Throughout the series the colour has of course undergone the usual vicissitudes. Many portions have been repainted, more have suffered from damp- ness and corrosion. In spite of everything, however, lere is still much of the simple brilliant tones Fra Angelico loved so well, and that gave to his heavenly scenes a lightness and freshness unexcelled by any other master of his time. Between the lower series of frescoes, on the pilas- ters, are painted saints, standing in niches. These are SS. Anastatius, Leo, Thomas Aquinas, Ambrose, Buonaventura, Augustine, John, Chrysostom, and Pope Gregory the Great. Of them the Buonaventura is the most celebrated. The slender, ascetic hands, clasping the open book, are as full of character as is the benignant head, with its kindly introspective eyes, its firm,, generous mouth, its flowing, forked beard. It is probable that the painter-monk was making a portrait of some dear friend, so sympa- thetic and intimate is the treatment. In the vaulting are the four Evangelists with their symbols, against an azure golden-starred sky. St. 6o XTbe Hrt of tbe IDaUcan Matthew has his book and pen, and an exquisite little angel with clasped hands is standing beside him. St. Luke, whose wide forehead is widened by his lack of hair, also has a book and pen, and near him kneels the ox. The face is wonderfully expres- sive of the physician side of the apostle. St. John is shown with the eagle, his face not strongly unlike Buonaventura. St. Mark appears with his lion watching by his side, while the apostle with bent head and eyes busily writes in the volume on his knee. To quote the American editors of Vasari's " Lives/' " The scenes in the lives of Stephen and Lawrence in this chapel . . . do not suffer greatly even in their close juxtaposition with the Stanze of Raphael." In this nearness they " are like the plein chant of the mediaeval Church beside the chorded melodies of Palestrina." "... Consider the very early epoch of Fra Angelico, and that he was well known even before Masaccio began the frescoes of the Carmine, and it must be admitted that here, in spite of his self-imposed limitations, was one of the greatest masters of the Renaissance." CHAPTER III. THE BORGIA APARTMENTS The Appartamenti Borgia of the Vatican are directly under the Stanze of Raphael. These rooms, so elaborately decorated by Pinturicchio for the Borgian pontiff, were deserted by Julius II., and for four hundred years were allowed to' fall into neglect. In 1816, after the return of the papal treasures by France, they were taken for the picture-gallery. The light was so bad, however, that the paintings had to be removed, and the suite was then made into a miscellaneous museum and library. In 1891 Leo XIII. began their restoration. By that time the plaster in many places had been cracked and destroyed, and during the time of Pius VII. a varnish was applied to parts of the ceiling, which made a kind of crust. The restoration, carried out under the direction of Signor Lodovico Seitz, was confined to repairing the plaster and stucco, and to cleaning the frescoes from dust and damp. In some parts of the fifth and sixth halls, stucco has been taken from the walls, and the walls then re- 61 62 XTbe Hrt of tbe IDattcan constructed and the surface " refixed." But it has been done so exquisitely that no< mark is observable, and fortunately retouching, with some trifling excep- tions, has not been allowed. What repairing there is dates from the time of Pius VII. This, of course, so far as the actual panel paintings are concerned. The purely decorative part, especially of the lower walls, was in such bad condition that it had to be completely renovated. When possible the fragmen- tary remains were closely followed, and if they were wholly lacking appropriate hangings have taken their place. These minor decorations form a tremendous study in themselves, and are particularly interesting because it is so apparent that the artist superintended every bit of the work, ordering the marble mantels and cornices, the wainscoting, and even the porce- lain flooring to suit his colour plan. The rooms were reopened to the public in March, 1897. Ehrle and Stevenson in their splendid volume show very clearly that it is only with the second of the Borgia apartments that Pinturicchio's work commenced. The rooms occupied by Alexander VI. for living purposes were the Hall of Mysteries, the Hall of Saints, that of Arts and Sciences, and the two " withdrawing 99 rooms. There were thus five rooms which probably took Pinturicchio about three years to finish. His superintendence is evident in every one. Undoubtedly he had assistants, and XTbe Borgia Bpartments 63 many of them, but his vigilance must have made him nearly omnipresent. His oversight was so careful that nowhere is there any break. They are his own, not only in design and placing, but largely in actual execution. Probably the marble work is by Andrea Bregno*, who was with Pinturicchio in the Sistine Chapel. The glowing yet subdued beauty of the rooms is like a brilliant flower bed seen through a filmy haze, the colours swimming and melting and absorbing one another till there is a bloom that, rich, resplendent, is far removed from even a suggestion of garishness. The chambers are square, not very high, and slightly vaulted. It was in the Hall of Arts that the first husband of Lucrezia was murdered. In the next the Pope died in terrible anguish. The first room, the Hall of the Pontiffs, which Ehrle and Stevenson claim was never painted by Pinturicchio, was at any rate entirely redecorated in the time of Leo X. by Perino del Vaga and Giovanni da Udine. Though the scheme of the ornamenta- tion leads easily into the following rooms, it is much inferior to* them. In the vaulting are frescoes of the constellations, with a heavy stucco work there as well as on the walls. The tapestries below repre- sent the myth of Cephalus and Procris. In the Hall of the Mysteries, the first of the Pin- turicchio series, are seven principal paintings in the 64 Ube Htt of tbe IDatican lunettes made by the lines of the vaulting: the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Adoration, the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Descent of the Holy Spirit, and the Assumption of the Virgin. All these are simple in the extreme, of a peaceful, poetic character, with the figures drawn on the quiet, con- ventional lines suited to the demands of the Church of that early date. The Annunciation is considered to be wholly by Pinturicchio. In a stately hall of rich ornamenta- tion, Mary is kneeling on a tesselated floor, a vase of roses between her and the angel carrying the lily branch. Through the central, imposing, triple arch- way, an attractive Umbrian landscape is seen. Above, in the sky, the Eternal, surrounded by cherubs, sends the dove of his Spirit to the kneel- ing maiden below, The colour is as charming and restful as the drawing is simple and graceful, the sentiment reverently religious. The angel's robes are a rose-pink, Mary's an exquisite combination of peacock blues and greens. There is over the whole a delicate suffusion of colour as fascinating as it is softly luminous. Here as everywhere, parts of the composition are picked out in gilded stucco, that, after the toning of hundreds of years no longer obtrudes or overaccentuates. In the Nativity, the Virgin and Child are cer- tainly by Pinturicchio himself, though there is evi- Zhc Borgia Hpartments 65 dence of pupils' work elsewhere in the picture. The baby Christ lies in the centre foreground on a cloth thrown over a bunch of hay or straw. At some distance kneel Mary and Joseph, in adoration. Pro- jecting from one side are the pillars and thatched roof of the stable, over the wicker manger of which an ass and a cowl look out with wise, questioning eyes. Slightly back of Joseph two charming angels are also kneeling, and above in the golden starred sky are other angelic messengers, three of them grouped together holding a scroll. The landscape is similar to the one of the Annunciation, with trees and roadways, hills and distant castles. Schmarson attributes the Adoration of the Magi to a Lombard, with the exception of the boy stand- ing on the extreme right at his horse's head. He is thought to show the hand of a pupil of Botticelli. Mary, tender and sweet-faced, sits on the porch of a building that, though tumbling into- ruins, still retains elaborately carved pillars and arches and cornices. At her side stands Joseph, leaning on his staff, and in front are the Eastern kings, with their numerous followers. There is some careful study of the faces of these old and young men, but both in the drapery and in the build of the figures beneath there is much less knowledge displayed than in the best of Pinturicchio's wiork. The landscape is again Umbrian, sharp hills in the distance and a 66 Ube Hrt of tbe IDattcan mass of ruins in the foreground. In the sky two angels fill the upper part of the lunette, rather too fully perhaps. The child, standing on Mary's knee, is unusually poorly constructed and modelled. The magnificent figure of the Pope kneeling at the left of the open tomb in the Resurrection is what saves that fresco from intense archaism. Though the guards in armour opposite him are full of spirit, they are angular in construction and of laboured foreshortening. Christ, in mid-air over the tomb, stands on a cloud, an elliptical golden glory com- pletely encircling him. This glory is of golden- stucco* of innumerable round spots, over which raised golden flames are splayed. His right breast, shoul- der, and arm are uncovered by the voluminous drapery that leaves his left leg from the knee down fully exposed. He is imperfectly conceived and weakly drawn. Far and away from the knowledge and authority of the hand that painted the Pope. This pontiff is so entirely draped by his magnificent brocaded jewd-bordered robe that only his head and hands are free. Even his short neck is nearly swallowed from sight by the heavy collar. Yet the figure beneath this swathing is almost as clearly felt as if Michelangelo himself had painted it. Not an unnecessary fold is there, either, in the gorgeous papal costume as it hangs straight from the thick shoulders. It is in the face and hands, however, ALEXANDER VI. Detail from Resurrection, by Pinturicchio ; in the Hall of Mysteries Ube JSotgia Hpartments 6 9 that the artist reveals himself as a portrait painter of high rank. The face is in direct profile, — a posi- tion that shows as little as may be the fat cheeks and extra layers of flesh running from cheeks and chin to neck. But a square full face would not more truly have given the character of this Borgian pontiff. An insufficient, sloping forehead, full eyes, too close to the nose, which is large and with a high Roman arch to it, long upper lip over a heavy lower one, a chin that leads by one diagonal line without a curve into the wide, short neck, a most abnormal development of the lower back part of head and neck, — these are the salient points of this portrayal which can be no caricature. For it must have pleased the Pope, or it would not have remained on the walls, and perforce it must have done him full credit. The hands with their smooth taper fingers would be nearly ideally perfect, if the flesh had not made them puffy. Not the kind of hands likely to be found on a strong, noble man, but of charming line and colour for a — soulless dilettante perhaps. In the arch above the window is the Ascension. Here once more is the Christ with the flame-raised glory behind him in very similar position to that of the Resurrection. It is also an equally weak, ill- drawn figure, and indeed the whole scene lacks the fresh spontaneity of many of the others. Around Christ in the sky is a border of cherubs, with still 7 o XTbe Hrt of tbe Vatican more beyond. Of the two angels who are kneeling beside the Redeemer, the one on the right with slashed sleeves and robe is especially lovely, showing a charming feeling in the praising hands and the fair, downcast face. Below this heavenly division is an expanse of sea bordered with fields, pompon- foliaged trees, and hills, and castles. Here are Mary and the apostles. Some of the younger heads remind one of Botticelli, especially the one in the background on the right. There is considerable attempt at characterisation, but they do not make at all homogeneous groups. The colouring in this, as in all, is restful in its blues and greens, enlivened without being sharpened too strongly with the gold. The Descent of the Holy Spirit has suffered much from the damp and restoration. The scene is in an open field, with background similar to the land- scapes of the other spaces. In the clouds above, surrounded with golden rays and a dozen or more cherub heads, is the dove with outspread wings. Below, with Mary kneeling in the centre facing the spectator, are the disciples again. If possible, they are even less successful than in the Ascension. The last one of the large frescoes of the room is the Assumption, and it is a rarely beautiful work. There are certain parts which recall Perugino, but it is probably by Pinturicchio's own hand. Above the open, rose-filled tomb, Mary is being borne ZEbe 3Borgia Hpartments 71 heavenwards. She is sitting with prayer-laid hands in the centre of the usual elliptical, golden glory, bordered with cherubs. Over her head two graceful angels hold a crown and the pendant jewelled ribbons. Below these, with their feet rest- ing on clouds, are four angel musicians. One plays a guitar or mandolin, one a violin, one the triangle, and the fourth the tambourine. Their positions and draperies are as effective as some of Raphael's own conceptions. On the left of the tomb is a saint with aureole, the face turned up till it is strongly fore- shortened. The excellent drawing of the hands, the full, heavily folded drapery with its narrow golden edges, the intent, earnest expression, and the feeling for bone and muscle in the whole figure make this a very remarkable accomplishment. Even stronger and more vigorous is the black-robed man facing him. In its sharp delineation and unflattering truth it is evidently a portrait. It is splendidly mod- elled, firmly and knowingly constructed. This with the Pope is enough to mark Pinturicchio as a really great portrait painter. In the vaulting of the room are eight medallions with figures of prophets. These are surrounded with lines and squares of ornament made of ara- besques, curves, and scrolls, with everywhere the conventionalised bull and the arms of Alexander VI. It is a wonderfully beautiful and harmonious 7 2 XTbe Hrt of tbe Datican effect of exquisite tone, the blues and greens and chocolate shades almost dissolving into the gold. The bull, so frequently appearing, was a device belonging to the Borgia family from the thirteenth century. A marble doorway with a lunette above, in which two delightful putti bear a shield, leads to the Hall of Saints. There the decoration is much more or- nate, inventive, and imaginative than in the preced- ing chamber, and in the paintings there is far more action, better grouping, more poetic feeling, and lovelier colour. The principal frescoes, besides the legends of the saints, are scenes from the Old and New Testament. Over the door is Susannah and the Elders. In the centre of the lunette a boy holding a dolphin is perched on the top of a fanciful fountain enclosed in a little rose-bordered garden. Within the plot are various animals, — a stag, hares, a monkey on a gold chain, a doe. In front, a little to the left, stand Susannah and the two elders. Her position is that of the Venus of Milo, reversed. With her white clinging garments that fall in unbroken, sim- ple folds, she is as lovely a creation as can be imagined. Quiet, reposeful, though an elder grabs her furiously by each arm, she is entirely unafraid and unexcited. The modelling of her face and arms and hands is fine, soft, and delicate, her figure is XCbe JSorfifa Bpartments 73 beautifully drawn, her face winsome. The two elders are executed with energy, and are full of character. Beyond, on the left, the maiden is again seen, hurried to execution by guards in fifteenth century costume, while slightly behind her Daniel prances up on a wjhite steed to intervene in her be- half. On the other side the elders, bound to a tree, are being stoned to death. Even a small child is throwing with all his might as big rocks as he can handle. The landscape is painted with a fascinating minuteness, that, though making each part in itself enchanting, has spoiled the coherence of it as a whole. The next panel to this represents St. Barbara's escape from the tower where her father has con- fined her. The tower itself, not altogether a happy piece architecturally, occupies the centre of the pic- ture, and displays on its side the big break that furnished the way of escape for the young saint. At the left, with her fair hair and draperies flying, St. Barbara, calling upon Heaven for help, has just fled through the opening. Her father, with scimiter in hand, is hunting for her in the wrong direction on the other side, while of the two guards behind him, one apparently sees the fugitive, and is glad of her release. In the distance, her hand clasped in her protector's, Santa Giulia, the young saint has got beyond her pursuers. Opposite again, the 74 XTbe Hrt of tfoe IDatican