paintings of this early period are contained in the catacombs at Rome. In that of S. Calixtus, between the Appian and Ardeatinian ways, are four chambers or cells thus decorated. In the first of these is a painting supposed to represent our Lord disputing with the doctors in the Temple; another painting represents the Good Shepherd; a third exhibits the history of Jonah, in four compartments; and another, the sufferings of Martyrs and Confessors confined to the mines. In the second* chamber are three paintings, having the same kind of subjects. In the third and fourth chambers, the subjects are similar, being usually such parts of the history of the Old Testament, or of prophecy, as are more particularly typical of the Advent of the Messiah.t We will enumerate them particularly, but will merely observe that in all these paintings, attention is paid to perspective, proportion, shading, and the grouping of figures; there is also much freedom in the attitudes, and a careful depicture of drapery. Similar paintings were discovered by Bozius, in the catacombs of the Via Latina, the Prænestine, Salarian, Flaminian, Tiburtine, and other ways. To the same period, or one scarcely less remote, belong the mosaics of San Vitale, pictured in the first volume of Mr. Gally Knight's Italy : they represent Justinian and Theodora apparently engaged in a procession on the occasion of a consecration or the like ceremony. It has been asserted by several writers, that Justinian and his wife were present at the consecration of this very church: to say the least it is not impossible that they were, as the church is of very high antiquity. These mosaics possess, besides their interest as the work of so remote an age, peculiar claims to attention, as affording a correct notion of the court costume of an age certainly not much, if at all, posterior to that of Justinian; the draperies and outline betray a decaying but not yet debased state of art; the colours are remarkably brilliant, but judiciously combined. In the church of San Frediano, at Lucca, are similar mosaics, placed there by the Abbot Rotone, in the eleventh century, which do not gain by a comparison with those of the third. In the apse of Santa Agnese is a very ancient mosaic, placed there by Pope Honorius, about the year 620. The mosaics of Pope Liberius, in the same church, were, of course, of much higher antiquity, but they are no longer in existence, and, indeed, it has been questioned whether they ever existed at all. In the apse of the church of Santa Pudenziana, is a mosaic representing our LORD protecting the Saint and her sister, S. Prassede: they were the daughters of Pudens, a senator, supposed to be the same who is mentioned in 2 Timothy iv. 21, in whose house S. Peter lodged; and they continued, after his martyrdom, to receive the congregation of the faithful in their house. Churches were built on the site in very early times, to commemorate In this chamber, the second painting represents the Fall, and the next to it, the man healed of his palsy, and carrying his couch at the command of our LORD. This seems remarkable as showing the antiquity of the mystic interpretation of that miracle.-See Bede Comment. in S. Marci Evang. c. ii. The history of Jonah and the effigy of the Good Shepherd are repeated many times; as are the mystical emblems of the fish, the house, balance, candlestick with seven lights, &c. their piety. Pope Adrian rebuilt this one of S. Pudenziana, in the eighth century: the mosaic is one of considerable size, and has an air of Roman elegance and classicality, even at this late period. In a chapel added in the year 819 to the other church of S. Prassede, by Pope Paschal I., both the walls and ceiling are covered with mosaics; that on the ceiling is depicted in Mr. Gally Knight's work; it is very rich and elegant. Not being able to refer to drawings, we will not add as we might to our list the names of half the churches in Italy, of dates from the fourth to the thirteenth centuries, as containing specimens of internal decoration by coloured mosaics. We will only name those of the Baptistery of Florence, of San Minaito near Florence, and of Santa Maria at Toscanella, about eleven miles from Viterbo. As an instance of Byzantine, we will name the church of S. Mark at Venice, which is completely lined with the most gorgeous mosaics on a gold ground: it was begun about the year 1070. The case of the high altar is a splendid specimen of enamel : it pourtrays passages in the life of S. Mark, which form separate pictures, and are set in gold, decorated with precious stones. But long before the use of mosaic had become less common in Italy, painting either in fresco or in distemper had become usual, and had extended very far north of the Alps. We think almost the earliest instance of painting on walls is that mentioned by Paulus Diaconus (one of the learned men drawn, like our own Alcuin, from comparative obscurity, by the favour of Charlemagne), who, speaking of a palace built by Theodolinda, the celebrated Queen of the Lombards, at Monza, mentions that she caused the great victories of the Lombard nation to be painted on the walls of its chambers. Theodolinda was honoured by the friendship and correspondence of Pope Gregory the Great; and this palace was probably built about the end of the sixth century, about the time when S. Augustine was setting out for England. That painting on the walls of churches was even then usual in Italy, we may fairly conclude from the well-known letter of Pope Gregory the Great to Serenus, Bishop of Marseilles, in which he lays down the uses of of such paintings; and he speaks of them by a set phrase as "churchpictures."