Legends of the Madonna by Mrs. Jameson

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* * * * *

In 1617, when the Bull of Paul V. was formally expedited, Guido was
attached to the papal court in quality of painter and an especial
favourite with his Holiness. Among the earliest accredited pictures of
the Immaculate Conception, are four of his finest works.

1. The cupola of the private chapel of the Quirinal represents the
Almighty meditating the great miracle of the Immaculate Conception,
and near him, within the same glory of light, is the Virgin in her
white tunic, and in an attitude of adoration. This was painted about
1610 or 1611, when Pope Paul V. was meditating the promulgation of his
famous ordinance.

2. The great picture, also painted for Paul V., represents the
doctors of the Church arguing and consulting their great books for the
authorities on the subject of the Conception.[1] Above, the Virgin is
seated in glory, arrayed in spotless white, her hands crossed over her
bosom, and her eyes turned towards the celestial fountain of light.
Below are six doctors, consulting their books; they are not well
characterized, being merely so many ideal heads in a mannered style;
but I believe they represent the four Latin Fathers, with St. John
Damascene and St. Ildefonso, who were especial defenders of the
doctrine.

[Footnote 1: Petersburg Imp. Gal. There is a fine engraving.]

3. The next in point of date was painted for the Infanta of Spain,
which I believe to be the same now in the possession of Lord
Ellesmere. The figure of the Virgin, crowned with the twelve stars,
and relieved from a background of golden light, is standing on a
crescent sustained by three cherubs beneath; she seems to float
between heaven and earth; on either side is a seraph, with hands
folded and looks upraised in adoration. The whole painted in his
silvery tone, with such an extreme delicacy and transparency
of effect, that it might be styled "a vision of the Immaculate
Conception."

4. The fourth was painted for the chapel of the Immaculate Conception,
in the church of San Biagio, at Forli, and is there still.

* * * * *

Just as the Italian schools of painting were on the decline, the
Spanish school of art arose in all its glory, and the "Conception"
became, from the popularity of the dogma, not merely an
ecclesiastical, but a popular subject. Not only every church, but
almost every private house, contained the effigy either painted or
carved, or both, of our Lady "_sin peccado concepida_;" and when the
academy of painting was founded at Seville, in 1660, every candidate
for admission had to declare his orthodox belief in _the most pure
Conception of our Lady_.

The finest Spanish "Conception" before the time of Murillo, is by
Roelas, who died in 1625; it is in the academy at Seville, and is
mentioned by Mr. Ford as "equal to Guido."[1]

[Footnote 1: Handbook of Spain. A very fine picture of this subject,
by Roelas, was sold out of the Soult Collection.]

One of the most beautiful and characteristic, as well as earliest,
examples of this subject I have seen, is a picture in the Esterhazy
Gallery at Vienna. The Virgin is in the first bloom of girlhood; she
looks not more than nine or ten years old, with dark hair, Spanish
features, and a charming expression of childlike simplicity and
devotion. She stands amid clouds, with her hands joined, and the
proper white and blue drapery: there are no accessories. This picture
is attributed to an obscure painter, Lazaro Tavarone, of whom I can
learn nothing more than that he was employed in the Escurial about
1590.

The beautiful small "Conception" by Velasquez, in the possession
of Mr. Frere, is a departure from the rules laid down by Pacheco in
regard to costume; therefore, as I presume, painted before he entered
the studio of the artist-inquisitor, whose son-in-law he became before
he was three and twenty. Here the Virgin is arrayed in a pale violet
robe, with a dark blue mantle. Her hands are joined, and she looks
down. The solemnity and depth of expression in the sweet girlish face
is very striking; the more so, that it is not a beautiful face, and
has the air of a portrait. Her long hair flows over her shoulders. The
figure is relieved against a bright sun, with fleecy clouds around;
and the twelve stars are over her head. She stands on the round moon,
of which the upper half is illumined. Below, on earth, and through
the deep shadow, are seen several of the emblems of the Virgin--the
fountain, the temple, the olive, the cypress, and the garden enclosed
in a treillage of roses.[1] This picture is very remarkable; it is in
the earliest manner of Velasquez, painted in the bold free style of
his first master, Herrara, whose school he quitted when he was about
seventeen or eighteen, just at the period when the Pope's ordinance
was proclaimed at Seville.

[Footnote 1: v. Introduction: "The Symbols and Attributes of the
Virgin."]