father is interrogating a shepherd, and this unfortu- nate, evidently confessing to having seen her, is turned in consequence into marble. To convey the idea he is painted all white. The landscape back- ground adds to the naive gaiety of the picture. The bright colours and charmingly flowiered fore- ground, the delicate, dainty saint, give an unreal, fairy-like effect to the whole scene. Facing this is the lunette holding the visit of St. Anthony to Paul the hermit. It is one of the most successful of this highly successful set. In front of a tall, rocky, natural archway, the two saints are breaking the loaf which the raven has brought. Behind the hermit are two disciples in white robes, and behind St. Anthony three demon women. They are extravagantly dressed, but, except for their bat- like wings, horns sprouting from their towering head-dresses, and claws instead of feet, they might be merely fashionable wiomen of the world. The last of the three, with head thrown back and hands pressed against her waist, is really a lovely figure, with a piquant, childlike face. St. Anthony is scrupulously drawn, his robes splendidly handled. The hermit and disciples seem to show the brush of a pupil. The Visitation has a delicate, pervasive charm that is hard, perhaps, to localise or fully explain, yet which is the very heart of the picture. Florid, light DEMON WOMEN Detail from Visit of St. Anthony to Paul, by Pinturicchio ; in the Hall of Saints Ube JSoroia apartments 77 architectural forms, open arches and loggie above, fill up a large part of the space. In front, clasping hands, stand Mary and Elizabeth, the younger's head and eyes down, Elizabeth gazing at her with the intent, piercing look that all the old painters give her. They are dressed in the conventional blue and green robes, and each is capitally drawn and modelled. The calm, peaceful dignity of Mary is especially well indicated. At her side Joseph leans upon a staff, and behind him appears a train of children and pages. The other half of the com- position carries the most charming group of all. Zacharias, backing up against one of the pillars, is reading, oblivious to all that is taking place before him. Under the arches a number of maidens and elderly women sit spinning and embroidering, while behind, a girl holds a distaff, and a child plays with a dog in the foreground. The figures are well drawn and grouped, and they all have that soft, restful beauty that seems particularly " Pinturic- chiesque." The gradations in the landscape, the softened colours of the distance, combine to make this one of the most satisfactory of the sequence. Here, as in every room, the light is so bad that it is very difficult to get any good view of the frescoes. It is particularly hard to see the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, which in some ways is the most vigorous and displays the most knowledge of all. Strapped 78 TLbc Hrt of tbe Vatican with his hands behind him to a pillar in the centre of the big lunette over the window, is Sebastian. His head and eyes are lifted upward, and he seems to see the angel who, in the sky, brings him hope and comfort. The solidity and excellent modelling of forms of this nearly nude figure are almost unex- pected from the hand of such a quattrocentist as Pinturicchio. On either side the archers are shoot- ing or stringing their bows, all in leisurely unemo- tional attitudes, suggesting, as has been said, a jovial shooting-match rather than an execution, One archer on the right stands with his bow resting on the ground, his eyes turned to the sky, perhaps to indicate regret for his part in the tortures. All the figures are spirited, one of the best being the archer back to on the left who is just about to let an arrow fly. The landscape proves that Pinturicchio studied the Roman surroundings. In the distance is the Colosseum, to the right a church, and in front a broken marble column. It was the first time that any artist attempted to render the sad beauty of the Roman landscape. The principal wall of this room has the finest of all Pinturicchio' s works. It is called the Dispute of St. Catherine, and shows her in an out- door court before the Emperor Maximian and fifty philosophers, to whom she declares her beliefs with a serenity and poise unequalled. The centre ST. CATHERINE Detail from Dispute of St. Catherine, by Pinturicchio ; in the Hall of Saints Ube JSorgia Hpartments 81 of the lunette is taken by the Arch of Constantine, crowned by a golden bull. In front of this are the doctors and philosophers and princes and their reti- nues, pages, and children, and the emperor on his richly ornamented throne. Here Pinturicchio's fancy has revelled with a joyous abandon, a riotous floridity that yet never becomes meretricious. Robes are heavily embossed and embroidered, and edged with gold, trappings of horse are jewel- studded, the ground is covered with delicate, starry flowers, the very trees are blossom-laden. The emperor sits in untroubled judicial attitude on his throne at the left, with a crowd of courtiers behind him. Directly in front is the slender, youthful, beautiful Catherine, the rest of the great assemblage filling nearly the whole of the remaining space of the lunette. Some are searching their books, some are instructing their pages to look for certain notes, some are merely listening to the young saint's dis- course, while others are discussing among them- selves. Of all the young and old, children, horses, and dogs, St. Gatherine is the only woman in the whole congregation. Straight, willowy, undismayed, robed in a magnificent brocaded gown, her long, fair hair hanging to her waist, she is marking the points on her fingers. There are many portraits among the crowd ; in fact, it is probable that a large part of the heads are representations of what were 82 TLhc art of tbe Watican well-known personages. At the extreme right is one of the most noticeable figures of all, a Turk on a white charger. He is so much in the foreground that he and his steed almost dominate the scene by their size and brilliancy. The horse, splendidly modelled, the gorgeous saddle-cloth, golden-studded harness, and the extraordinarily heavy, gold-stuccoed dress of the rider, all combine to make the two of startling prominence. He is supposed to represent Prince Djem, son of Sultan Mohammed II. Catherine is thought to be a portrait of Lucrezia Borgia, the famous daughter of Alexander VI., whose beauty has been extolled as noisily as her crimes. If this looks at all as she did then, when she was about fifteen, there certainly was nothing to indicate in face or figure the wickedness with which she was afterward charged. The ceiling of this room is as worthy of careful study as the more prominent wall frescoes. Unfor- tunately, besides the necessity for either standing on one's head or constantly using a mirror to see these vaulting decorations, the light is so bad that to obtain any adequate idea of them is extremely difficult. Divided by the framing bars are eight large, triangular spaces, in which are scenes illustrat- ing the myth of Isis and Osiris, which, because of the history it contains of the deification of the bull, was undoubtedly chosen to symbolise the exaltation Ube JSorgia apartments 8 3 of the house of Borgia. The wfhole ceiling is a maze of golden stucco work intermingled with the paintings, even the separating bars being marvels of intricate decoration. The first of the divisions devoted to King Osiris shows him ploughing with bulls, and teaching the Egyptians to plant orchards and vineyards ; then comes his marriage to Isis ; in the following the warriors throw their unused armour into a corner, while a fat putto is astride a swan, — this last undoubtedly copied from a recently discovered antique; the wicked brother persuades the Egyptians to mutiny ; farther on poor Isis finds the scattered legs and arms and body of her mur- dered husband; next comes his burial; after that a pyramid is erected to him ; finally his apparition is deified in the form of the bull Apis ; and the history ends in a procession, with the bull borne in triumph. The whole room is an entrancing vision. It appears that certain parts of the execution, espe- cially in the smaller designs, were left to Pinturic- chio's assistants. But he undoubtedly was the origi- nator of the designs, and his presence as supervisor is mbre strongly marked all through this room than in the Hall of the Mysteries. It is of all the suite his masterpiece. A round medallion of the Mother and Child is over the doorway leading into the Hall of Arts and Sciences. The Madonna, with her clear eyes, deli- 84 Ube Hrt of tbe IDattcan cate mouth, and rather long nose, was evidently studied from life. She is apparently the one whom Vasari calls a portrait of Giulia Farnese, the Pope's mistress. But his claim that Alexander VI. was kneeling in adoration before her seems to be without foundation, for no third person was ever painted within the circle. The child is daintily constructed, dressed in a tunic to his knees, intent upon his book. Altogether it is a lovely group, and adds to the long list of triumphs for Pinturicchio. The background is gold, and the borders of the robes and even the high lights are of the shining colour. The ceiling of the Hall of the Arts and Sciences is more conventionally mechanical in design, but is extremely soft and harmonious in its spacing and colouring. A great central octagon fills a large part of the vaulting, most of the remaining portions being taken by two triangular divisions on each side. What is left is given over to borders and panels of ornament, in which grotesques are sparingly used. Every part is treated minutely, and is full of rich, conventional designs, yet each keeps its place in the general scheme. In the centre of the octagon are the arms of the Borgia bordered by radiating sun rays. Everywhere the sign of the family, the bull, appears. The wide architrave has octagonal medal- lions joined by oblong ones representing the virtue of justice and other sacred and legendary scenes. Ube 3Borgia Hpartments 3s They have been so badly hurt by damp and restora- tion that there is little left of their original state. In fact, the whole of this room has suffered more from time than any of the others. Some of the scenes have been almost wholly and very badly repainted. Each of the seven principal panels on the walls contains a woman on a high architectural-backed throne. About the base are the disciples of the art or science which the throned woman personifies. Beyond is a softly tinted landscape, with a blue and gold embossed sky. These calm, thoughtful, con- templative beings are far removed from the world. They are the very spirit of the art or science they typify. Rhetoric is a graceful, youthful figure, holding a sword in one hand and a globe in the other. These same emblems are in the hands of two stocky little putti on each side of the platform on which her feet rest. Above, two other putti hold the drapery over the top of the throne. Three men stand on the left and right, one of whom on the left may be meant for Cicero. There are traces of Perugino's style in this painting, and it is very possible that Pinturic- chio took some of the figures from drawings he had received from Perugino. Rhetoric is unusually lovely, with soft hair falling away from her face, and with a bright look in her questioning eyes. The drapery, too, is well massed. 86 Uhc Hrt of tbe Dattcan Geometry sits more nearly full face, holding her square and compass. There are no putti in this lunette, and their place is taken at the foot of the throne by the bald-headed Euclid, dressed in red, drawing a diagram. In the extreme left corner is a figure, which is probably a portrait of Pinturicchio. Several of the disciples about Geometry's throne show pupils' rather than Pinturicchio's hand. The loveliest of all these personified arts and sciences, perhaps, is Arithmetic. She has a certain weary air, and a pensive wistfulness about her long, delicate face that somehow add to its attractiveness. In the turn of her neck and head she is reminiscent of Botticelli's figures, but there is much less strain of muscle and much less of that painter's anaemic look. The transparent veil half covers the hair that falls over a beautiful gold-embroidered robe, hang- ing in softly indicated folds. The figures standing near the throne are vividly drawn, and their robes are as carefully painted as their faces. Here are the colours Pinturicchio so delighted in, the rich pinks, dull blues, and soft greens. Here also is a real attempt at massing the light and shade. Another delightful creation is Music, though w T ith not quite the delicate bloom of Arithmetic. She is playing upon a violin, her lids drooped, a soft, introspective smile upon her lips. Her head-dress, with the knots of thin drapery over her ears, recall XTbe JSorgia Bpartments 87 Botticelli again, and perhaps even more strongly, Perugino. There are four charming putti in this group, two standing on the steps at her feet playing flutes, while two above hold up the rich green drapery. Tubal-cain, forging musical instruments, and two other old men are on the right, while on the left are seen three joyous boys, one playing a harp, one a lute, and one singing. Through all these groups are a charming spontaneity and unity, and one feels a gaiety and pleasure in them, as in few other paintings of the quattrocento. Astrology is badly damaged. The restorations make it practically impossible to tell what was Pin- turicchio's part in it, but it seems doubtful if any of it was worthy of him. The four putti who hold wands with the signs of heavenly bodies on their tips are too heavy and clumsy for the charming babies he could paint so well. Equally unhappy are the groups on each side who, separated from the principal figure by the rocky landscape, have no connection with the scene in which they were placed. Grammar and Dialectics are also both badly mod- ernised. The period of this flagrant retouching, judging from the dragon by the side of the central octagon, and which is probably the crest of the Buoncompagni, was therefore in the pontificate of Gregory XIII. Between Rhetoric and Geometry the Borgia 88 XLhc Htt of tbe Datican scutcheon, surmounted by the keys and tiara, is set in a stucco* frame, supported by three full-length angels. The grace and freedom of their figures, the rhythmic lines of their flying draperies, and the excellent drawing make this as beautifully perfect and decorative a group as there is in the whole set of rooms. The next two chambers, which are alike in archi- tecture, are those called the " withdrawing rooms." They are far more simple in decoration than the others. The first has a ceiling of geometrical designs and grotesques, below which is a frieze of twelve half- length figures, two by two, of apostles and prophets. Each prophet holds a scroll with a prophetic saying, and the apostles carry one with a sentence of the creed upon it. A mediaeval legend credited to each apostle one sentence of the creed, and each is here supposed to hold the one originated by him. In the second room sibyls are paired with prophets, each pair surrounded with ribbons upon which are written the early prophecies of the Church, concerning the birth of the Redeemer. These rib- bons are treated in a decorative way to fill up the spaces, and were traditional with painters of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The figures in these two rooms are much restored, and, compared with the earlier ones, stiff and archaic. TEbe Borgia apartments 8 9 A few of them, however, have the Pinturicchian head-dress and gestures, as well as certain lines and folds of the drapery characteristic of him. Zach- arias has a noible face with heavy tumbled hair, and is not an unworthy predecessor of the mighty ones of the Sistine Chapel. Though these halls are not up to the grand scale of the others, they show a coherency and a harmony that make them an inte- gral part of the whole. In the window recesses of the Hall of the Creed are marvellous decorative schemes, where fishes, masks, fauns, cupids, flowers, and musical instruments are mixed and mingled and twisted, with astonishing ingenuity. It was in the Borgia apartments where were first used the gro- tesques and fanciful borders afterward so exten- sively and masterfully employed by Raphael in the loggie. In these rooms, the triumph of Pinturicchio, in spite of all the limitations and defects of his art, he shows " a self-restraint and a feeling for effect which are unerring, he hits upon the exact size, and keeps the composition exactly within the picture, and at the right distance from the eye." They " are a rich yet unobtrusive setting, they do not compel your attention, but only give the impression of a refined splendour of surrounding, of a marvellous insight into beautiful harmony of colour. The effect of the light has been so nicely calculated that even 9 o Zhc Hrt of tbe Dattcan when freshly executed, the walls would not have been overbrilliant for the brilliant scenes to which they formed the background. " " Everywhere w T e are aware of the vigilant and sensitive grasp of the master's hand upon his tools, and allowing for all shortcomings of detail, we cannot but feel that here we have an enviable monument for a painter to leave behind him." In the Stanze