Legends of the Madonna by Mrs. Jameson

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The next in date which remains visible, is the group in the apsis of
S. Maria-della-Navicella (Rome), executed about 820, in the time of
Paschal I, a pontiff who was very remarkable for the zeal with which
he rebuilt and adorned the then half-ruined churches of Rome. The
Virgin, of colossal size, is seated on a throne; her robe and veil
are blue; the infant Christ, in a gold-coloured vest, is seated in her
lap, and raises his hand to bless the worshippers. On each side of the
Virgin is a group of adoring angels; at her feet kneels the diminutive
figure of Pope Paschal.

In the Santa Maria-Nova (called also, "Santa Francesca," Rome), the
Virgin is seated on a throne wearing a rich crown, as queen of heaven.
The infant Christ stands upon her knee; she has one hand on her bosom
and sustains him with the other.

On the facade of the portico of the S. Maria-in-Trastevere at Rome,
the Virgin is enthroned, and crowned, and giving her breast to the
Child. This mosaic is of later date than that in the apsis, but is
one of the oldest examples of a representation which was evidently
directed against the heretical doubts of the Nestorians: "How," said
they, pleading before the council of Ephesus, "can we call him God
who is only two or three months old; or suppose the Logos to have
been _suckled_ and to increase in wisdom?" The Virgin in the act
of suckling her Child, is a _motif_ often since repeated when the
original significance was forgotten.

In the chapel of San Zeno (Rome), the Virgin is enthroned; the Child
is seated on her knee. He holds a scroll, on which are the words
_Ego sum lux mundi_, "I am the light of the world;" the right hand is
raised in benediction. Above is the monogram [Greek: M-R ThU], MARIA
MATER DEI. In the mosaics, from the eighth to the eleventh century,
we find Art at a very low ebb. The background is flat gold, not a blue
heaves with its golden stars, as in the early mosaics of the fifth and
sixth centuries. The figures are ill-proportioned; the faces consist
of lines without any attempt at form or expression. The draperies,
however, have a certain amplitude; "and the character of a few
accessories, for example, the crown on the Virgin's heads instead of
the invariable Byzantine veil, betrays," says Kugler, "a northern and
probably a Frankish influence." The attendant saints, generally St.
Peter and St. Paul, stand, stiff and upright on each side.

But with all their faults, these grand, formal, significant groups--or
rather not groups, for there was as yet no attempt either at
grouping or variety of action, for that would have been considered
irreverent--but these rows of figures, were the models of the early
Italian painters and mosaic-workers in their large architectural
mosaics and altar-pieces set up in the churches during the revival
of Art, from the period of Cimabue and Andrea Tafi down to the
latter half of the thirteenth century: all partook of this lifeless,
motionless character, and were, at the same time, touched with
the same solemn religious feeling. And long afterwards, when the
arrangement became less formal and conventional, their influence may
still be traced in those noble enthroned Madonnas, which represent
the Virgin as queen of heaven and of angels, either alone, or with
attendant saints, and martyrs, and venerable confessors waiting round
her state.

The general disposition of the two figures varies but little in the
earliest examples which exist for us in painting, and which are, in
fact, very much alike. The Madonna seated on a throne, wearing a red
tunic and a blue mantle, part of which is drawn as a veil over her
head, holds the infant Christ, clothed in a red or blue tunic. She
looks straight out of the picture with her head a little declined to
one side. Christ has the right hand raised in benediction, and the
other extended. Such were the simple, majestic, and decorous effigies,
the legitimate successors of the old architectural mosaics, and
usually placed over the high altar of a church or chapel. The earliest
examples which have been preserved are for that reason celebrated in
the history of Art.

The first is the enthroned Virgin of Guido da Siena, who preceded
Cimabue by twenty or thirty years. In this picture, the Byzantine
conception and style of execution are adhered to, yet with a softened
sentiment, a touch of more natural, life-like feeling, particularly
in the head of the Child. The expression in the face of the Virgin
struck me as very gentle and attractive; but it has been, I am afraid,
retouched, so that we cannot be quite sure that we have the original
features. Fortunately Guido has placed a date on his work, MCCXXI.,
and also inscribed on it a distich, which shows that he felt, with
some consciousness and self-complacency, his superiority to his
Byzantine models;--

"Me Guido de Senis diebus depinxit amoenis
Quem Christus lenis nullis velit angere poenis."[1]