* In the East, the use of painting in the next century became excessive, and, as D'Agincourt suggests, probably contributed to excite the violence of the iconoclasts of the eighth century. It would be out of place here to enter into the question how far the Mohammedan prejudices of Leo Isaurius and the precepts of the Koran, whose ascendancy was just being felt in Asia influenced him in the part he bore in that controversy, and in the education he gave his son Constantine. During that and the succeeding century, it became a necessary part of the education of persons who depended in any way on the favour of the great at Constantinople: the common means of securing their countenance being to paint it sedulously on every spare foot of wall that could be found. Several of the Emperors during the ninth and tenth centuries were artists and Constantine Porphyrogenitus is recorded to have : Epist. Greg. 17, ep. 109. beguiled the sad hours of his latter days by the pious labours of his pencil. A century later we find a Greek school established in Rome: and their works still adorn the walls of San Paólo fuóri le Mure. To it, also, some ascribe the frescoes of the Campo Santo, at Pisa: they are of the end of the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century. We will, now, however, not pursue the tempting theme of the revival of art in Italy; but, merely first mentioning the most eminent men who succeeded each other in subsequent ages in Italy, will rather proceed to dwell on the progress of the art, as connected with church decoration, north of the Alps, especially in our own country. To the Greek school above mentioned, succeeded, after a long interval, that of Christoforo di Bologna. A painting of his in distemper on wood is given by D'Agincourt: it is certainly over minute, but exhibits much expression in the face. Christoforo lived in 1380. His contemporary, John of Fiesole, painted the chapel of Pope Nicholas V., in the Vatican, in fresco. A specimen of his style is given by D'Agincourt, plate 145. Now began the bright dawn of Cimabue and of Giotto, also, and his distinguished scholars. Nor should his contemporary Memmi, the Siennese, be forgotten: we may form some idea of his skill when we remember that he, a Siennese, was summoned to decorate Santa M. Novella at Florence, with his frescoes.* To this school succeeded that later Tuscan, of which Masaccio is held to be the founder, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the beginning of the sixteenth, several Neapolitans also became the founders of a school, which devoted itself almost entirely to diptychs, triptychs, and the like paintings, on wood. We will close this imperfect list with the name of Leonardo da Vinci, whom we shall not presume to praise his most celebrated work, "the Last Supper," at Milan, is doubtless familiar to us all by the noble print of Morghen. Those who have seen the original will not need our praise to kindle their admiration at the remembrance of it. : It would, we apprehend, be no easy task to adduce instances of the style of decoration of which we are speaking, in any number on this side the Alps, during the earlier centuries; though we doubt not that instances may be found, and are probably known to those who are conversant with the subject. Still, to look for much of an art which grew with the growth of the Church in countries not yet called to their membership, would be unreasonable. But when and wherever the darkness of Paganism gave way, there are to be found traces of churches decorated with the resources of the painter's art. Germany and the Low Countries should properly be considered, in their order of conversion, for the most part, after our own country, but we prefer mentioning the few instances we recollect and can refer to at once. In the crypt of the church of S. Gerion at Cologne are still to be seen the remains of very ancient coloured tessaræ. The frescoes, representing the Martyrdom of S. Ignatius, in the church of that Saint, at Mayence, are of very early date; as are also those *See D'Agincourt, pl. 127. Taddeo Gaddi, the favourite pupil of Giotto, was joined with him in this work. well known effigies, in distemper, of the Twelve Apostles, in the south nave aisle of the church of S. Ursula. In the same church are paintings in oil, on panels, representing the history and Martyrdom of S. Ursula and her companions. The Popes were in the habit of accompanying the pallium of every transalpine metropolitan with gifts of considerable value, and among them are frequently mentioned tapestry for church hangings, presenting pictures of Saints and the like. Whether these afforded a hint for painting to native artists we will not venture to say, but that they had been long in the practice of it, and that not only in fresco, but also in oils on walls and pictures, at the commencement of the fourteenth century, appears from a passage in the valuable treatise* of Cennino Cennini, whose master, Agnolo Gaddi, was the son of Giotto's pupil, Taddeo Gaddi. He says of this style of painting, "Usàno molto i Tedeschi,"—"the Germans are much accustomed to it." Whence the legitimate inference is that it was no recent invention among them. That art was already somewhat advanced in Germany in the eleventh century appears from the illuminations taken from a MS. of that century, and given by Hefner in the eighth Livraison of his Costumes du Moyen Age. The churches of S. Jaques and the cathedral, especially the latter, at Liège, have very early painted wooden roofs. We regret that we cannot refer to any drawings of them.