one is in the presence of an art that is clear, sane, and gloriously happy, full of the spirit of life itself. The Sistine breathes a very different atmosphere. Grand, majestic, awe-inspir- ing, telling of the life of the soul in the travails of a weary wx>rld, are the messages that come to us here. Neither of the world of flesh, of mind, nor yet of soul, the frescoes of the Borgia rooms exhale a delicate, evanescent perfume that comes straight from the realms of phantasy, full of the glimmer of will-o'-the-wisps and dancing fireflies, from the over- or under-world of elves and sprites and fairies, of genii and dancing loves. CHAPTER IV. THE SISTINE CHAPEL Jacopo Pontelli, a Florentine, has generally been credited with being the architect of the Sistine Chapel, built about 1473. Muntz, however, brings forward some late discovered documents from the archives of the Vatican that seem to show that not Pontelli but Giovanni de Dolci was responsible for the edifice. Whoever the builder, the constructional lines of this world-renowned chapel are not in them- selves beautiful or scientifically exact. The vault- ing is irregular, the lighting insufficient, and the general proportions insignificant. The decorations alone are what have made this small sanctuary one of the greatest of the world's treasure-boxes. De- scribed literally, it is a barn-like, slightly vaulted room less than one hundred and fifty feet long, and not quite fifty feet wide. On each side are six round-arched windows, directly beneath the spring of the vaulting. Below these, separated by painted pilasters, are the side frescoes executed during the pontificate of Sixtus IV. From a cornice running 91 9 2 Uhc art of tbe Vatican along the walls below are painted imitations of heavy hangings, the space once covered by Raphael's tapestries. The twelve side frescoes are of unequal merit, dif- fering schemes of composition, and once must have been of strongly varying colour. Time, ungracious to them individually, has treated them well con- sidered as a decorative whole. The general effect of these twelve works of the quattrocento is lofty and surprisingly harmonious. The colours have so faded and blended that now, in their dull blues and grays and greens, they make a wonderfully appro- priate and sufficiently unobtrusive setting to the majestic ceiling above. Besides these twelve panels there are two on the entrance wall, and originally there were as well three by Perugino at the altar end. For the two opposite the altar slight consideration is required. One by Cecchino Salviati represents Michael victori- ous over Satan, bearing away the body of Moses. The other is the Resurrection by Domenico Ghir- landajo. They were badly disfigured by the sinking of the architrave, and were afterward wretchedly repainted. Above the line of frescoes between the windows and along the southern end at the same height, Botticelli and his assistants painted the figures of twenty-eight Popes. These, though doubt- less more or less restored, are practically as they XCbe Sfstine Cbapcl 93 were four hundred years ago and are the least inter- esting part of the whole decorative scheme. The subjects of the wall frescoes on the left are taken from the life of Moses, and " have a typical reference to the corresponding representations " on the right, illustrating the life of Christ. Beginning from the altar, the order is as follows : 1 . Moses and Zipporah on the Way to Egypt. Attrib- uted to Signorelli, now thought to be by Pintu- ricchio. 2. Moses Overcoming the Egyptians and Driving away the Shepherds from the well. Botticelli. 3. Moses and Israelites after the Passage of the Red Sea. Cosimo Rosselli. 4. Moses giving the Com- mandments from the Mount. C. Rosselli. 5. Punishment of Korah, Da- than, and Abiram. Bot- ticelli. 6. Moses Giving Commands to Joshua. Attributed to Signorelli. Probably by Pinturicchio. Right. 1. Baptism of Christ. At- tributed to Perugino, probably work of Pin- turicchio. 2. Christ's Temptation. Bot- ticelli. 3. Calling of Various Apos- tles, from Lake of Gen- nesareth. Domenico Ghirlandajo. 4. Christ Preaching on the Mount. C. Rosselli. 5. Christ Giving the Keys to Peter. Perugino. 6. Last Supper. C. Rosselli. 94 XTbe art of tbe IDatfcan According to Vasari, it was Botticelli to whom Sixtus IV. gave charge of the artists at work in the Sistine Chapel. His three frescoes there show him at his worst and in even greater measure at his best. In the one nearest the altar, Moses overcomes the Egyptian and drives away the shepherds who would prevent the daughters of Jethro from drawing water. Here is the crowding of incident into one composi- tion so usual with most of the painters of the quat- trocento. It has no common centre, although there is a distinct middle scene. At a well, Moses pours water from the bucket into a trough for the sheep, while the daughters of Jethro stand by looking on. Behind this the Patriarch is seen driving away the shepherds who had troubled the maidens. On the right of the central scene, Moses, with a sword held high, again appears, standing over the Egyptian whom he has felled. On the steps of a classic build- ing at the side, the Israelite, wounded by the Egyp- tian, sinks into the arms of a wbman. Behind this portico Moses flees from the wrath of Pharaoh. Again in the foreground on the left of the well he leads his company of Israelites out of Egypt. Back of this incident he is seen kneeling before the Burn- ing Bush, within which the figure of the Eternal ap- pears. To the right of that, among the sheep of Jethro, he removes his shoes on the slope of one of the hills that help to outline the background. A Ube Sfstlne Cbapel 9s bunch of trees, rising from behind the well and be- yond, springs up to the top of the fresco and assists in drawing the multitude of scenes into something approaching unity. Regarded from the standpoint of true composition, this is not one, but many pic- tures. Yet it is worth remembering that any attempt for centralisation of composition was not natural to artists of this day. Botticelli made no effort to pro- duce what Raphael instinctively accomplished, a well massed and balanced picture. His desire, as well, probably, as the command from the Pope, was to represent as many incidents in one panel as possible, in order that the story of Moses might the more per- fectly be told. Considering his aim, he has really brought together the various moments depicted with a good deal of skill. The worst thing about it is the lack of perspective between the figures of the foreground and those of the background. These latter are of course inordinately large. When the separate groups are studied, many of Botticelli's most delightful, characteristic attributes are dis- covered. In the scene about the well he shows a grace, an idyllic spirit, that is remarkably quiet and serene for a man so often expressing in his works the intensity of subjective emotion. The procession of Israelites is no less full of dignity and simple movement, with individualistic treatment of the various members. Moses, with his calm gravity, 9 6 XTbe art of tbe IDatfcan Aaron intent and serious, the loving mother with her unhappy child, the pathetic little boy carrying his pet dog in his arms, — all are expressive to an intense degree. The colour of the picture is mostly in gray and white, emphasised by the white sheep, the white robes of the maidens, and the gray-white shades of the buildings, the walls, and the roadways. Moses, in the background, is dressed in yellow; in other places his robe is an olive green over a dull yellowi. There are many more blues than reds in the fresco, and the sky is a deep indigo, growing white near the edge of the distant blue hills. The foliage of the oak-trees (the device of Sixtus IV.) and most of the landscape are a dark green. Farther on along the same side comes the Pun- ishment of the False Priests. In the foreground, at the right, Moses, with upraised hand, denounces the one who blasphemed. By his side the offender tries to protect himself from the indignant group of men who are armed with stones. A fire is burning on the centre altar, and gathered round it are the deceiving priests, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Before them, Moses with lifted rod calls upon God for their punishment. Already they have fallen back, dropping their censers, one grovelling on the ground. Just behind them, and at the left, Aaron is swinging his censer. Again, Moses bends with con- demnatory hand over the defilers of the temple, CO H CO W Ah w CO — < O 72 w u w o ,fh z, W s co '5 ° 2 W < PQ W K O i— i N) water-bearing damsels on the right than there is to the praying group in the centre, or the man scaling the wall on the left, or the one borne on his son's shoulders. Diverse as these groups are, they are of equal prominence in placing, and one's eye wanders over the wall without finding a central point of rest. There is no doubt but Raphael was here largely assisted by his pupils, and it is to them most of the exaggerations, the attitudinisings, the spreading of arms, and the coarse lines must be credited. Yet there is nevertheless a grand manner in it all, and Raphael's powerful conception is plainly felt, even under the most careless of assist- ants' brushes. The state of the fresco is bad. One fissure runs down obliquely through the centre, and the ground has been repainted in spots as well as the sky. Raphael is not nearly so strongly felt in the other three frescoes of the room. Here he frankly turned over most of the labours to his aides, and satisfied himself with merely a cursory superintendence. It is not to be wondered at that they fall far below the standard of the great Urbinate. Historically the Coronation of Charlemagne rep- 190 TEbe Hrt of tbe IDatican resents the presentation of the crown of the empire to the King of the Franks by Leo III. In the fresco Leo III. has become Leo X., and Charlemagne is Francis I. Here, even the faces of the king and pontiff show no sign of the master's hand. The scene was depicted as taking place in St. Peter's, as it was in its half-built state. Consequently there are seen about many hangings and draperies, used to cover the ruins and unfinished walls. Considering the mixed-up setting, it is remarkable that Raphael got, or constrained his pupils to get, the concord that is shown here. In the middle distance, slightly at the left, sits Leo-, on his draped throne, holding with both hands the crown he is about to place on the head of the kneeling Charlemagne. All around are gathered the cardinals, and it is in these, each almost identically robed, and all close together, where Raphael's own brush shows. Every individual head is a personal study in its turn, line, and expression. The extreme left of the foreground is occupied by the bearers of the heavy silver gifts of Charle- magne. Over their heads a part of a gallery shows choir-boys watching the proceedings. The state of the fresco is injured, both by repainting and by abrasion. The heavy, opaque shadows are due to the restorer's hand. The Oath of Pope Leo, on the other window wall, is also largely by Raphael's assistants, but still Zbc Stan3e ot IRapbael 191 showing the fine conception, the magnificent massing and space-filling, always characteristics of Raphael. In the centre over the window is the altar, Leo behind it, with his hand on the open book, gazing heavenward. At his right shoulder is the mitre- bearer, and beside him stands a cardinal, who is lifting Leo's embroidered mantle. The rest of the cardinals stand in a semicircle round the altar. At the back, raised, a clerk holds the crown of Charle- magne, while the king himself is upright, nearly back to, his head in profile, dressed like a Roman patrician, with a magnificent gold chain on his shoulders. He is pointing to the Pope. On each side of this scene steps lead to the ground, where are mace-bearers and some of the military following of the Pope. The fresco is faded and repainted so much that parts about the window are almost wholly gone. On the remaining unbroken wall is the Battle of Ostia, representing Leo X. as Leo IV., after the so-called miraculous annihilation of the Saracen galleys, when, in 846, they threatened Ostia. The storm which arose, scattering and destroying their fleet, was supposed to be due wholly to the prayers of the Pope. The distance shows the ships of the Saracens, where the battle is still raging. Some of these battle-ships are in the bay, away from the shore, others are apparently alongside the landing i9 2 ftbe Hrt of tbe IDatican of a sort of tower-like octagonal building that con- nects an open-arched portal with other walls and buildings. Here, in front of the archway, a party of the enemy is landed from a small boat. In the fore- ground the prisoners are being hauled on shore and led captive to the Pope, who sits at the left raised on a block of marble. Behind him are the cardinals, Giulio de' Medici and Bibbiena, and all about him are members of his suite. With uplifted hands and ecstatic face the Pope is blessing Heaven for this victory to the Christians. Below, at his feet, his captains are hauling the captive Saracens before him. In the groupings of these struggling, suffering nude figures, Raphael has marvellously displayed his com- plete knowledge of the human form. They are being stabbed, pierced, trampled upon, by their victors. Out of the boat on the right, two of them, with their hands bound behind, are being dragged to shore by their hair. Everywhere torture, injury, frightful hurt, — and it affects the Pope not at all. He apparently regards all the agonies inflicted upon the heathen prisoners as merely the just decree of Heaven, — the Christians being only the instruments of divine wrath. Raphael has made the Saracens a fierce, barbarous looking race, evidently for dra- matic emphasis of the differences between them and their captors. The Pope's portrait is probably from his own hand, as well as the two cardinals behind XTbe Stan3e of IRapbael 193 him. All three show Raphael at the very amplitude of his powers. The fresco is badly restored, black- ened, and cracked. Several large fissures have made their appearance through the most important of the groups, and a number of the figures have been re- painted many times. Even the faces of the Pope and the two cardinals and the crucifix-bearer have been hurt to a tremendous degree by retouching and patching. All the prisoners forced to their knees before the pontiff are in a lamentable condition. The last of the three rooms which can really claim Raphael as creator, the Stanza dell' Incendio, is also the last of the three in point of achievement. The tendencies to exaggeration and unrestraint that are of occasional appearance in the Eliodoro are here almost an integral part of every fresco. Freedom and variety of movement have often degenerated into contortions and calculated posings, the " grand manner " has become dangerously like pomposity. Yet, as the American editors of Vasari say, " under and behind the exaggeration and the coldness is still the superb power of the Renaissance; we are yet close to the life-giving force of Raphael." In the Hall of Constantino, the last of the Stanze that was to have even a word of direction from the great master, there is extremely little to show his part in the work. The Defeat of Maxentius con- 194 Ube art of tbe IDattcan tains slight signs of the original studies by Raphael, the others almost none. Two-thirds of this fresco are filled with the rush of the victor with his army through the ranks of his enemy, Maxentius lying head foremost and life- less on the Tiber bank. Constantine, with his spear poised, has come safe through. Everywhere the steeds are galloping, struggling, kicking, or being stricken down. Men are fighting hand to hand, with here and there some one carrying off a dead friend. The emperor meanwhile presses on, trampling over his foes. Above the battle-ground angels are hover- ing, guarding Constantine, and assuring him vic- tory. The Vision of the Cross on the wall of egress shows Constantine upon a rostrum, in the middle of his camp. In the heavens above, surrounded by a golden glory, three angels bear a cross and advance toward a dragon-like monster who writhes in contortions, at their approach. A rush of soldiers and people before Constantine with battle standards flying and shields and spears flashing show that they, too, see the vision. Near the emperor stands his lieutenant, and at the extreme right a dwarf grins and prances as he tries on a helmet much too large. The landscape is full of the ruins of ancient Rome. Giulio Romano, largely responsible for these last two, is probably also the author of the Baptism Zbe Stan3C of IRapbael 19s of Constantine. The scene is laid in the Basilica of San Giovanni Laterano. The principal figures are grouped on a circular flight of steps. At their foot Constantine is kneeling, nearly unrobed, while the Pope Sylvester pours the water over him. The pontiff has his left hand on the Gospels held up to him by an acolyte. Near by, all kneeling, are a servant with cloths, a deacon with a salver, and a page with the emperor's breastplate, sword and helmet. Behind are various other attendants and prelates. At the left is a bearded man in sixteenth- century dress, whom Vasari says is a portrait of Nicolo Vespucci, the favourite of Clement