Next we may refer to the two colossal Madonnas by Cimabue, preserved
at Florence. The first, which was painted for the Vallombrosian monks
of the S. Trinita, is now in the gallery of the academy. It has all
the stiffness and coldness of the Byzantine manner. There are three
adoring angels on each side, disposed one above another, and four
prophets are placed below in separate niches, half figures, holding
in their hands their prophetic scrolls, as in the old mosaic at Capua,
already described. The second is preserved in the Ruccellai chapel, in
the S. Maria Novella, in its original place. In spite of its colossal
size, and formal attitude, and severe style, the face of this Madonna
is very striking, and has been well described as "sweet and unearthly,
reminding you of a sibyl." The infant Christ is also very fine. There
are three angels on each side, who seem to sustain the carved chair or
throne on which the Madonna is seated; and the prophets, instead, of
being below, are painted in small circular medallions down each side
of the frame. The throne and the background are covered with gold.
Vasari gives a very graphic and animated account of the estimation
in which this picture was held when first executed. Its colossal
dimensions, though familiar in the great mosaics, were hitherto
unknown in painting; and not less astonishing appeared the deviation,
though slight, from ugliness and lifelessness into grace and nature.
"And thus," he says, "it happened that this work was an object of
so much admiration to the people of that day, they having never seen
anything better, that it was carried in solemn procession, with the
sound of trumpets and other festal demonstrations, from the house of
Cimabue to the church, he himself being highly rewarded and honoured
for it. It is further reported, and may be read in certain records
of old painters, that, whilst Cimabue was painting this picture, in a
garden near the gate of San Pietro, King Charles the Elder, of Anjou,
passed through Florence, and the authorities of the city, among other
marks of respect, conducted him to see the picture of Cimabue. When
this work was thus shown to the King it had not before been seen
by any one; wherefore all the men and women of Florence hastened in
crowds to admire it, making all possible demonstrations of delight.
The inhabitants of the neighbourhood, rejoicing in this occurrence,
ever afterwards called that place _Borgo Allegri_; and this name
it has ever since retained, although in process of time it became
enclosed within the walls of the city."

[Footnote 1: The meaning, for it is not easy to translate literally,
is "_Me, hath painted, in pleasant days, Guido of Siena, Upon whose
soul may Christ deign to have mercy!_"]

* * * * *

In the strictly devotional representations of the Virgin and Child,
she is invariably seated, till the end of the thirteenth century: and
for the next hundred years the innovation of a standing figure was
confined to sculpture. An early example is the beautiful statue by
Niccola Pisano, in the Capella della Spina at Pisa; and others will be
found in Cicognara'a work (Storia della Scultura Moderna). The Gothic
cathedrals, of the thirteenth century, also exhibit some most graceful
examples of the Madonna in sculpture, standing on a pedestal, crowned
or veiled, sustaining on her left arm the divine Child, while in
her right she holds a sceptre or perhaps a flower. Such crowned or
sceptred effigies of the Virgin were placed on the central pillar
which usually divided the great door of a church into two equal parts;
in reference to the text, "I am the DOOR; by me if any man enter in,
he shall be saved." In Roman Catholic countries we find such effigies
set up at the corners of streets, over the doors of houses, and the
gates of gardens, sometimes rude and coarse, sometimes exceedingly
graceful, according to the period of art and skill of the local
artist. Here the Virgin appears in her character of Protectress--our
Lady of Grace, or our Lady of Succour.

* * * * *

In pictures, we rarely find the Virgin standing, before the end of
the fourteenth century. An almost singular example is to be found
in an old Greek Madonna, venerated as miraculous, in the Cathedral
of Orvieto, under the title of _La Madonna di San Brizio_, and to
which is attributed a fabulous antiquity. I may be mistaken, but my
impression, on seeing it, was, that it could not be older than the end
of the thirteenth century. The crowns worn by the Virgin and Christ
are even more modern, and out of character with the rest of the
painting. In Italy the pupils of Giotto first began to represent
the Virgin standing on a raised dais. There is an example by Puccio
Capanna, engraved in d'Agincourt's work; but such figures are very
uncommon. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries they occur more
frequently in the northern than in the Italian schools.