* * * * *

Of twenty-five pictures of this subject, painted by Murillo, there are
not two exactly alike; and they are of all sizes, from the colossal
figure called the "Great Conception of Seville," to the exquisite
miniature representation in the possession of Lord Overston, not more
than fifteen inches in height. Lord Lansdowne has also a beautiful
small "Conception," very simply treated. In those which have dark
hair, Murillo is said to have taken his daughter Francisca as a model.
The number of attendant angels varies from one or two, to thirty. They
bear the palm, the olive, the rose, the lily, the mirror; sometimes
a sceptre and crown. I remember but few instances in which he has
introduced the dragon-fiend, an omission which Pacheco is willing to
forgive; "for," as he observes, "no man ever painted the devil with
good-will."

In the Louvre picture (No. 1124), the Virgin is adored by three
ecclesiastics. In another example, quoted by Mr. Stirling (Artists
of Spain, p. 839), a friar is seen writing at her feet: this figure
probably represents her champion, the friar Duns Scotus. There is
at Hampton Court a picture, by Spagnoletto, of this same Duns Scotus
writing his defence of the Immaculate Conception. Spagnoletto was
painting at Naples, when, in 1618, "the Viceroy solemnly swore, in
presence of the assembled multitude, to defend with his life the
doctrine of the Immaculate Conception;" and this picture, curious
and striking in its way, was painted about the same time.

* * * * *

In Italy, the decline of Art in the seventeenth century is nowhere
more apparent, nor more offensive, than in this subject. A finished
example of the most execrable taste is the mosaic in St. Peter's,
after Pietro Bianchi. There exists, somewhere, a picture of the
Conception, by Le Brun, in which the Virgin has no other drapery
than a thin, transparent gauze, and has the air of a Venus Meretrix.
In some old French prints, the Virgin is surrounded by a number of
angels, defending her with shield and buckler against demons who are
taking aim at her with fiery arrows. Such, and even worse, vagaries
and perversities, are to be found in the innumerable pictures of this
favourite subject, which inundated the churches between 1640 and 1720.
Of these I shall say no more. The pictures of Guido and Murillo, and
the carved figures of Alonzo Cano, Montanez, and Hernandez, may
be regarded as authorized effigies of "Our Lady of the most pure
Conception;" in other words, as embodying, in the most attractive,
decorous, and intelligible form, an abstract theological dogma, which
is in itself one of the most curious, and, in its results, one of the
most important of the religions phenomena connected with the artistic
representations of the Virgin.[1]

[Footnote 1: We often find on pictures and prints of the Immaculate
Conception, certain scriptural texts which the theologians of the
Roman Church have applied to the Blessed Virgin; for instance, from
Ps. xliv. _Omnis gloria ejus filiae regis ab intus_--"The king's
daughter is all glorious within;" or from the Canticles, iv. 7, _Tota
pulchra es amica mea, et macula non est in te_,--"Thou art all fair,
my love, there is no spot in thee." I have also seen the texts, Ps.
xxii. 10, and Prov. viii. 22, 28, xxxi. 29, thus applied, as well as
other passages from the very poetical office of the Virgin _In Festo
Immaculatae Conceptionis_.]

We must be careful to discriminate between the Conception, so
styled by ecclesiastical authority, and that singular and mystical
representation which is sometimes called the "Predestination of Mary,"
and sometimes the "Litanies of the Virgin." Collectors and writers
on art must bear in mind, that the former, as a subject, dates only
from the beginning of the seventeenth century, the latter from
the beginning of the sixteenth. Although, as representations, so
very similar, yet the intention and meaning are different. In the
Conception it is the sinless Virgin in her personal character, who
is held up to reverence, as the purest, wisest, holiest, of created
beings. The earlier theme involves a yet more recondite signification.
It is, undoubtedly, to be regarded as an attempt on the part of the
artist to express, in a visible form, the idea or promise of the
redemption of the human race, as existing in the Sovereign Mind before
the beginning of things. They do not personify this idea under the
image of Christ,--for they conceived that, as the second person of the
Trinity, he could not be his own instrument,--but by the image of Mary
surrounded by those attributes which were afterwards introduced into
the pictures of the Conception: or setting her foot, as second Eve, on
the head of the prostrate serpent. Not seldom, in a series of subjects
from the Old Testament, the _pendant_ to Eve holding the apple is Mary
crushing the head of the fiend; and thus the "bane and antidote are
both before us." This is the proper interpretation of those effigies,
so prevalent in every form of art during the sixteenth century, and
which are often, but erroneously, styled the Immaculate Conception.

The numerous heads of the Virgin which proceeded from the later
schools of Italy and Spain, wherein she appears neither veiled nor
crowned, but very young, and with flowing hair and white vesture, are
intended to embody the popular idea of the _Madonna purissima_, of
"the Virgin most pure, conceived without sin," in an abridged form.
There is one by Murillo, in the collection of Mr. Holford; and another
by Guido, which will give an idea of the treatment.