VII. It is possible that the sketch for this may have been by Raphael. Last of the four principal frescoes is the Cession of Rome to the Papacy. The Pope, enthroned in the old basilica of St. Peter, is receiving from the kneeling Constantine a golden statuette. The usual number of prelates, cardinals, and officials are grouped about, while the Swiss Guard restrains the crowd. On the high altar are relics of St. Peter and St. Paul, and under the pillars on the right is one whom tradition says is Giulio Romano, and on the left Baldassare Castiglione. Kneeling or playing on the foreground are women and children. This is so poorly executed that only the arrangement and distribution of figures is supposed to be by Giulio 196 Ubc Hrt of tbe Datican Romano. It is thought that his assistant Raphael del Colle did almost all of it. The Stanza di Constantino was hardly even planned when Raphael died. The only two figures completed were Justice and Comity. They were executed in oil, and were put in as experiments by Raphael. When Clement VII. came to Rome taste had returned to straight fresco. The two figures are both beautiful, showing many touches of Ra- phael's own hand. The scheme of the whole was to represent the frescoes as if they were painted upon tapestry that hung about the walls. This necessitated the rich borderings and the imitations of niches, with figures in relief, or of detached statues all about. On the ceiling of the hall are various pictures by Tommaso Laureti and Antonio Scalvati, under the orders of Sixtus V. They are exceedingly ornate, but not of great artistic importance. Raphael dead, there was no one to take his place. His pupils could only imitate him, and never at his best. No more striking proof of the futility of their efforts could be found than to compare the Stanza di Con- stantino with any one of the other three. Michel- angelo still lived, but the Renaissance was already dying. CHAPTER VI. RAPHAELS LOGGIE After Bramante's death, Raphael reconstructed one of the great architect's famous Vatican loggie, and built a third. It is with the one that, to save from becoming a premature ruin, he strengthened and supported, that the painter's name is most uni- versally associated. For more than four hundred years this long, delicate corridor overlooking the Court of St. Damasus has been known best as Raphael's Bible. When one considers that the Bible scenes which have given it this name occupy a very small space in the midst of a decoration that covers the whole of the vaulting, the pilasters, and the walls of the loggie, one realises that it is what may be called the literary side of the painter's art which gives it fame to the world at large. Nevertheless it is the purely decorative portions of this wonderful whole that generations of less gifted decorators, designers and architects have found a mine inex- haustible in suggestion, fancy, and charm. The gallery is divided into thirteen compartments, 197 198 TCbe Hrt of tbe Wattcan so to speak, by twelve pillars and pilasters, the vault- ing of each of these divisions being a square, domed cupola. This roofing is entirely covered with an ornamentation that encircles and separates four rectangle or hexagonal spaces, placed one on each side of the square that converges into the dome. It is in these fifty-two small interspaces where are painted the series of Biblical pictures. Bordering them, filling the angles and curves of the dome, in the walling between the pilasters, on the faces of pillar and pilaster, around the entrances, on the embrasures of the windows, everywhere, leaving not an uncovered inch, are stucco-work and mono- chromes imitating reliefs, grotesques, wreaths of fruit and flowers, birds, children, landscapes, fishes, musical instruments, beasts, all kinds of conven- tionalised animals, reptiles, fanciful arabesques, and scrolls, — all painted in the brightest and gayest of colours. So bright that even to-day, in spite of weather and time, and in spite of the fact that flakes of the plaster are continually sifting down, — with an ultimate and sure ruin as consequence, — even to- day the gay freshness of the tones is a marvel and delight. The designs themselves, in their sponta- neous fertility of invention, their fantastical orig- inality, their exuberance of colour, and a very abandon of richness and floridity, yet are so com- bined and made into such a perfect ensemble that \ IRapbaei's %oqq\c 201 there is not a hint of useless or overdone exaggera- tion in part or whole. To attempt any adequate description of this ornamentation would require many volumes. Volpato and Ottaviani during the eighteenth century started to make them well known through engravings, but stopped long before they had completed the work. The stimulus for decoration of this character was doubtless found in the excavations of ancient Rome, especially in the baths of the emperors, where wall paintings were full of quaint grotesques of all kinds. But these loggie of Raphael surpass not only all Roman excavations, but they conform more per- fectly and yet more originally to the spirit of ancient art than do even the best of the long-after discovered walls of Pompeii. Up to the beginning of the nineteenth century the whole corridor was open to wind and weather. At that time it was concluded worth while to take some ordinary precautions for the preservation of this priceless heritage, and forthwith the open ar- cades were furnished with windows. Although these loggie are always given Raphael's name, as a matter of fact he himself painted not one stroke of them. It is even claimed that he did not so much as make the original drawing for any part. Vasari states that he gave the stucco-work and paint- ing of the grotesques to Giovanni da Udine, that of 202 Ube Hrt of tbe IDatfcan the figures to Giulio Romano, who, however, did not do many of them. This last is probably a mis- take. Giulio unquestionably had a very large share in the work. With these two noted pupils of Ra- phael were also associated Perino del Vaga, Penni, Pellegrino da Modena, Vincenzo da San Gimignano, Polidoro da Caravaggio, and Bologna. Yet, though Raphael's hand is nowhere actually seen, his mind and spirit everywhere are. At the time when the loggie were painted, toward the close of 15 17, Ra- phael was surrounded with a corp of assistants who were to him like so many extra hands. So well did they understand his methods and ways of working that, it has been conjectured, he needed only to indi- cate hastily with a few determined strokes the main points of a composition. The best of his co-workers were then able to transfer it to wall or canvas, prac- tically as the master had conceived it. Practically, that is, so far as the distribution of mass, general scheme of chiaroscuro, main dependence and inter- dependence of figures, in groups or singly. Beyond this, they could go only so far as their individual talents would let them. The result of it all is a magnitude of work passing under Raphael's name with much of which his brush never came in contact. In almost every case, however, it is saved from mediocrity, and often is raised to highest artistic value by the compelling power of the genius that IRapbael's %oqq\c 203 was the source of the inspiration behind the brush work. Without question, the loggie would be more beautiful if Raphael had painted them. There would never have been the sometimes unpleasant brick reds now in the figures, nor the heavy, often coarse, out- lines, and certain crudities of colour and uncertain- ties of expression would surely have been very differ- ent under the harmonious and vivid touch of the Urbinate's hand. But if Raphael had executed these frescoes, the world in consequence would have lost many other of the precious works better worthy of his genius. And even as it now is, this composite work of Raphael's aids ranks high among the great wall decorations of the world. It is not too much to say that hardly any other surpasses it in an ingenuous gaiety, a fresh splendour, and, in the scenes themselves, in a simple directness that is noble in its simplicity, and wonderfully dramatic in its pictorial treatment. Of the fifty-two small frescoes in the thirteen bays, in general it may be said that they almost literally translate the Bible words they illustrate. Yet so natural, unforced, inevitable are the compositions, that they seem not at all constrained by the subject. They appear to have been designed wholly with the decorative point of view in mind. The simplicity and straightforwardness in the telling of each story is very unlike the way in which Michelangelo filled 204 XCbe Hrt of tbe IDatfcan his pictures with symbolical allusions and concep- tions, which, full of spiritual significance as they may be, often cause confusion in the observer's mind. Raphael chose scenes specially adapted to pictorial representation, while Michelangelo, even when he took up his palette and brushes, could never free himself from the claims of sculpture. The surround- ings of these scenes were so rich and varied that Raphael saw at once the paintings ought to be most marked for coherence, sobriety, and clarity. Like Ghiberti, he rendered each story with as few figures as possible, — making each thereby depend for its dramatic value upon the intensity of the moment described. So great a result with so few means has never been excelled. Of the most beautiful, per- haps, are Joseph Interpreting Pharaoh's Dream, Building of the Ark, The Angel's Visit to Abraham, Moses Striking the Rock, Interview of Isaac and Rebecca with Abimelech. In two of the frescoes it is easy to trace Raphael's indebtedness to other masters. Michelangelo's influence can be felt in the Creation, Masaccio's in Adam and Eve Driven from Paradise. In all the others, he relies not at all upon artistic tradition, but solely upon the text of the Bible. The subjects of the thirteen bays are as follows : The iirst gives four views of the Creation of the World: God Divides Light from Darkness; He •Raphael's %oqqIc 205 Separates Land and Sea ; Forms Sun and Moon, and Creates the Animals. Second Bay — Story of Adam and Eve: Crea- tion of Eve ; The Fall ; Exile from Eden ; Labours of Adam and Eve. Third Bay — Story of Noah : Building of the Ark ; Deluge; Coming Forth from the Ark ; Noah's Sacrifice. Fourth Bay — Story of Abraham: Abraham and Melchizedek ; Covenant of God with Abraham ; An- gel's Visit to Abraham ; Flight of Lot. Fifth Bay — Story of Isaac: God Appears to Isaac; Isaac Embracing Rebecca; Isaac Blessing Jacob; Esau Claiming the Blessing. Sixth Bay — Story of Jacob: Jacob's Ladder; Jacob and Rachel ; Jacob Asking for Rachel's Hand ; Flight from Laban. Seventh Bay — Story of Joseph: Joseph Telling His Dream to His Brothers ; Joseph Sold into Egypt ; Joseph and Potiphar's Wife ; Joseph before Pharaoh. Eighth Bay — Story of Moses: Finding of Moses ; Burning Bush ; Passage of Red Sea ; Moses Striking the Rock. Ninth Bay — Story of Moses, continued: Moses Receives the Tables of the Law ; Worship of Golden Calf ; Moses Breaks the Tables ; Moses Before the Pillar of Cloud. 2o6 Zbc Htt of tbe Datican Tenth Bay — Story of Joshua: Israelites Cross the Jordan; Fall of Jericho; Joshua Stays the Course of the Sun; Division of the Promised Land. Eleventh Bay — Story of David: David Anointed King of Israel; David and Goliath; Triumph of David; David and Bathsheba. Twelfth Bay — Story of Solomon: Consecration of Solomon; Judgment of Solomon; Queen of Sheba ; Building of the Temple. Thirteenth Bay — Story of Christ: Adoration of Shepherds ; Adoration of Magi ; Baptism of Christ ; Last Supper. In the first compartment perhaps the best of the four scenes is the Separation of Sea and Land. This little fresco — and it is to be remembered that in all these scenes the figures are only about a foot high — is wonderfully fine, of pure Raphaelic character. Hovering in the air over the globe, with flying, splendidly massed draperies, is the Almighty, his right hand pointing to the division of the land and sea, his right forefinger resting upon a point of land that projects into the water. A group of trees partly hidden by the curve of the sphere gives the finishing touch to a composition as simple as it is dramatic and full of fire and imagination. The colours are remarkably preserved, and almost it seems good enough to be by Raphael himself. The beautiful landscape in the Creation of Eve STORY OF ADAM AND EVE In Raphael's Loggie © TRapbael's %oqq\z 209 has become sadly demoralised by abrasion. Here the Eternal is a man gray with age, wrapped in a heavy mantle. His left hand is upon Eve's shoulder, who, nude, stands in a beseeching attitude, her head inclined to Adam, who is sitting upon a bank and pointing to the place of his missing rib. It is the expulsion from Eden that recalls Masaccio in Florence. The angel, sword in hand, descends a flight of steps, driving the two sinners before him. Adam, covering his face with his hands, is fairly pushed along by the angel's touch on his shoulder. Eve, whose too heavy shape is distinctive of Giulio, goes forward with lighter, more expectant tread. It is not difficult to fancy an excited interest in her countenance as she faces the unknown before her. The light strikes the front of the angel's robe, and lines the upper curve of his wing with fine effect. This effect is intensified by the shadow that glooms about the two in front, and is answered in the land- scape, which behind and beyond them is bathed in light. Unfortunately, the angel's face is mostly sunk into oblivion, it is so badly abraded. The land- scape, too, is discoloured. In the third arcade, Noah, standing by the mighty framework of the ark, and the workmen whom he is superintending are forcibly contrasted. The builders are rough, burly workmen, Noah a figure of dignity, 2IO XTbe Hrt of tbe IDattcan and with a commanding bearing increased by the noble iines of his full drapery. The story of Abraham is graphically told, espe- cially where Melchizedek and his people bring bread and wine to the patriarch. In the foreground centre are the large and beautifully shaped wine-jugs. At the side of one stands Melchizedek, graciously pre- senting them. Abraham, in a Roman helmet and arms, with a lance over his shoulder, directs the movements of the slaves carrying the baskets of bread, at the same time acknowledging to Mel- chizedek the welcomeness of their arrival. The group is completed by attendants on each side offer- ing and accepting the gifts. It is much damaged, and in many places has lost its colour. Yet it is distinctly Raphaelic in the grouping and balance, and the form of Melchizedek recalls St. Paul and the apostles in the cartoons. Lot, Abandoning Sodom 1 , strides along in the fore- ground, a hand in each of his daughters'. Slightly behind is his wife, just turning for the fatal back- ward look. Arrested as she is stepping forward, already the change from flesh to mineral has begun. She is painted as if she were of alabaster. The light strikes the group squarely in front, throwing shadows under their feet. The figures are spirited in movement, but somewhat heavy and clumsy in line. IRapbaei's %oqq\z 211 In the bay devoted to Isaac, one of the frescoes shows the Almighty stretched upon a whirl of clouds, his figure and flying robes suggesting him of the Sis- tine. With his left arm reaching far out, he warns Isaac, who kneels in the foreground, not to under- take the journey into Egypt. At the left, under a tree, sits Rebecca. Isaac is modelled on the an- tique, his round cap rather like that of Mercury, but his limbs are too heavy for the fleet god. There is a grand undulating landscape of trees and grass leading to the distance, where a castle on a hill and a chain of mountains break the sky-line. Isaac Blessing Jacob shows the old father on his couch, the upper part of his figure nude. He is splendidly drawn, with a fine head whose white beard and hair give him the appearance of a Greek phi- losopher. At the foot kneel Jacob and Rebecca and three sons, while at the door enters Esau. In com- parison with the patriarch, the others are poorly executed. The painting of this is assigned to Penni. Jacob's Dream is differently conceived from the one in the Camera. The ladder is here directly in the centre, at the very top of which is the Lord, with arms wide outspread. Clouds effectually con- ceal the sides as well as the top and bottom of the ladder. Jacob lies on the ground, his head turned so that, if his eyes opened, he could see the double line of ascending and descending angels. The composi- 2i2 XCbe Hrt of tfoe IDatlcan tion is possibly more graceful than the one in the Camera, but the figure of Jacob is better drawn and has more nobility in the latter. In this of the loggie, the chiaroscuro is extremely happy, particularly effective being the figure of the Almighty, relieved against a bright light that then merges into the dark- ness of the encircling clouds. The picture is well preserved. In the Meeting of Rachel and Jacob at the Well, where a flock of sheep is drinking, Rachel, as well as the young girl beside her, has a grace and supple- ness foreshadowing the later Italian art. Two very good panels are in the division devoted to Joseph. Where he is telling his dream to his brothers, he is shown in the midst of an Oriental landscape, a flock of sheep on the extreme right, his brothers sitting and