In the simple enthroned Madonna, variations of attitude and sentiment
were gradually introduced. The Virgin, instead of supporting her
Son with both hands, embraces him with one hand, and with the other
points to him; or raises her right hand to bless the worshipper. Then
the Child caresses his mother,--a charming and natural idea, but a
deviation from the solemnity of the purely religious significance;
better imagined, however, to convey the relation between the mother
and child, than the Virgin suckling her infant, to which I have
already alluded in its early religious, or rather controversial
meaning. It is not often that the enthroned Virgin is thus occupied.
Mr. Rogers had in his collection an exquisite example where the
Virgin, seated in state on a magnificent throne under a Gothic canopy
and crowned as queen of heaven, offers her breast to the divine Infant
Then the Mother adores her Child. This is properly the _Madre Pia_
afterwards so beautifully varied. He lies extended on her knee, and
she looks down upon him with hands folded in prayer: or she places
her hand under his foot, an attitude which originally implied her
acknowledgment of his sovereignty and superiority, but was continued
as a natural _motif_ when the figurative and religious meaning was no
longer considered. Sometimes the Child looks up in his mother's face
with his finger on his lip, expressing the _Verbum sum_, "I am the
Word." Sometimes the Child, bending forwards from his mother's knee,
looks down benignly on the worshippers, who are _supposed_ to be
kneeling at the foot of the altar. Sometimes, but very rarely he
sleeps; never in the earliest examples; for to exhibit the young
Redeemer asleep, where he is an object of worship, was then a species
of solecism.

When the enthroned Virgin is represented holding a book, or reading,
while the infant Christ, perhaps, lays his hand upon it--a variation
in the first simple treatment not earlier than the end of the
fourteenth century, and very significant--she is then the _Virgo
Sapientissima_, the most Wise Virgin; or the Mother of Wisdom, _Mater
Sapientiae_; and the book she holds is the Book of Wisdom.[1] This is
the proper interpretation, where the Virgin is seated on her throne.
In a most beautiful picture by Granacci (Berlin Gal.), she is thus
enthroned, and reading intently; while John the Baptist and St.
Michael stand on each side.

[Footnote 1: L'Abbe Crosnier, "Iconographie Chretienne;" but the book
as an attribute had another meaning, for which, see the Introduction.]

* * * * *

With regard to costume, the colours in which the enthroned
Virgin-Mother was arrayed scarcely ever varied from the established
rule: her tunic was to be red, her mantle blue; red, the colour of
love, and religious aspiration; blue, the colour of constancy and
heavenly purity. In the pictures of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, and down to the early part of the fifteenth, these colours
are of a soft and delicate tint,--rose and pale azure; but afterwards,
when powerful effects of colour became a study, we have the intense
crimson, and the dark blue verging on purple. Sometimes the blue
mantle is brought over her head, sometimes she wears a white veil, in
other instances the queenly crown. Sometimes (but very rarely when she
is throned as the _Regina Coeli_) she has no covering or ornament on
her head; and her fair hair parted on her brow, flows down on either
side in long luxuriant tresses.

In the Venetian and German pictures, she is often most gorgeously
arrayed; her crown studded with jewels, her robe covered with
embroidery, or bordered with gold and pearls. The ornamental parts of
her dress and throne were sometimes, to increase the magnificence of
the effect, raised in relief and gilt. To the early German painters,
we might too often apply the sarcasm of Apelles, who said of his
rival, that, "not being able to make Venus _beautiful_ he had made
her _fine_;" but some of the Venetian Madonnas are lovely as well as
splendid. Gold was often used, and in great profusion, in some of the
Lombard pictures even of a late date; for instance, by Carlo Crivelli:
before the middle of the sixteenth century, this was considered
barbaric. The best Italian painters gave the Virgin ample, well
disposed drapery, but dispensed with ornament. The star embroidered on
her shoulder, so often retained when all other ornament was banished,
expresses her title "Stella Maris." I have seen some old pictures, in
which she wears a ring on the third finger. This expresses her dignity
as the _Sposa_ as well as the Mother.

With regard to the divine Infant, he is, in the early pictures,
invariably draped, and it is not till the beginning of the fifteenth
century that we find him first partially and then wholly undraped.
In the old representations, he wears a long tunic with full sleeves,
fastened with a girdle. It is sometimes of gold stuff embroidered,
sometimes white, crimson, or blue. This almost regal robe was
afterwards exchanged for a little semi-transparent shirt without
sleeves. In pictures of the throned Madonna painted expressly for
nunneries, the Child is, I believe, always clothed, or the Mother
partly infolds him in her own drapery. In the Umbrian pictures of the
fifteenth century, the Infant often wears a coral necklace, then and
now worn by children in that district, as a charm against the evil
eye. In the Venetian pictures he has sometimes a coronal of pearls. In
the carved and painted images set up in churches, he wears, like his
mother, a rich crown over a curled wig, and is hung round with jewels;
but such images must be considered as out of the pale of legitimate
art.