Before quitting the subject of the Immaculate Conception. I must
refer to a very curious picture[1] called an Assumption, but certainly
painted at least one hundred years before the Immaculate Conception
was authorized as a Church subject.

[Footnote 1: Once in the collection of Mr. Solly, and now in the
possession of Mr. Bromley of Wootten.]

From the year 1496, when Sixtus IV. promulgated his Bull, and the
Sorbonne put forth their famous decree,--at a time when there was
less of faith and religious feeling in Italy than ever before,--this
abstract dogma became a sort of watchword with theological disputants;
not ecclesiastics only, the literati and the reigning powers took
an interest in the controversy, and were arrayed on one side or the
other. The Borgias, for instance, were opposed to it. Just at this
period, the singular picture I allude to was painted by Girolamo da
Cotignola. It is mentioned by Lanzi, but his account of it is not
quite correct.

Above, in glory, is seen the _Padre Eterno_, surrounded by cherubim
bearing a scroll, on which is inscribed, "_Non enim pro te sed pro
omnibus hec lex constitutura est._"[1] Lower down the Virgin stands
on clouds, with hands joined, and attired in a white tunic embroidered
with gold, a blue mantle lined with red, and, which is quite singular
and unorthodox, _black shoes_. Below, on the earth, and to the
right, stands a bishop without a glory, holding a scroll, on which
is inscribed, "_Non puto vere esse amatorem Virginis qui respuit
celebrare Festum suae Conceptionis_;" on the left is St. Jerome. In
the centre are three kneeling figures: on one side St. Catherine (or
perhaps Caterina Sforza in the character of St. Catherine, for the
head looks like a portrait); on the other an elderly woman, Ginevra
Tiepolo, widow of Giovanni Sforza, last prince of Pesaro; [2] between
them the little Costanzo Sforza, looking up with a charming devout
expression. [3] Underneath is Inscribed, "JUNIPERA SFOSTIA PATRIA
A MARITO RECEPTA. EXVOTO MCCCCCXII." Giovanni Sforza had been
dispossessed of his dominions by the Borgias, after his divorce from
Lucrezia, and died in 1501. The Borgias ceased to reign in 1512; and
Ginevra, apparently restored to her country, dedicated this picture,
at once a memorial of her gratitude and of her faith. It remained over
the high-altar of the Church of the Serviti, at Pesaro, till acquired
by Mr. Solly, from whom it was purchased by Mr. Bromley. [4]

[Footnote 1: From the Office of the Blessed Virgin.]

[Footnote 2: This Giovanni was the first husband of Lucrezia Borgia.]

[Footnote 3: Lanzi calls this child Costanzo II., prince of Pesaro.
Very interesting memoirs of all the personages here referred to may be
found in Mr. Dennistoun's "Dukes of Urbino."]

[Footnote 4: Girolamo Marchesi da Cotignola, was a painter of the
Francia school, whose works date from about 1508 to 1550. Those of
his pictures which I have seen are of very unequal merit, and, with
much feeling and expression in the heads, are often mannered and
fantastic as compositions. This agrees with what Vasari says, that his
excellence lay in portraiture, for which reason he was summoned, after
the battle of Ravenna, to paint the portrait of Caston de Foix, as
he lay dead. (See Vasari, _Vita di Bagnacavallo_; and in the English
trans., vol. iii. 331.) The picture above described, which has a sort
of historical interest, is perhaps the same mentioned in Murray's
Handbook (Central Italy, p. 110.) as an _enthroned_ Madonna, dated
1513, and as being in 1843 in its original place over the altar in the
Serviti at Pesaro; if so, it is there no longer.]

DEVOTIONAL SUBJECTS.

PART II.

THE VIRGIN AND CHILD.

1. LA VERGINE MADRE DI DIO. 2. LA MA DRE AMABILE.

THE VIRGIN AND CHILD ENTHRONED.

_Lat._ Sancta Dei Genitrix. Virgo Deipara. _Ital._ La Santissima
Vergine, Madre di Dio. _Fr._ La Sainte Vierge, Mere de Dieu. _Ger._
Die Heilige Mutter Gottes.