standing about him. Against the sky above are two disks upon which the dreams are painted. Joseph is delicately, even effeminately, formed, his charming grace in vivid contrast to the ruggedness of the others. The groups of these are skilfully balanced, and well indicate their surprise, indignation, and envy as they listen. The three standing with locked arms, nearly back to, are espe- cially noteworthy for distribution of light and shade. Again the subject is a dream. This time Joseph is interpreting for Pharaoh. Within a room whose two arcade openings look on to a pastoral scene, IRapfoael's Xoggie 213 Joseph, with the courtiers grouped behind him, stands before the king. Pharaoh, sunken in thought, sits in profile at the left, his hand feeling his beard. The dreams are again painted upon the conventional disks above the arcades. There is a certain looseness of massing here, at variance with Raphael's manner. The best part, perhaps, is the group of courtiers. The Finding of Moses is at the moment w r hen a couple of maids of Pharaoh's daughter have just drawn the cradle to the shore. Two of them are bending over it, while the baby reaches out his arms in delight. A number of maidens behind are looking on with great surprise, while the princess stands with her hands outspread, much kindliness in face and manner. Beyond, the sun is setting behind the low hills that slope to the water's edge, lighting with its reflection this well-composed group. Vasari claims it to be wholly Giulio's composition. The Passage of the Red Sea shows the last of the fleeing Israelites crawling on to the land. At the extreme end of all, Moses, with his wand, is directly in front of the pillar of fire. The chariots and horses of the Egyptians have fallen victims to the waves. Parts of this composition have the dignity and im- pressiveness of scenes from the Sistine. But the less compact build of the whole, and the more literal transference of studies from the antique, show that Raphael's hand was needed here to give it that vivi- 214 Zhc Hrt of tbe Vatican fying touch with which he could bring untoward elements into glorious unity. It has, however, great movement. The positions of the many heads of the kneeling or dancing Israelites about the Golden Calf are perhaps the most skilful parts of this picture. There is great diversity, not alone in the way the heads are turned or bent, but also in their features and ex- pressions. Moses Showing the Tablets of Law to the Chil- dren of Israel is a finely conceived picture, with a dramatic arrangement of light and shade. Standing before his prostrate people, Moses holds the tablets in front of him, three of his elders by his side. The power and grandeur of his face are striking. The light that splashes over the backs of his attending priests, and leaves the rest of their bodies in shadow, is duplicated by equally strongly marked effects in the crowd in front. One of the most vigorously drawn is the youth kneeling in the foreground, his hands resting upon his staff. It is the moment just before the cavalcade leaves the dry land that is illustrated in the scene called the Transfer of the Ark through the Jordan. The precious Tabernacle, a wooden construction of about the shape of the toy arks of nursery days, is carried by priests and escorted by the band of Israelites extending in a curving line beyond. A man in f eath- STORY OF JOSHUA In Raphael's Loggie IRapbael's %oqq\c 217 ered helmet, with rather exaggerated proportions, turns to direct them. At the other side is a seated river god of antique lines, indicating the miraculous opening for the passage. Joshua, in the middle of the foot columns on a white horse, raises his joined hands to heaven in prayer. The colours of this scene are harmonious, in a light key. The painting is undoubtedly by Perino del Vaga. There are reminiscences of the Battle of Ostia in the one called Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still, without, however, the splendid control of the thing as a whole. It is, nevertheless, an exciting scene of carnage, done with sufficient abandon fully to show the onslaught of the victorious and the agony of the defeated. Joshua, on his white charger, rides with far-flung arms, demanding the sun on one side and the moon on the other to obey his behests. Youth and force are expressed in his alert face and impetuous movement. Perino del Vaga is again assigned as author. One of the very best of the frescoes attributed to this painter is the Triumph of David. David, in his chariot, follows his captive prisoners, one, a captain, with his hands bound behind him at the chariot's wheel. Back of them are the Israelites, headed by a plumed leader. David carries his harp with him, and his mien is that of a serious, deeply thoughtful sage, rather than that of a victorious warrior. The 2l8 Ube Hrt of tbe Datfcan two horses of the chariot, which largely fill the fore- ground, are drawn with much spirit and fire. Of the Solomon arcade, the Reception of the Queen of Sheba is perhaps the most satisfactory. The character and build of several of the figures are more suggestive of Giulio Romano than of Perino del Vaga. Solomon) stepping from his throne, meets with welcoming hands the queen, who is already flying up the steps, while behind her are her slaves, heavily laden with presents. The move- ment is somewhat forced and theatric. The unqueenlike rush and flying draperies of her of Sheba are amusingly naive. Yet the figures are well done, the king at the right of the throne, standing back to, and the kneeling slave emptying a basin of coins upon the floor being particularly felicitous. There is, too, more cohesion in the grouping than is usual with Perino del Vaga. In the last arcade, the Nativity and the Adoration of the Magi are the best. The composition of the latter is much like that in the second series of the tapestries, but has, possibly, a better unity of feeling. The kneeling Madonna under the oblong window, through which angels are throwing flowers and bless- ings on those below, has a Tuscan charm that is emphasised by the bright if now disappearing colours. The Epiphany is more solid, constructive, and perhaps more Raphaelic in treatment. In fact, IRapbael's %oqq\c 219 however, the whole of the last three arcades, com- pared with the others, show much less coherence of design, charm of feeling, and knowledge of tech- nique. CHAPTER VII. Raphael's tapestries The Galleria degli Arazzi is one division of one of the long galleries built by Bramante to connect the Vatican proper with the Belvedere. Here, on both sides of the badly lighted corridor, hang, among others, the ten tapestries called the Acts of the Apostles, the cartoons for which rank among the greatest of Raphael's works. While the young painter from Urbino was dec- orating the Stanze, Leo X. issued a new order. At this time St. Peter's was still in such an unfinished, unroofed condition that during inclement weather it could not be used. On such occasions the cere- monies took place in the Sistine Chapel, that being by far the largest sanctuary in the Vatican. Paris de Grassis, who was in charge on such occasions, was continually forced to invent new decorations for celebrating mass at the death of a cardinal, or for a reception of deputations and foreign envoys. It occurred to him that a set of tapestries to hang below the wall frescoes on each side of the chapel 220 TCapbael's TTapestdes 221 would make a more beautiful and more appropriate ornamentation than any he could devise. Up to this time Raphael had had no hand in the adorn- ment of this, the principal chapel in the very heart of Latin Christendom. Possibly the knowledge of Bramante's earlier desire to have his young friend there represented may have influenced the Pope in his choice of painter for the work. At all events, about 1 5 14, Raphael began the cartoons, which were finished by 1516. He was paid one hundred ducats apiece. As fast as each cartoon was completed, it was despatched from the master's atelier to the weavers in Brussels. Thus neither Vasari nor the Roman public in general ever really saw the orig- inal drawings. Strictly speaking, these cartoons, seven of which are now in the South Kensington Museum in London, are drawings rather than paint- ings. The colour is only lightly and slightly indi- cated. In spite of the grandeur given by brilliant tones with the interwoven gold and silver threads, it is the cartoons instead of the tapestries that rank higher in the art of the world. For in not a single one of the weavings did the Flemish painters in thread succeed in reproducing the delicate shades of expression and subtile indications of type and char- acter that are such potent factors for beauty in all the cartoons. It is estimated that the weaving took about three or four years. In December, 15 19, seven 222 Ube Hrt of tbe Vatican of them were put on the chapel walls, and the whole series was hung in 1520. This was an extraordinary feat, and is evidence of some sharp pressure put upon the Brussels workmen. Under Louis XIV., at the Gobelins, they required more than ten years to weave a set of about equal labour, — the History of the King, still to be seen at the Garde Meuble National in Paris. The tapestries have passed through many strange vicissitudes. At the death of Leo X. they were pawned for five thousand ducats. During the sack of Rome in 1527, they were treated to all kinds of indignities, the Punishment of Elymas still showing where it was cut in two to sell more easily. Two went as far as Constantinople, and all were sold by the soldiers of De Bourbon. In 1545 the Vatican managed again to get possession of them. In 1798 the French sold them to a company of dealers, and they were exhibited in Paris. Once more Pius VII. purchased them, and in 1808 they were returned to Rome, and ever since have hung in the palace of the Popes. As has been often said, Raphael violated every law of tapestry decoration in his designs for these magnificent specimens of " arazzi." But, as usual, his genius, riding over every conventional restriction, succeeded in producing a series of stupendous, monu- mental, historical compositions. As our American IRapbaei's Uapestdes 223 editors of Vasari have excellently said, u In spite of sprawling fingers, writhing toes, and rolling eyes, and in spite, too, of a lack of subtile characterisation which makes many of these figures academic, their movements are grand." Of the cartoons, they remark that they " are, as compositions, almost perfect. Although the pantomime is exaggerated, the story is told clearly and simply . . . with a directness and force unrivalled since Giotto, with the new science of the great epoch, and with a freedom from mysticism which made them especially comprehen- sible." Vasari states that when the tapestries arrived, they " awakened astonishment in all who beheld them." But it was the depth and richness of the colouring and their decorative qualities more than their higher artistic worth that appealed to those early observers. And, as Grimm remarks, their moral and spiritual significance seems never to have been noted. To-day, it is quite impossible to judge of them from the sixteenth century stand- point. Here and there the gold threads gleam out, in a few detached spots the softness of the flesh- tones or the richness of drapery and landscape still faintly hint of what the whole must have been nearly four hundred years ago. But mostly, time has dealt as heavily with these treasures of the weavers' loom as with the paintings of Leonardo. No longer glow- 224 Ube art of tbe IDatican ingly rich, exquisite in gradations of tone and colour, they are almost monochromatic in their weak, dull grays. Only the grouping, harmony of arrange- ment, balance, and general effects of drawing and composition remain. In such ways alone they must be considered, and so considered their inferiority to the cartoons is far more apparent than it could have been in their days of gorgeous brilliancy. As stated, the ten pieces are known under the title of the Acts of the Apostles. More strictly, they could be called scenes from the lives of Peter and Paul. The first of the series is the Miraculous Draught of Fishes, or, according to Grimm, the First Call to Peter. Two very small boats, hardly large enough to hold one, let alone the three passengers that are in each, are near the shore. In the first, at the bow, Christ is shown sitting in profile, with his right hand raised as if acknowledging from where comes his power. In the middle kneels Peter, his hands clasped, adoring the Master. Andrew, stepping down from the stern, seems about to follow Peter's example. All around are the fish, of which indeed the boat is full. In the other craft are two young men, both tugging with might and main to bring in the heavy haul that drags the net deep into the sea. They are half naked, and the pull on their arms is shown in their rigid muscles thrown out like cords. The old man steering is modelled on the lines of IRapbael's tapestries 225 an ancient river god. So far as one can see stretch the waters of Gennesareth unbroken to the horizon line. At the left, people are busy on the shore near the city walls, behind which lofty buildings tower. In the foreground, among the grasses, are cranes eagerly waiting for their share of the catch. Raphael, of course, was quite incapable of drawing such inadequate boats from the lack of knowledge that they were inadequate. Rather, he used them as the Greeks used symbols, — as mere suggestions. Doubtless when the hanging came fresh from the looms, the colour prevented their diminutiveness from appearing so strongly. Now, when the shades are so faded, when the lights and shadows no longer have their balance of proportion, to modern eyes the insufficiency of these tiny boats sometimes threat- ens to obliterate the real dignity and nobility of Christ, the fine feeling in the expressions and pose of the disciples. The borders of the tapestry are very lovely, as indeed are all of the series. At the top of this are the arms of the Medici, at the bottom Leo appears riding with his suite of cardinals at the gates of Rome. On the left is the figure of a woman standing behind an allegorical impersonation of the Arno. On the right, a captain, in classic military dress, wel- comes the pontiff. Rome is indicated by the Tiber lying at his feet, his left elbow on a wolf, and a 226 {The Hrt of tbe IDatican cornucopia in his hand. The side borders are ara- besques, impersonations of the seasons, festoons, gro- tesques, birds, and animals all woven into one harmonious decorative design. In the Charge to Peter, Christ stands at the left, pointing to a flock of sheep behind him, while with the other hand he emphasises his words to the kneel- ing Peter, who holds the big key in his arms. Peter is in front of the other disciples, thus connecting and at the same time separating Jesus from the group that is admirable in an arrangement which brings each member clearly into view. The varying attitudes and expressions are given with portrait-like fidelity, the two foremost ones of the number, An- drew and John, being strikingly beautiful. The intent seriousness of Peter is no less plainly shown. In the Redeemer's own figure is an added spiritual dignity and an ideal beauty of face. So far as is known, no cartoon exists of the third of the series, — the Stoning of St. Stephen. Stephen kneels a little to the left of the centre in deacon's dress, his arms outstretched. He is calling upon God, who, with Christ and Angels, appears before his vision in the skies. Saul sits in the right hand corner of the picture, and directs five or six big, burly ruffians. They are bending, picking up stones or already flinging them at the martyr. The action and grouping of these revilers are extraordinarily; IRapbaei's TTapestdes 227 spirited, showing, too, some wonderful foreshorten- ing in their positions. This last is especially marked in the man with bared shoulders stooping over in the foreground. The landscape, the really lovely part of the picture, reminds one of the palace- crowned hills about Rome. The Flemish weavers must have found in the Healing of the Lame Man a subject more congenial and natural for their looms. Here there is no lack of gorgeous ornament, fine dresses, florid architec- ture. It is a scene much more suitable for reproduc- tion in tapestry than any of the others. Between the twisted pillars, said to have been copied from those brought from Jerusalem to Rome, stand St. Peter and St. John, intent upon their deeds of mercy. Peter is holding the right hand of a fearfully de- formed beggar, while with his other he exorcises the evil spirit. The strain in Peter's own hand is evident, and in the uplifted face of the beggar shines his consciousness of the beginning of the cure. On the other side, looking down with compassion, is John, and beyond, between two pillars, another crip- pled beggar leans on his staff, gazing with neck far forward, skepticism and hope struggling in his ugly face. At the extreme sides of the picture, charming young Roman mothers with their babies are passing along, while a sturdy sprite of a naked boy at one end gives vivacity to the whole. 