† In France, painting in oil, as well as in fresco, became usual at an early period. The progress that had been made there in designing and the use of colours, in the eleventh century, may be well inferred from the celebrated tapestry preserved at Bayeux, the work of Matthilda, Queen of William the Conqueror. But the great improvers of painting in France were the anti-popes of Avignon. Already had Pope Clement V. summoned Giotto to Avignon, in the latter part of the fourteenth century, and a school was there established, which could not but have effect on the native artists. That there were such who were employed by, and were probably themselves ecclesiastics, appears from a passage in the Purgatorio. Dante meets Oderigi da Gubbio, a pupil of Giotto, and says : "Art thou not Oderigi? art not thou Agobbio's glory-glory of that art Which they of Paris call the limner's skill?" In the early part of the next century, painting in oil on wood was becoming general, and D'Agincourt gives a curious specimen (pl. 166,) of a painting of this sort by the accomplished Réné d'Anjou, Count Treatise on Painting, ch. 69. + Whether we believe, with Vasari, that John Van Eyck was the inventor of oil painting, or not, it is at least certain that he was a church painter, and of such eminence that his present of a picture in oils was a welcome gift to Alphonso, King of Naples. His celebrated picture in the church of S. John, at Ghent, (stolen by Buonaparte, and placed in the Louvre,) was probably painted at the very beginning of the fifteenth century. "O, diss'io lui, non sè'tu Oderisi, L'onor d'Aggobbio, e l'onor di quell' arte Oderigi goes on, in reply, to give the praise to his master, "Franco Bolognese." of Provence, and titular King of the Two Sicilies, the father of our King Henry VI.'s Queen Margaret. The illuminated illustrations of Froissart's Chronicle recently published, are taken from a MS. now in the British Museum, executed for Philip de Commines, and therefore dating from the end of this (the fifteenth) century: several of them, besides their interest as works of art, are worth consideration, as giving proof of the use in France at that time of colour in profusion to heighten the effect of architecture. The sixteenth plate of No. 6 affords a view of the interior of a cathedral, probably that of Rheims, in which the council it pourtrays, between the Emperor Wenceslaus and Charles VI. of France, was held. The vaulting in both choir and nave is richly painted: in the former the cells are of a fine blue colour, in the latter brown, and the groins throughout are gilt. The piers and walls are hung round with splendid stuffs and tapestry. Lastly, to speak of our own country. Venerable Bede informs us in his history of Weremouth, that S. Bennet Biscop, adorned the church of that monastery with pictures of different Saints, and of the Visions in the Revelations.* That the monks were both able and accustomed to decorate the walls of their churches with paintings in the eighth century, is sufficiently established by the canons of the second Council of Calcuith (or Celichyth) in the year 816. For, in the second canon of that Council, it is decreed, that every Bishop shall consecrate all churches in his diocese, and after rehearsing the ceremonies of consecration, it proceeds,-"Lastly, every Bishop shall draw the figures of the Saints to whom the church is dedicated, either upon the wall, or on a board, or upon the altar." This decree is, moreover, interesting from its date, for the English Church had, not twenty years before, signified its assent to the Caroline books, which form part of the canons of the Council of Frankfort, held in the year 794, with the view of condemning the decrees for image worship of the second Council of Nice; and which books were compiled under the eye of Charlemagne, expressly with this view. Moreover, the English Church declared her agreement with the decrees of the Council of Paris, held about eight years after the above mentioned second Council of Calcuith. Whence it follows that this canon enjoins the use of these paintings, exactly in the same sense as did S. Gregory the Great, 200 years before, namely, for the instruction of the poor and unlearned. How widely this injunction was observed, we cannot now ascertain exactly, but the remains we have may serve to convince us that it obtained very widely in England. A vast number of country churches exhibit still remains of figures of Saints, traced on the internal splays of windows: they generally consist of mere outlines, and are evidently of very high antiquity; and we need only appeal to the experience of every ecclesiologist to bear us out in asserting the universality of a practice which indeed obtained to a period long posterior to the reformation, as the occasional remains of paintings of the age of Elizabeth, and the successful devastation of Milner, Survey Winton. + Spelman, Conc. vol. 1, p. 327. |