The Virgin in her maternal character opens upon us so wide a field
of illustration, that I scarce know where to begin or how to find my
way, amid the crowd of associations which press upon me. A mother
holding her child in her arms is no very complex subject; but like a
very simple air constructed on a few expressive notes, which, when
harmonized, is susceptible of a thousand modulations, and variations,
and accompaniments, while the original _motif_ never loses its power
to speak to the heart; so it is with the MADONNA AND CHILD;--a
subject so consecrated by its antiquity, so hallowed by its profound
significance, so endeared by its associations with the softest and
deepest of our human sympathies, that the mind has never wearied of
its repetition, nor the eye become satiated with its beauty. Those who
refuse to give it the honour due to a religious representation, yet
regard it with a tender half-unwilling homage; and when the glorified
type of what is purest, loftiest, holiest in womanhood, stands before
us, arrayed in all the majesty and beauty that accomplished Art,
inspired by faith and love, could lend her, and bearing her divine
Son, rather enthroned than sustained on her maternal bosom, "we look,
and the heart is in heaven!" and it is difficult, very difficult, to
refrain from an _Ora pro Nobis_. But before we attempt to classify
these lovely and popular effigies, in all their infinite variety,
from the enthroned grandeur of the Queen of Heaven, the SANCTA
DEI GENITRIX, down to the peasant mother, swaddling or suckling
her infant; or to interpret the innumerable shades of significance
conveyed by the attendant accessories, we must endeavour to trace the
representation itself to its origin.

This is difficult. There exists no proof, I believe, that the effigies
of the Virgin with the infant Christ in her arms, which existed before
the end of the fifth century, were placed before Christian worshippers
as objects of veneration. They appear to have been merely groups
representing a particular incident of the New Testament, namely,
the adoration of the Magi; for I find no other in which the mother
is seated with the infant Christ, and this is an historical subject
of which we shall have to speak hereafter. From the beginning of
the fourth century, that is, from the time of Constantine and the
condemnation of Arius, the popular reverence for the Virgin, the
Mother of Christ, had been gaining ground; and at the same time the
introduction of images and pictures into the places of worship and
into the houses of Christians, as ornaments on glass vessels and even
embroidered on garments and curtains, became more and more diffused,
(v. Neander's Church History.)

The earliest effigies of the Virgin and Child may be traced
to Alexandria, and to Egyptian influences; and it is as easily
conceivable that the time-consecrated Egyptian myth of Isis and
Horus may have suggested the original type, the outward form and the
arrangement of the maternal group, as that the classical Greek types
of the Orpheus and Apollo should have furnished the early symbols of
the Redeemer as the Good Shepherd; a fact which does not rest upon
supposition, but of which the proofs remain to us in the antique
Christian sculptures and the paintings in the catacombs.

The most ancient Greek figures of the Virgin and Child have perished;
but, as far as I can learn, there is no evidence that these effigies
were recognized by the Church as sacred before the beginning of the
sixth century. It was the Nestorian schism which first gave to the
group of the Mother bearing her divine Son that religious importance
and significance which it has ever since retained in Catholic
countries.

The divinity of Christ and his miraculous conception, once established
as articles of belief, naturally imparted to Mary, his mother, a
dignity beyond that of other mothers her Son was God; therefore the
title of MOTHER OF GOD was assigned to her. When or by whom first
brought into use, does not appear; but about the year 400 it became
a popular designation.

Nestorias, patriarch of Constantinople in 428, had begun by
persecuting the Arians; but while he insisted that in Jesus were
combined two persons and two natures, he insisted that the Virgin Mary
was the mother of Christ considered as _man_, but not the mother of
Christ considered as _God_; and that, consequently, all those who gave
her the title of _Dei Genitrix_, _Deipara_,[1] were in error. There
were many who adopted these opinions, but by a large portion of the
Church they were repudiated with horror, as utterly subverting the
doctrine of the mystery of the Incarnation. Cyril of Alexandria
opposed Nestorius and his followers, and defended with zealous
enthusiasm the claims of the Virgin to all the reverence and
worship due to her; for, as he argued, the two natures being one and
indivisible from the moment of the miraculous conception, it followed
that Mary did indeed bring forth God,--was, in fact, the mother of
God; and, all who took away from her this dignity and title were in
error, and to be condemned as heretics.

[Footnote 1: The inscription on the Greek and Byzantine pictures is
actually [Greek: MAeR ThU] ([Greek: Mhaetaer Theos]).]

I hope I shall not be considered irreverent in thus plainly and simply
stating the grounds of this celebrated schism, with reference to its
influence on Art; an influence incalculable, not only at the time,
but ever since that time; of which the manifold results, traced
from century to century down to the present hour, would remain quite
unintelligible, unless we clearly understood the origin and the issue
of the controversy.