228 TEbe Hrt of tbe IDattcan The Death of Ananias, next in the series, is built somewhat upon the lines of the School of Athens. The apostles are upon a platform, Ananias and his companion on the tesselated pavement below. At the left, beyond, a flight of stairs is seen, on the right, an open window gives a glimpse of a peaceful coun- try landscape. The rough wooden platform with draped background suggests the hasty improvised church of the early Christians. St. Peter, the centre of the apostles, stands with hand extended, his face expressing sternest judgment as he calls down upon the offending perjurer the punishment of Heaven. As if at the command of that pointing finger, Ananias has fallen to the ground in a writhing agony that is already turning to the paralysis of death. The frightened spectators press forward, hardly believing the sight of their eyes. On the platform next to Peter is another apostle, pointing upward, and others at right and left show by their faces their grief and anger at the unhappy man's sin. All the attitudes are vivid to an extreme degree. The Martyrdom of St. Stephen and the Conver- sion of St. Paul are not equal to the others, and it is reasonably sure that Raphael's pupils had a large share in their production. The telescopic lines of the composition of the latter are particularly un- Raphaelesque. Seventh in order is the Punishment of Elymas. tRapbael's XTapestrfes 229 This so absolutely explains in line the Biblical words it illustrates, that, as Miintz observes, nothing describes it better than the verse itself : " And . . . they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Bar-Jesus ; which was with the dep- uty of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man ; who called for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the word of God. But Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation) withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. Then Saul (who is also called Paul), filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on himi, and said, O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness ; and he went about seeking some one to lead him by the hand. Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astounded at the doctrine of the Lord." Grimm says that generally one feels, in comparing Raphael's sketches with the finished compositions, a lack in the latter of the splendid breadth and robustness so strongly shown in the original studies. Here, however, he finds this same vigour of treatment. He says that it seems as if he had " brought his models straight on to the 230 ZEbe Htt of tbe IDatican cartoon." Indeed, he goes on to note, " A look of common reality lies over the whole which reminds us of photographs. The hand gestures are speaking . . .; most of all Elymas, who is trying to inter- rupt Paul's discourse, and terrified by the darkness creeping over him, stretches out his arms like huge feelers, which grope tremblingly about in the empty air." As remarkable as any part of the composition is the management of the crowd of spectators, where are infinite variety and movement with no lessening of homogeneity. Illustrating the verses in the fourteenth chapter of Acts, where Paul heals the cripple, is the tapestry called Paul and Barnabas at Lystra. The moment described is when the people have become convinced that the two are the very gods come to earth, in consequence of which belief they bring oxen and gar- lands to make sacrifice to them. " Which when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, crying out, and saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? " Here again the full scene is depicted. And no one, it is to be believed, but of Raphael's own genius could have brought all these many incidents and elements into a successfully fused whole. He has succeeded beyond even his own standard. In no other one of all his marvellous compositions has he attained more per- fect expression, more abundant life and power, or IRapbael's Uapestdes 231 more absolute coherency. In the forum a crowd is gathered. On one side are the mere spectators, gazing with utmost, astonished devotion at the two apostles who are descending the temple steps. Their own faces show horror and pity, and Paul tears his robe as he turns away from the scene in front, where, led by the sacrificial priests, are the oxen and rams. An executioner lifts his club high over the head of the big ox held by the kneeling captors. By the altar are two entrancing little boys, one blowing the pipes, another bearing the censer. At the moment, a young man, apparently seeing and interpreting the expression in the apostles' faces, springs forward to arrest the intended sacrifice. Among the crowd, the paralytic, the cause of all this excitement, has flung away his crutches and is throwing himself bodily toward his healer, his face full of an incredible joy that is very nearly glee. An old man near him lifts his short garment and examines with astonish- ment the suddenly straightened legs. Here is another composition by Raphael where vigour and grace, strength and charm, compact lines and masses, along with tremendous variety of form, expression, and position, all mingle and make that wonderful har- mony which was the perfection of his art. In the Preaching at Athens, simple as is the idea, Raphael has, with much less action, given as dramatic and lifelike a scene as in the " Liystra." 232 XTbe Hrt of tbe IDatfcan Paul is telling the Corinthians that their altar to the Unknown God is the only altar at which they should worship. " And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked : and others said, We will hear again of this matter. So Paul departed from among them. Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed ; among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them." As Paul stands on the steps preaching, he is a simply lined, noble figure. The crowd before him express well the surprise, the skepticism, the doubt, the contemplation of its differ- ent members. Every face tells its own story, and every figure helps to balance the consummate scheme of the picture. To give the scene its full significance, Raphael shows Damaris and Dionysius in rapt ab- sorption at the end of the steps. Paul in Prison, also called The Earthquake, is of much the same order as the St. Stephen and Conver- sion of St. Paul. Owing to the large part entrusted to his pupils, it is a comparative failure. The tapes- try is injured. Paul is behind a grating similar to that of the " Deliverance " in the chamber of Helio- dorus. At the corner of the foreground are two men, the foremost of whom is being forced upward by the convulsive movements of the personified Earthquake, — a huge giant who is lifting the earth till he has formed about him a sort of vast cavern. IRapbael's XTapestries 235 The borders of all these tapestries are sumptuous beyond telling in imagery, in dramatic interest, in decorative effect. Many of them, so fine are the groupings and so vivid the scenes they depict, have been assigned to Raphael's own hand. He was one of the first artists to discard the inevitable fruit and flower borders for a sort of running story. Some of these framings are in imitation relief, in mono- chrome; some, painted in brightest tones, are alle- gories of the seasons, of the virtues, of life in all sorts of phases, interspersed with geometrical, floral, and grotesque designs where, as in the loggie, birds and reptiles, animals and flowers, are mixed in an exuber- ance that is never beyond the limits of the decorative. To-day, when the colours of the weavings are so changed, it sometimes seems as if these framing designs were the most beautiful parts of all. Of the rest of the tapestries in the gallery, nothing much in the way of praise can be given. The won- derful success of the Sistine series decided Leo X. to ask Raphael for another set, descriptive of the Life and Death of Christ. The subjects were The Nativity, Adoration of the Magi, Massacre of the Innocents (in three pieces), Descent into Hell, Resurrection, " Noli Me Tangere," The Supper at Emmaus, the Ascension, the Descent of the Holy Ghost. All except the Descent into Hell still exist in the Vatican. With them is a hanging which 236 Ube art of tbe IDatican was once behind the pontifical throne in the Sistine. So far below the first set are these, so forced the action of the figures, so coarse and common the drawing, so vulgar and heavy the accessories, it is only by diligent study that here and there a bit is found suggesting the master who is said to have designed them. They were undertaken in the last years of his life, and it is doubtful if he made a full study for any one. After his death, his assistants gathered the scattered, separate heads and figures, and built from them the result which is so far below the worst their first projector could have imagined. It was bad enough when pupils less favoured than Giulio Romano undertook so to interpret the master. It was much worse, as Miintz points out, when men " like Tomaso Vincidor da Bologna, or some Fleming who was perfectly strange to the principles of the Renaissance, attempted to continue the work of Raphael." CHAPTER VIII. THE SCULPTURE GALLERIES The old summer-house of Innocent VIII. is now the centre of the sculpture gallery of the Vatican. During the pontificate of Julius II. and Leo X., their small collection of antique marbles, as has been said, was arranged by Bramante in the gardens of the Belvedere. Under Clement XIV. and Pius VI. they grew to such numbers that some other and better protected housing had to be devised for them. The Pio-Clementine Museum was the result, that followed by the Chiaramonti and the Braccio Nuovo, and then, with Gregory XVI. came the Etruscan and Egyptian rooms. For many years the sculptures of the Vatican were universally re- garded as being the most wonderful and perfect specimens of Greek art extant. The later explora- tions of Greece and the searching investigations of modern critics have torn them from their towering pedestal of fame. Most of the very best specimens have been proved to be merely admirable copies of celebrated works, and the majority of the rest are 237 Ube Hrt of tbe Vatican not even considered first-rate replicas. Such has been the rebound in opinion as to their value. But after all, these copies of antique works of art are in a way more valuable than the undoubted originals that occasionally reward the explorers' excavations. Furtwangler has truly said that even the most mediocre of the marbles in our museums are proof in themselves of the value and celebrity of the origi- nals. The more beautiful and famed a work the more numerous would be its duplicates. There is little question that the greatest marbles of Greek art are lost for ever. It is only by the replicas, bad copies as they may be, that one can learn the charm and value of the rarest of the antique sculptures. And nowhere are copies more abundant, or, on the whole, more excellent than in the enormous collec- tion of the Museum of the Vatican. Whatever the critical estimate of the actual value of the collection itself, there can be no two opinions as to its extent or arrangement. Nowhere are gal- leries more splendidly designed for their purpose or more artistically decorated, or antiquities more intel- ligently and beautifully arranged, than in the palace of the Popes. Of the sixteen rooms stretching from each end of the Braccio Nuovo, bounding all sides of the Giardino della Pigna, and squaring the Cor- tile di Belvedere, each is paved, walled, arched, and lighted with unusual taste, and with a continuity of Tthc Sculpture Galleries 239 design and purpose not wit en seen in public museums. The prevailing colour of the walls is an old rose, a most effective setting for the creams and grays of the statues. The Museo Pio-Clementino is made up of eleven different compartments. Of these the most beautiful in construction and ornamentation are the Sala a Croce Greca, built by Simonetti under Pius VI., and, as its name suggests, in the shape of a Greek cross, with its floor paved with fine mosaics, some of them found in the Villa Ruffinella, near Frascati; the Sala della Biga, a circular hall with a cupola; the Galleria dei Candelabri, a very long corridor with ceiling paintings and a handsome modern marble pavement; here are some lovely vases in marbles of unusual and striking colours; the Sala Rotunda, also erected by Simonetti, and with a fine mosaic flooring found in the Thermae at Otricoli; Sala delle Muse, a magnificent room, of octagon form, domed, and ornamented with sixteen columns of Carrara marble; Galleria delle Statue, the summer-house proper of Innocent VIII., still with traces in the lunettes of paintings by Pinturicchio; Gabinetto delle Maschere, so called from the ancient mosaic in the centre of the floor, which was found in Hadrian's villa; the Cortile del Belvedere, part of the original summer-house, has an inner arcade and corner cabinets where are some of the chief gems 240 XTbe Hrt of tbe IDatican of the collection; finally, the Museo Chiaramonti, chiefly remarkable for its great length. In this corridor alone there are fully three hundred marbles. Of all the Vatican's many hundreds of statues, it will, of course, be possible to speak of only a few. Dilettanti, amateurs, connoisseurs, archeologists, have exhausted themselves and their language in description, appreciation, adulation, and criticism of the Apollo Belvedere. For long it was supposed to be an original dating from the fourth century B. C.j an example, therefore, of the greatest era in Grecian art. Now it is pretty conclusively proved to be no original at all, and most probably a copy of a work of the Hellenistic period. This statue, according to Helbig, was not found at Antium, as has been generally claimed, but in an estate belong- ing to Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere near Grotta Ferrata. It is said that Giuliano bought it the very day it was discovered. The top of the quiver, the left hand, the right arm almost from the shoulder, and various small parts of drapery and legs were all restored by Montorsoli. It is stated also that he has not put the right arm quite as far forward as it should be, and the open hand he has given it is universally condemned. Poised so lightly that he seems to be moving through the air rather than on solid earth, the god is shown with his weight somewhat thrown upon APOLLO BELVEDERE In the Cortile del Belvedere Uhc Sculpture ©alledes 243 his left foot, his right slightly behind and with the toes only touching the ground, as if he were advanc- ing rapidly but noiselessly. The twist of the figure is marvellous, slight, yet full of a rhythmic har- mony. From the waist he turns toward the right, while his head is thrown sharply to the other side. The left arm is held far out and is partly draped by the chlamys which hangs from the neck and over the back and left shoulder, mostly covering the quiver slung over his back. His right arm is also away from the body, and the restorer has placed upon it a foolishly open forceless hand. There have been reams written discussing the nature of the object he is supposed to have carried in his left hand. Furtwangler says positively that the one time prevalent notion that it was an aegis is wholly incorrect. He, as well as several modern archaeolo- gists, claim that in that hand he held a bow, and in the right a bunch of laurel with knotted . woollen bands, the traces of which are found in the bit of laurel carved on the tree-stump at his side. He was thus shown in his double capacity of the " far- darter " and the healer. Whatever he was originally meant to represent, there is a subtilty of swing and expression that makes the statue something far removed from a mere type. It is a vivid presenta- tion of an intense personality, at a suddenly intense moment. One feels in the superb poise a very rush 244 Ube Brt of tbe IDatican of noiseless movement as if he had sped away from concealing clouds. His face is no less expressive. The slight scornful lift of the proud lips, the brows just hinting at a contraction, and the quivering nostrils all seem to suggest some definite, hasty demand upon the god, rousing his wrath and call- ing for his assistance. The calm forehead, how- ever, is unruffled. It is as if the scorn and indig- nation of the rest of the face were held in check by his consciousness of his infinite mind. And yet, in spite of the boldness, the surety, the sweep *of the poise, the nobility of brow, and the godlike charm of the whole creation, there are other things besides that prevent unalloyed or deepest admiration. The overelaborate hair, the careful, precise, though beau- tiful, folds of the chlamys, ill according with the swift onrush of the wearer, the almost too exquisite curve of outline, a sort of dainty grace and an in- dubitable if slight theatricalness about the whole figure, all are foreign to the grand simplicity and noble directness of the greatest art creations. It has been called the " prince of a fairy tale," a not inapt title. Yet, granting all its severest detractors have alleged against it, the Apollo remains what its first lovers called it, — a thing of joy for ever. His " noble limbs are moulded with the ease and freedom which are the result of perfect mastery, and the proud and beautiful face from which the Muses drew their TTbe Sculpture (Balleries 245 inspiration gleams with expression as he moves along in graceful majesty, bathed in the purple light of eternal youth." In its own " Gabinetto " in the Cortile is the Laocoon, the group famous not only in art but literature. The subject of a wonderful essay on the limitations of different arts by Lessing, it has been discussed in all its relations by Winckelmann, Goethe, Heine, and others, and is still under con- stant examination among archaeologists. It was discovered in January, 1506, near the Thermae of Titus, and when Michelangelo and San Gallo were sent to inspect the wonderful find they declared it w r as the group described by Pliny as having stood in the palace of Titus. Liibke is of the opinion that there is no reason for the supposition fostered by Pliny's remarks that it was originally made for the palace. At least it is proved by actual measurement that the niche in which it was said to have stood is too small to hold it. The right arm of Laocoon is a restoration of the early eighteenth century, and indeed the right arms of both of the sons are modern, and incorrectly placed at that. Laocoon was a priest of Apollo, and because he blasphemed against the god two snakes were sent to destroy him and his two boys, as he was about to offer sacrifice at the altar to Neptune. The altar is behind the priest in the group, and the two boys are on each side. 246 ZTbe art of tbe IDattcan Making a connected group of the three otherwise detached figures, are the huge pythons. They have wound their folds about them in a terrible struggle in which one son is already expiring, while the father is in the midst of the most awful death- dealing agonies. The other son as yet is unbitten. The folds, however, are about him, but as he turns to gaze horror-struck at his father, the spectator feels that he at least may have a chance of escape. It is the only point of perspective, so to speak, the only outlet, in the whole composition. The uncer- tainty as to his fate is just enough to give one a breathing space from the accumulated horror of certainty as to the end of all the rest. It adds greatly, therefore, to the dramatic intensity of the group. The shape of the composition is pyramidal. Though the father has half-sunken to the altar in his agony, he is still above the two sons, both of whom are under size. This pyramidal form is in- creased by his wrongly restored right arm, now thrust through the serpent coils up into the air far above his head. It would be more compact and better massed if the hand was where it undoubtedly originally was, resting on or near the head. To Lessing, the horrible convulsions of the three victims meant a tremendously heroic struggle with destiny. It was the mental significance that lay behind the tortured limbs and anguished face of LAOCOON In the Cortile del Belvedere XTbe Sculpture Galleries 249 the father that made it seem to him so wondrous a work. If one could thus translate the struggle to the realms of real tragedy unquestionably the gran- deur of the group would be immeasurably increased. But to most observers to-day there is little to be seen or felt but mere physical agony. This is carried to its extreme in a marvellously effective manner. Of all the creations of plastic art no face, it is safe to say, has ever succeeded in producing such an intensity of suffering as that of the Laocoon. Homer can go no further. Whether the representation of such a state is a proper subject for the plastic arts is another question. During the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth century the Laocoon was the subject of the wildest sort of praise. Modern criticism has to a certain extent robbed it of the supremacy then undisputed. Besides the question as to its actual intrinsic artistic value, there has been and even still is no less amount of conjecture as to the date of its execution. It seems to be generally con- ceded that it is an original, the only point of doubt being whether it was a work of Rhodes of a later date than the Pergamum frieze, or whether the opinions of earlier archaeologists, who assign it to a period at least no later than the early part of the second century B.C., can be sustained. Furtwangler and others of equal prominence place it later. It is claimed that its similarity, and at the same time its 2so Ubc Hrt of tbe IDatican inferiority, to parts of this sarnie Pergamum frieze prove that its construction came at a later and less artistic date. The Torso, the world-famous Torso of the Belve- dere, has been subjected to equally scathing criti- cism. Even the old story of its discovery and placing in the Belvedere by Julius II. has been questioned, till now it is generally conceded that it was in the Colonna family down to the time of Clement VII., and by him was put among the Vatican collections. There is one indignity the Torso has escaped. It has never been defamed by the restorer's hand. In all its maimed glory, just as it was dug from the crumbling ruins, it rests to-day on its revolving pedestal in the Museo Pio-Clementino. It is indeed merely a torso, — no head, no neck, no arms, part of the left shoulder gone, the right leg broken off at the knee and the left but slightly below it, — no wonder the vandal restorer felt the task beyond even his powers. We may congratulate ourselves that there was so little undestroyed. Given a leg and arm or two more, and some one would have tried to match them. It is supposed to represent Hercules, partly from the lion skin that is spread upon the rock on which the god is sitting. He is bent sidewise to the right, and forward, and then is twisted to the left, giving chance for a fine play of muscles. The artist's name carved is Apollonios, son of Nestor. TTbe Sculpture Galleries 251 The fact that names of sculptors were not usual in the works of early artists is one reason why the first century b. c. is ascribed as the date pf this fragment. It is thought that Apollonios may have been the same sculptor who made the celebrated chrysele- phantine statue of Jupiter for the new Capitoline temple consecrated in 69 b. c. All sorts of ideas have been advanced as to what the whole statue must have been. One theory is that the god was sitting playing a large cithara supported by the left thigh, while he was singing over the success of his labours. Again it has been ventured that he was only one of a group. Whatever he was, that which is left of him has been the admiration and the despair of artists from the time of Michelangelo to Gerome. The great Italian said that all the excellencies of antique sculpture were in it alone, and he called himself its humble pupil, claiming that to it he owed all his power for representing the human form. And when he was an old man he used to run his trembling fingers lovingly over its outlines. Com- pared with the giants of the Pergamum frieze, mod- ern criticism says that it has not their fresh freedom of muscles or their exquisite rendering of skin and veins. Indeed, even Winckelmann, who rhapsodised over the extraordinary strength and beauty of the torso, was impressed with the strange absence of vein indications. To his mind, they were left out to Zbc Hrt of tbe IDattcan help to make clear the superhuman nature of the god! Antiquaries agreeing or no, Michelangelo's opinion of the rare beauty and power of this broken god, will for most seem the true appreciation. Mas- sive, strong, full of grace, energy, and elasticity, there are few statues that better deserve the admira- tion of all times. The mere workmanship shows the sculptor to have been past master of his craft. The softened tooling has left no marks, the surface of the skin is of velvet smoothness, and through it all is a sensitive delicacy that makes the more tremen- dous the weighty strength that lies behind the big muscles. Perhaps the Mercury, once wrongly called the Antinous of the Belvedere, has of all the noted works of the Vatican suffered the least under the fire of modern research. To be sure, since the dis- covery of the Olympus Hermes, it is usually regarded as being a copy, rather than an original. But, at least, if it is a copy, then the original, one is sure, must either have been of a transcendent beauty way beyond the god of Praxiteles, or else the copy is, to all intents and purposes, as satisfactory as the undoubted original would be. For it is only when direct comparison is made between this and the one on Olympus that any slightest lack is felt. It was found in 1543, in a garden near the castle of St. Angelo, and Paul III. put it into the Belvedere HEAD OF MERCURY In the Cortile del Belvedere Zbc Sculpture ©alleries 255 garden. The legs were broken in two places when it was discovered, and the joining was incorrectly done, so that the ankle appears deformed. The statue stands in the well-known Praxitelean attitude, the whole weight resting easily upon the right foot, the other leg bent slightly behind it, only the toes resting upon the ground. The right arm, which appears to have been more or less advanced from the shoulder, is gone, and the left wrist and hand are also wanting. One end of the chlamys is thrown over the left chest, and then it drops down the back, to be caught up and over the left forearm. The head is bent forward and slightly to one side, with the quiet, distantly pensive expression also clearly associated with Praxiteles. It has been gen- erally considered that this must be a copy of a statue by that sculptor, though certain critics have ascribed it to a slightly later period. The original was probably of bronze. The large free modelling, the beautiful planes of the chest and shoulders, the soft, yet never weak, masses of muscle, the grace and ease of the position, the proportion of the parts to each other, the overhuman individuality of the whole, mark this as one of the chief treasures of the Vatican. Possibly the head is a trifle small, and the expression of not quite the majestic sweetness and concentration of divine power felt in the Olym- pian statue; but it is a rarely lovely, thoughtful, 256 Ube Hrt of tbe Datican charming head none the less. Perhaps the two most wonderful things about it are the subtile, beautiful swing of its poise and the intense feeling of flesh in its marble planes. Almost one can see the pulsing veins beneath, almost one is sure it would yield to the pressure of the finger-tips. Only, one thinks, has Michelangelo in his David succeeded in achieving such a semblance of living flesh. The gradations in its modelling are as subtile as Titian produced with his brush. To quote a well-known author, " It is an exquisite image of blooming youth. For soft and delicate beauty, — beauty which, like that of the vernal rose, the sunset cloud, and the breaking wave, is suggestive of brief continuance and early decay, — this statue has no superior, hardly an equal. . . . The softness of the limbs just stops short of languid effeminacy. It is beauty, not like that of the Apollo, in action, but in repose, filled to the brim with sweet sensations; neither restless from desire nor cloyed with enjoyment." Very similar in pose is the Meleager of the Belve- dere. In spite of this resemblance in attitude, the difference in conception of character and impression of the whole figure is remarkable. Standing like the Mercury, with all his weight on the right leg, the other slightly bent and resting somewhat behind the left foot, just as in the Hermes, the line from the hips down only differs in the somewhat more Ube Sculpture Galleries 257 extreme angle of the latter. The right hip of Meleager is not thrown out quite so strongly. The chlamys, which is probably a Roman addition, is but- toned on his right shoulder and slightly covers his chest before it slips down the back, and then, as in the other, is wound once over the left arm. But here is one of the noticeable points of difference. There are no lazy, quiet folds here, expressing in every line the pensive attitude of the Mercury. The ends of the chlamys are flowing straight out, as if a breeze had caught and held them. And undoubt- edly it was a breeze. But it was made by the hero himself. One can fairly see the whirl he must have given the drapery as he flung it impatiently about him and rushed along. In his right arm, which is bent as Praxiteles often bent it, and resting on his right hip behind him, there is, however, the feeling of energy and action, very unlike the nonchalant ease of Praxiteles. The head, instead of being bent thoughtfully downward, is turned sharply to the left, his eyes are gazing piercingly in the same direc- tion. The beautiful half-open lips with their scornful curves, the slightly inflated nostrils, all give a life, an outward expression at variance with the type as we know it, of Praxiteles. The modelling of the forms is somewhat different also. There is less of softness and grace, a hint of stronger lines and more decided angles and planes. Altogether it seems probable, 258 Ube Hrt of tbe Datican according to modern criticism, to assign the original of this to Scopas. It was found, on the authority of Aldroandi, near the Porta Portese on the Janiculus. Beside the statue, on his right, is a badly sculptured dog looking up to him, and on his left is a boar's head. This last indication, evidently, of the fight in which Meleager came off victor — to his own future harm. It is supposed that the boar's head is of Graeco-Roman manufacture. The elaboration of it, when it is such a mere accessory, is very unlike Grecian art. -The statue is in perfect condition, ex- cept for its left hand, and it is said that Michelangelo did not dare restore that. The Apoxyomenos in the Braccio Nuovo was found in April, 1849, ln the ruins of a private house in the Vicolo delle Palme in Trastevere. The restorations are all of a minor order. Tenerani added the fingers of the right hand, the die, the tip of the left thumb, parts of the strigil, and all the toes. After exercising at the Palaestra, the Greeks used a metal scraper (the strigil) to remove the sand which had accumulated on their oil-rubbed bodies. This statue shows a youth in the act of cleaning the lower side of his right arm, which is held out for the purpose. Lysippus, who is supposed to be the sculptor of the bronze original, was a contemporary of Scopas and Praxiteles, and was as famous in the XTbe Sculpture ©alledes 259 Peloponnesus as were they in Attica. Certain char- acteristics for which this master was noted among the ancients are strongly marked in this figure. Very tall and slender, the proportions of the whole figure, with the much smaller head, longer legs, slighter wrists and ankles, all show the innovations intro- duced by Lysippus. They were marked innovations, even when compared with the Parthenon figures or the Doryphoros of Polycleitus. The mobility of this Apoxyomenos is such that every change of each movement of his arm is almost visible. His weight is still partly on his right leg, and its momentary, sidewise stretch is wonderfully indicated. The ex- pression of the face is much more individual and has more intellectuality than the statues of an earlier date. The play of the muscles is faithfully shown and the skin is admirably indicated as being a cover- ing for the flesh beneath. It is an idealistic treat- ment of a realistic subject and is peculiarly that of the type attributed to Lysippus. Like him, too, is the care bestowed on details, such as the rendering of the hair in separate locks. The face is natural- istic to a degree that it almost becomes portraiture. Again what one would expect from the chisel of the man who was always chosen by Alexander the Great for his numerous portrait busts and statues. There are in the Sala della Biga two statues of Discobolus, the disk thrower. One represents the 260 XTbe Hrt of tbe IDatican athlete in repose, the other at the moment of action. The one in repose has been variously ascribed to Naucydes, a pupil of Polycleitus, to Alcamenes, a contemporary of Phidias and Myron. Brunn gives it to the latter, backing up his belief by showing the points of similarity between this and better known types of Myron. The statue was found by Gavin Hamilton in 1792 in the ruins of an ancient villa on the Via Appia, and it was acquired for the Vatican by Pius VI. It is only slightly restored in minor parts. The athlete is shown at the moment when he has just grasped the discus in his left hand, which still hangs easily at his side. With his right hand bent at the elbow and forefingers held out, as if he were measuring the space to cover, he seems to be studying the direction and distance that he must throw. The figure is firmly but elastically poised, and there is a well executed intentness and preparation for movement in the whole body. The face, too, though not carried to the extreme expressiveness of a late day, clearly indicates the keen interest and speculation of the moment. Myron, who is universally acknowledged to be the author of the bronze original from which the other Discobolus must have been copied, was cele- brated in antiquity, both for his statues of athletes and for his representations of animals. His was the Zbc Sculpture ©alleries 261 bronze cow about which so many epigrams were written. Goethe summarised these bon mots, — a few of which were, that, so real was she, " a lion sprang upon her to tear her to pieces ; the shepherd threw his halter about her neck to lead her to pasture ; some pelted her with stones ; others whistled to her ; the farmer brought his plough to yoke her in for work; the gadfly