Cyril, who was as enthusiastic and indomitable as Nestorius, and had
the advantage of taking the positive against the negative side of the
question, anathematized the doctrines of his opponent, in a synod held
at Alexandria in 430, to which Pope Celestine II gave the sanction of
his authority. The emperor Theodosius II then called a general council
at Ephesus in 431, before which Nestorius refused to appear, and was
deposed from his dignity of patriarch by the suffrages of 200 bishops.
But this did not put an end to the controversy; the streets of Ephesus
were disturbed by the brawls and the pavement of the cathedral was
literally stained with the blood of the contending parties Theodosius
arrested both the patriarchs; but after the lapse of only a few days,
Cyril triumphed over his adversary: with him triumphed the cause of
the Virgin. Nestorius was deposed and exiled; his writings condemned
to the flames; but still the opinions he had advocated were adopted by
numbers, who were regarded as heretics by those who called themselves
"the Catholic Church."

The long continuance of this controversy, the obstinacy of the
Nestorians, the passionate zeal of those who held the opposite
doctrines, and their ultimate triumph when the Western Churches of
Rome and Carthage declared in their favour, all tended to multiply and
disseminate far and wide throughout Christendom those images of the
Virgin which exhibited her as Mother of the Godhead. At length the
ecclesiastical authorities, headed by Pope Gregory the Great, stamped
them as orthodox: and as the cross had been the primeval symbol which
distinguished the Christian from the Pagan, so the image of the Virgin
Mother with her Child now became the symbol which distinguished the
Catholic Christian from the Nestorian Dissenter.

Thus it appears that if the first religious representations of the
Virgin and Child were not a consequence of the Nestorian schism, yet
the consecration of such effigies as the visible form of a theological
dogma to the purposes of worship and ecclesiastical decoration
must date from the Council of Ephesus in 431; and their popularity
and general diffusion throughout the western Churches, from the
pontificate of Gregory in the beginning of the seventh century.

In the most ancient of these effigies which remain, we have clearly
only a symbol; a half figure, veiled, with hands outspread, and
the half figure of a child placed against her bosom, without any
sentiment, without even the action of sustaining him. Such was the
formal but quite intelligible sign; but it soon became more, it became
a representation. As it was in the East that the cause of the Virgin
first triumphed, we might naturally expect to find the earliest
examples in the old Greek churches; but these must have perished
in the furious onslaught made by the Iconoclasts on all the sacred
images. The controversy between the image-worshippers and the
image-breakers, which distracted the East for more than a century
(that is, from 726 to 840), did not, however, extend to the west of
Europe. We find the primeval Byzantine type, or at least the exact
reproduction of it, in the most ancient western churches, and
preserved to us in the mosaics of Rome, Ravenna, and Capua. These
remains are nearly all of the same date, much later than the single
figures of Christ as Redeemer, and belonging unfortunately to a lower
period and style of art. The true significance of the representation
is not, however, left doubtful; for all the earliest traditions and
inscriptions are in this agreed, that such effigies were intended as
a confession of faith; an acknowledgment of the dignity of the Virgin
Mary, as the "SANCTA DEI GENITRIX;" as a visible refutation of "the
infamous, iniquitous, and sacrilegious doctrines of Nestorius the
Heresiarch."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Mostrando quod ipsa Deipara esset contra impiam Nestorii
Heresium quam talem esse iste Heresiareo negabat_ Vide Ciampini, and
Munter's "Sinnbilder."]

* * * * *

As these ancient mosaic figures of the Virgin, enthroned with her
infant Son, were the precursors and models of all that was afterwards
conceived and executed in art, we must examine them in detail before
proceeding further.

The mosaic of the cathedral of Capua represents in the highest place
the half figure of Christ in the act of benediction. In one of the
spandrels, to the right, is the prophet Isaiah, bearing a scroll, on
which is inscribed, _Ecce Dominus in fortitudine veniet, et brachium
ejus dominibatur_,--"The Lord God will come with strong hand, and his
arm shall rule for him." (Isaiah, ch. xl. v. 10.) On the left stands
Jeremiah, also with a scroll and the words, _Fortissime, magne, et
patens Dominus exercituum nomen tibi_,--"The great, the mighty God,
the Lord of hosts is his name." (Jeremiah, ch. xxxii. v. 18.) In the
centre of the vault beneath, the Virgin is seated on a rich throne,
a footstool under her feet; she wears a crown over her veil. Christ,
seated on her knee, and clothed, holds a cross in his left hand; the
right is raised is benediction. On one side of the throne stand St.
Peter and St. Stephen; on the other St. Paul and St. Agatha, to whom
the church is dedicated. The Greek monogram of the Virgin is inscribed
below the throne.

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