settled on her hide; and even Myron himself was at a loss to distinguish her from the rest of his herd." It was this same ability to portray life, life, too, at an intense moment, that made his athletes so famous. Lucian in speaking of one of these noted figures so exactly describes several existing statues, that there is no doubt they were copies after the bronze original. In the Vatican is one of them, though it is not so good an example as one owned by Prince Lancelotti of Rome. With his whole weight upon his right foot, which rests squarely upon the ground, the athlete has grasped the discus with all the strength of his right arm, and flung it up and back as far as it will go. His whole shoulder and torso follow the violent move- ment of the arm. This gives a twist to the body that brings into play admirably worked muscles, and makes a movement that at once suggests the inevitable return in the opposite direction. His head is here improperly placed. It should follow the motion of the right arm. The face itself is still 262 Ube Hrt of tbe IDatican somewhat of the archaic type, where the most violent movements of the body left unaltered its perpetual smile of sweet intelligence. That, too, is typical of Myron, for even the critics of his own day objected to his expressionless faces. But this seizing of a passing moment at the very height of one action, just before it merges into the next, and so spiritedly that at once one's mind and eye leap to that next — in this lies Myron's great genius. As Liibke says, there is " in it the most acute observation of life, the most just conception of bold, rapid move- ment, and the greatest freedom in the expression of the action." If was found by Count Fede in 1791 in Hadrian's Tiburtine Villa, and Pius VI. bought it. Of almost modern feeling and treatment is the lovely crouching Venus in the Gabinetto delle Maschere. It was discovered about 1760 in the Tenuta Salone, situated on the Via Prsenestina, and got by Pius VI. from the painter La Piccola. The entire back of the head, the upper part of the left ear, and all the hair except that lying upon the neck, are restored. The fingers are modern, as well, probably, as the whole of the right hand and wrist. Modern, too, are the front of the right foot, two toes on the left, most of the vase, with its waves, and various fragments of the body. The face also has been slightly retouched by the restorer. As the name indicates, the goddess is represented CROUCHING VENUS In the Gabinetto delle Maschere ZEbe Sculpture Galleries 265 in a crouching position, as if she were just under the spray of a shower bath. The attitude is extremely charming in the way the limbs cross and partly conceal each other, and the modelling of the whole body is delicate and sensitive to a degree. According to Pliny, the temple of Jupiter, within the Portico of Octavia in Rome, had a marble statue by D^edalos, of Venus seated in the bath. It is reas- oned that this and similar statues are reproductions of this ancient one. Daedalos is supposed to have been a Bithynian of the period of the Diadochi. This is especially regarded as true, as it is not likely such a statue was designed before the Cnidian Aphrodite. The " accentuation of the sensuous element and the realistic treatment of the nude " presuppose a period after rather than before Alex- ander the Great. In the Sala a Croce Greca is the Vatican copy of the most famous Venus ever sculptured. With the exception of the Zeus of Phidias, no statue in the ancient world received such unbounded praise as did the Aphrodite of Cnidus. As Pliny tells the story, Praxiteles made two Venuses, — one clothed, the other nude. He offered them for sale at the same time, and the people of Cos, perhaps for moral and religious reasons, selected the one that was draped. The Cnidians therefore took the other, and to the fame of the statue was due all the future pros- 266 XTbe Hrt of tbe Datican perity of that place. In showing how it was valued, Pliny goes on to say that the Cnidian national debt was very large, and Niconiedes, King of Bithynia, offered to pay the whole of it in exchange for the statue. But the Cnidians preferred to remain in debt rather than relinquish this work of art. Up to Praxiteles's time a nude goddess of love had scarcely been thought possible. That he succeeded in present- ing her undraped, and yet kept her the goddess to be worshipped, proved how great a triumph he achieved. The statue was of Parian marble and stood in the centre of a small temple in a grove of myrtle and other trees. Here the art of the period as well as the art of Praxiteles reached its culmina- tion. It expressed probably as no other statue the spirit of the new Attic school, — and it could have been created neither in the preceding nor following period of Hellenic art. The copy in the Vatican is not a first-class work, though it has very many beauties. The head, un- fortunately, is turned in the wrong direction. She should be looking more toward the left shoulder, with the head slightly bent backward. Owing to certain moral scruples at that time rampant in Vat- ican authorities, it was deemed expedient to drape the statue. A metal covering was therefore made, and now hangs from below the hips. As may be easily imagined, it does not a Baedeker : Central Italy. B. Berenson : Florentine Painters of the Renaissance. Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance. Venetian Painters of the Renaissance. Blashfield : Raphael in Rome. Blashfield, Blashfield, and Hopkins : Vasari's Lives. Alcide Bonneau: In Revue Encyclopedique — L'Apparti- ment Borgia au Vatican. Bryce : Holy Roman Empire. Brunn : Griechische Kiinstler. J. Cartwright : Raphael in Rome. Cartier : Life of Fra Angelico. C. Clement : Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Raphael. L. M. de Cormenin : Histoire des Papes. Marion Crawford : Ave Roma Immortalis. Crowe and Cavalcaselle : Life of Raphael and His Works. History of Painting in Italy. M. J. de Crozals : Beato Angelico. L. Douglas : Fra Angelico. J. Dennie : Rome of To-day and Yesterday. F. H. Dyer : History of the City of Rome. F. Ehrle and E. Stevenson : Gli Affreschi del Pinturicchio nelP Appartamento Borgia. FurtwAngler : Masterpieces of Greek Art. S. R. Forbes : Rambles in Rome. La Gournerie : Christian Rome. Gebhart : Le Palais Pontifical. 337 333 Goyau, P£rat£, and Fabre : Le Vatican, Les Papes et La Civilisation. Gregorovius : Rome in the Middle Ages. H. Grimm : Life of Michelangelo. Life of Raphael. A. J. C. Hare: Walks in Rome. C. I. Hemans : Historic and Monumental Rome. Wolfgang Helbig : Guide to the Public Collections of Classical Antiquities in Rome. Kugler : Italian Painting. Landon : Vie de Raphael. Larousse : Dictionaire Universel du XIX. Siecle. L. C. Loomis: Index Guide to Travel and Art Study in Europe. Lubke : History of Art. H. J. Massi : Compendius Description of the Museums of Ancient Sculpture in the Vatican. Cursory Notes in Illustration of the Paintings in the Vatican. Matz : Antike Bildwerke in Rome. L. M. Mitchell : History of Ancient Sculpture. Mueller : Ancient Art and Its Remains. E. MiiNTZ : Raphael. Les Arts a la Cour des Papes. Murray's Rome. A. S. Murray : History of Greek Sculpture. L. Pastor : History of the Popes. Perkins : Historical Handbook of Italian Sculpture. W. C. Perry : Greek and Roman Sculpture. K. M. Phillimore : Fra Angelico. E. March Phillips : Pintoricchio. Count Plunkett : Botticelli and His School. G. B. Rose : Renaissance Masters. Scribner's Encyclopaedia of Works of Architecture in Italy, Greece, and the Levant. Springer : Raphael. J. A. Symonds : Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti. Renais- sance in Italy — The Fine Arts. Tarbell : History of Greek Art. 339 Tuker and Malleson : Handbook of Christian and Eccle- siastical Rome. Viardot : Les Merveilles de la Sculpture. Venturi : The Vatican Gallery. C. H. Wilson : Life and Works of Michelangelo. Woltmann and Woermann : The Painting of the Renais- sance. Zola: Rome. Ifnbex Adonis (See Apollo of the Gabi- netto delle Maschere). Alberti, Giovanni, 18, 41. Alcamenes, 260. Aldroandi, 258. Alexander VI., 7, 24, 25, 61, 62, Alexander XXIII., 16. Alkibiades, 292, 295-296. Amazon, 276-280, 296. Angelico, Fra, 17, 19, 175; Chapel of Nicholas V., 19, 26, 32, 46-60 ; Pinacoteca, Virgin Enthroned, 324-325. Antinous of the Belvedere (See Mercury). Aphrodite (See Venus). Apollo Belvedere, 29, 240-245, 256, 270. Apollo Citharcedos, 282-283. Apollo of the Gabinetto delle Maschere, 282. Apollo Sauroctonos, 270-272. Apollonios, 250-251. Apoxyomenos, 258-259. Ariadne Sleeping, 272-275. Arsenal, 41. Athena Giustiniani, 283-284. Augustus, 292, 296-299. Barbieri, Giovanni Francesco (See Guercino da Cento). Barocci, Federigo, 330-333. Baroccio, 34. Bartolommeo, Fra, 147, 149. Belvedere, 2, 5, 23, 24, 25-26, 220, 237. Berenson, 51. Bernini, 2, 41, 300. Biga, The, 299. Bologna, Tomaso Vincidor da, 202, 236. Boniface VIII., 12. Bonifazio II., 333-334. Borgia Apartments, 21, 24, 25, 26, 30, 45, 61-90, 101. Borgia Tower, 5, 12, 25, 31. Botticelli, 65, 86, 87, 92, 93, 94- 100, 101, 321. Bourbon, De, 30, 222. Boxers, The, 300. Braccio Nuovo, 43, 237, 238, 258, 268, 279, 283, 287, 290, 296. Bramante, 19, 21, 24, 25, 29, 32, 33, 38, 42,106, 109,110,152, 156, 160, 197, 220, 221, 237. Bramantino, 26. Bregno, Andrea, 63. Brunelleschi, 21. Brunn, 260. Bryaxis, 282. Calixtus III., 20. Camera d'Eliodoro, 171-185, 193, 308. Camera dell' Incendio, 1 1, 142, 143, 185-193. Camera della Segnatura, 143- 171, 173, 185, 307. Canova, 42, 299-300. 342 flnOei Caradosso, 24. Caravaggio, Amerighi dz 334. Caravaggio, Polidoro da, 202. Castagno, Andrea del, 19, 21. Celestine III., 12. Cento, Guercino da, 328-329. Chapel of Nicholas V., 19, 26, 46-60. Clement VII., 30, 31-32, 195, 196, 250. Clement VIII., 38, 41, 43. Clement XIV., 42, 237, 268, 279, 290. Colonna, Otto (See Martin V.). Colle, Raphael del, 196. Conti, Sigismondo, 308, 311. Correggio, 317, 334-335- Cosimo, Piero di, 108. Court of St. Damasus, 2, 5, 6, 21, 34, 38, 44, 197. Court of the Belvedere, 29, 32, 33> 3 8 > 43» 2 3S, 239, 245. * Court of the Papagallo, 19, 21. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, 155, 175, 184. Daedalos, 265. Daughter of Niobe, 275-276. Delia Robbia, 21. Demosthenes, 292. Dionysius, 2880 Discobolus, 259-262. Dolci, Giovanni de, 91. Domenichino, 302, 31 2-3 15. Donatello, 21. Dossi, 311. Egyptian Museum, 43, 237. Ehrle and Stevenson, 62, 63. Eros, 267-268, 282. Etruscan Museum, 43-44, 237. Eugenius III., 12. Eugenius IV., 17, 18, 46. Euphranor, 283. Eutychides, 291. Exterior of the Vatican, 1-6. Fabriano, Gentile, 21. Fano, Girolamo da, 136. Faun (Or Satyr) Resting, 268- 270. Fede, Count, 262, 270. Fiesole, Angelico da (See An- gelico, Fra). Fiesole, Mino da, 21. Foligno, Bartolommeo da, 19. Fontana, 37, 38. Forli, Melozzo da, 21, 22, 168, 325- Francesca, Piero della, 19. Francia, Francesco, 327-328. Frangoni, 299. Friindesberg, 30, 31. Furtwangler, 238, 243, 249, 271, 276, 283, 284, 295, 296. Gabinetto delle Maschere, 239, 262, 270, 284. Gabinetto di Canova, 299. Gabinetto Laocoon, 245. Gaddi, Angelo, 14. Gaddi, Giovanni, 14. Galleria degli Animali, 300- 301. Galleria degli Arazzi, 220-236. Galleria dei Candelabri, 44, 239, 280, 291. Galleria delle Statue, 239, 268, 272, 276, 292. Ganymede, Rape of, 280-281. Gerome, 251. Ghiberti, 21, 204. Ghirlandajo, Domenico, 92, 93, 106-107, 160, 184. Giardino della Pigna, 238. Giottino, 14. Giotto, 160, 223. Goethe, 245, 261. Gozzoli, Benozzo, 21, 48, 108. Grassis, Paris de, 220. Gregory XI., 15, 30. Gregory XIII., 34~37> 43» 87. Gregory XVI., 43~44> 237. Grimm, 119, 123, 148, 155, 159, 223, 224, 229. Guercino da Cento, 328-329. Guidi, Andrea, 43. 343 Hall of Constantino, 193-196. Hamilton, Gavin, 260. Heine, 245. Helbig, 240. Hercules holding Telephos, 284- 287. Hercules of the Rotunda, 288- 289. Hercules, Torso of, 250-252. History of the Vatican, 8-45. Innocent III., 12, 152. Innocent IV., 12. Innocent VII., 16. Innocent VIII., 22-23, 2 9> 4 T > 42, 237, 239. Julius II., 25-29, 32, 38, 61, 109, no, 143, 149, 168, 171, 172, i73> x 77> 178, 181, 183, 237, 250, 272, 308. Julius III., 32. Kresilas, 276, 295-296. Kugler, 135. La Piccola, 262. Ladislas of Naples, 16. Laocoon, 245-250, 318. Laureti, Tommaso, 196. Lawrence, 8, 9. Leo III., 10, 190. Leo IV., 11, 185, 191. Leo V., 33. Leo X., 7, 25, 29, 63, 168, 172, 178, 181, 186, 190-193, 220, 222, 225, 235, 237, 289. Leo XIII., 11, 44-45, 61. Leochares, 280, 282. Leonardo da Vinci, 149, 160, 223, 327. Lessing, 245, 246-249. Library, 18, 26, 38, 41, 42, 43, 44, 168. Ligorio, Piero, 34. Lippi, Filippino, 99. Lippi, Fra Lippo, 21. Lo Spagna (See Pietro, Gio- vanni di). Loggie of Bramante, 25-26, 29, 38, 42, 197. Loggie of Raphael, 5, 29, 89, 197-219. Loggie of the Benediction, 18, 21, 22, 23. Lotto, Lorenzo, 26. Lubke, 245, 262. Lysippus, 258-259, 288, 291. Maincourt, Reginald de, 20. Manetti, 18. Mantegna, 23. Mantovani, Alessandro, 44. Maratta, Carlo, 175. Marriage of the Aldobrandines, 43- Martin V., 16-17. Masaccio, 21, 48, 51, 60, 107, 184, 204, 209. Masolino, 21. Meleager of the Belvedere, 256- 258. Menander, 292, 295. Mercury of the Belvedere, 252- 257. Michaelis, 292. Michelangelo, 24, 32, 33, 37, 66, 175, 181, 184, 196, 204, 245, 251, 252, 256, 258,275, 326; Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, 25, 90, 109-136, 168, 171, 173' 213; Last Judg- ment, 31, 33, 136-141, 160. Minerva Medica (See Athena Giustiniani). Modena, Pellegrino da, 202. Morelli, 334. Montorsoli, 240. Miintz, 23, 91, 229, 236. Murillo, 330. Museo Chiaramonti, 42, 237, 240, 275, 284, 288. Museo Pio-Clementino, 42, 237, 239 (See also under separate headings). Muziano, 37. Myron, 260-262. 344 fln&ei Napoleon, 29, 42, 43> 2 9°- Naucydes, 260. Nicholas III., 12. Nicholas V., 17-20, 21, 25, 26, 32, 38. Nile, Group of the, 289, 290-291. Ottaviani, 201. Palma Vecchio, 333. Paul II., 20, 22. Paul III., 32, 171, 252. Paul IV., 33. Paul V., 21, 41. Pauline Chapel, 5, 32, 34, 141. Pausanias, 268, 275. Penni, Francesco, 202, 211, 326. Perate, 12, 18, 32. Perseus, 300. Perugia, Buonfigli da, 19. Perugino, 19, 24, 26, 70, 85, 87, 92, 93, 101, 105-106, 107, 108-109, 136, 143, 147, 160, 185, 318, 321, 322-323, 326. Peruzzi, 26, 172. Phidias, 260, 265, 271, 276, 281- 282, 291, 296. Pietrasanta, Jacopo da, 23. Pietro, Giovanni di, 323-324. Pinacoteca, 302-335. Pinturicchio, 7, 24, 93, 1 01- 105, 2 39> 323; Borgia Apart- ments, 25, 30, 61-90 ; Pina- coteca, 325-326. Pius II., 20. Pius IV., 12, 33-34, 37> 289. Pius VI., 42, 136, 237, 239, 260, 262, 270, 282, 299. Pius VII., 42-43, 61, 62, 222, 283, 302. Pius IX., 44, 142, 330. Podesti, Francesco, 44, 142. Pollajuolo, 21, 23. Polycleitus, 259, 260, 276, 279- 280, 292, 296. Pomarancio, 34, 44. Pomarancio (Younger), 37. Pontelli, Jacopo, 91. Poseidippus, 292, 295. Poussin, 329-330. Praxiteles, 252, 255, 257, 258, 265-271, 282, 284, 288. Prignano, Bartholemew (See Urban VI.). Raphael, 5, 7, 19, 22, 26, 37, 44, 71, 95, 105, 109, no, 135, 3 l S> 3 X 7> 3 2 3> 3 2 4, 326, 3 2 7» 328 ; Bible (See Loggie); Cartoons for Tapestry, 29, 92, 220-236; Loggie, 29, 89, 197-219; Pinacoteca, 302- 312, 318-322; Stanze, 11, 19, 25, 31, 60, 61, 90, 142- 196, 220, 307, 308. Ribera, 335. Rienzo, Cola di, 13. Ristori, 12. Romano, Giulio, 31, 177, 194- 196, 202, 209, 213, 218, 236, 3°3> 3°4> 326. Rosselli, Cosimo, 93, 107-108. Rossellino, 21. Royal Staircase, 41. Rubens, 290. Ruysch, Jean, 26. Sabatini, 37. Sala a Croce Greca, 239, 265. Sala dell' Immacolata, 142. Sala della Biga, 239, 259, 295, 299. Sala delle Muse, 239. Sala Regia, 32, 33, 34, 41. Sala Rotunda, 239, 281, 289. Salviati, Cecchino, 92. San Gallo, Antonio, 21, 24, 32, 245. San Gimignano, Vincenzo da, 202. Sansovino, 318. Satyr, 270. Scalvati, Antonio, 196. Schmarson, 65. Scopas, 258, 280, 283, 289. Seitz, Lodovico, 61. Hn&ei 345 Sesto, Cesare da, 326-327. Sforza, Catherine, 24. Sibilla, Gaspare, 290. Siena, Pastorino da, 32. Signorelli, 26, 93, 101, 102, 105. Silenus and the Infant Bacchus, 287-288. Simonetti, 42, 239. Sista, Fra, 12. Sistine Chapel, 5, 7, 18, 22, 25, 29, 3 1 * 3 2 > 45> 6 3> 8 9> 9°> 91-141, 171, i73> 213, 220, 235» 236. Sixtus IV., 21-22, 25, 29, 30,91, 94, 96, 100, 107, 109, 325. Sixtus V., 37, 38, 42, 44, 196. Sodoma, 26, 143, 145. Stanze of Raphael, 5, 7, 19, 25, 31, 45, 60, 61, 90, 142-196, 220, 307, 308 (See also under separate headings). Stephen II., 10. Stern, Raphael, 43. Symmachus, 8, 9, 10. Symonds, 113. Taine, 308. Tempesta, 37. Tenerani, 258. Tiber, Group of the, 289, 290. Titian, 256, 327, 315-318. Tito, Santo de, 34. Torre dei Venti, 34. Torso of the Belvedere (See Hercules, Torso of), Tyche and Orontes, Group of, 291. Udine, Giovanni da, 31, 34, 37, 44> 63, 177, 201. Urban IV., 183. Urban V., 13-15. Urban VI., 15. " Urban VIII., 41. Vaga, Perino del, 31, 63, 202, 217, 218. Vasari, 23, 34, 84, 94, 109, 129, i33> J 5 6 > l6 5> J 93> J 95> 201, 213, 221, 223, 302, 316, 322. Vatican Palace (See under sepa- rate headings). Vedder, 175. Venus Anadyomene, 284. Venus, Crouching, 262-265. Venus of Cnidus, 265-267, 271. Venus of Milos, 284. Veronese, 335. Verrocchio, 21. Villa Belvedere (See Belvedere). Villa Pia, 34. Viterbe, Simone di, 19. Volpato, 201. Volterra, Daniele da, 136. Winckelmann, 245, 251, 275. William of Marseilles, 145. Zeus Otricoli, 281-282, 287. Zucchero, Federigo, 34. A '01 GETTY CENTER LIBRARY 3 3125 00800 4885