* * * * *

Of the various objects placed in the hand of the Child as emblems I
have already spoken, and of their sacred significance as such,--the
globe, the book, the bird, the flower, &c. In the works of the
ignorant secular artists of later times, these symbols of power, or
divinity, or wisdom, became mere playthings; and when they had become
familiar, and required by custom, and the old sacred associations
utterly forgotten, we find them most profanely applied and misused.
To give one example:--the bird was originally placed in the hand of
Christ as the emblem of the soul, or of the spiritual as opposed to
the earthly nature; in a picture by Baroccio, he holds it up before
a cat, to be frightened and tormented.[1] But to proceed.

[Footnote 1: In the "History of Our Lord, as illustrated in the
Fine Arts," the devotional and characteristic effigies of the infant
Christ, and the accompanying attributes, will be treated at length.]

The throne on which the Virgin is seated, is, in very early pictures,
merely an embroidered cushion on a sort of stool, or a carved Gothic
chair, such as we see in the thrones and stalls of cathedrals. It
is afterwards converted into a rich architectural throne, most
elaborately adorned, according to the taste and skill of the artist.
Sometimes, as in the early Venetian pictures, it is hung with garlands
of fruits and flowers, most fancifully disposed. Sometimes the
arabesque ornaments are raised in relief and gilt. Sometimes the
throne is curiously painted to imitate various marbles, and adorned
with medallions and bas-reliefs from those subjects of the Old
Testament which have a reference to the character of the Virgin and
the mission of her divine Child; the commonest of all being the Fall,
which rendered a Redeemer necessary. Moses striking the rock (the
waters of life)--the elevation of the brazen serpent--the gathering
of the manna--or Moses holding the broken tablets of the old law,--all
types of redemption, are often thus introduced as ornaments. In the
sixteenth century, when the purely religious sentiment had declined,
and a classical and profane taste had infected every department of
art and literature, we find the throne of the Virgin adorned with
classical ornaments and bas-reliefs from the antique remains; as, for
instance, the hunt of Theseus and Hippolyta. We must then suppose
her throned on the ruins of paganism, an idea suggested by the old
legends, which represent the temples and statues of the heathen gods
as falling into ruin on the approach of the Virgin and her Child; and
a more picturesque application of this idea afterwards became common
in other subjects. In Garofalo's picture the throne is adorned with
Sphinxes--_a l'antique_. Andrea del Sarto has placed harpies at the
corner of the pedestal of the throne, in his famous Madonna di San
Francesco (Florence Gal.),--a gross fault in that otherwise grand
and faultless picture; one of those desecrations of a religious
theme which Andrea, as devoid of religious feeling as he was weak and
dishonest, was in the habit of committing.

But whatever the material or style of the throne, whether simple or
gorgeous, it is supposed to be a heavenly throne. It is not of the
earth, nor on the earth; and at first it was alone and unapproachable.
The Virgin-mother, thus seated in her majesty, apart from all human
beings, and in communion only with the Infant Godhead on her knee, or
the living worshippers who come to lay down their cares and sorrows
at the foot of her throne and breathe a devout "Salve Regina!"--is,
through its very simplicity and concentrated interest, a sublime
conception. The effect of these figures, in their divine quietude and
loveliness, can never be appreciated when hung in a gallery or room
with other pictures, for admiration, or criticism, or comparison. I
remember well suddenly discovering such a Madonna, in a retired chapel
in S. Francesco della Vigna at Venice,--a picture I had never heard
of, by a painter then quite unknown to me, Fra Antonio da Negroponte,
a Franciscan friar who lived in the fifteenth century. The calm
dignity of the attitude, the sweetness, the adoring love in the face
of the queenly mother as with folded hands she looked down on the
divine Infant reclining on her knee, so struck upon my heart, that I
remained for minutes quite motionless. In this picture, nothing can
exceed the gorgeous splendor of the Virgin's throne and apparel:
she wears a jewelled crown; the Child a coronal of pearls; while the
background is composed entirely of the mystical roses twined in a sort
of _treillage_.

I remember, too, a picture by Carlo Crivelli, in which the Virgin is
seated on a throne, adorned, in the artist's usual style, with rich
festoons of fruit and flowers. She is most sumptuously crowned and
apparelled; and the beautiful Child on her knee, grasping her hand as
if to support himself, with the most _naive_ and graceful action bends
forward and looks dawn benignly on the worshippers _supposed_ to be
kneeling below.

When human personages were admitted within the same compartment, the
throne was generally raised by several steps, or placed on a lofty
pedestal, and till the middle of the fifteenth century it was always
in the centre of the composition fronting the spectator. It was a
Venetian innovation to place the throne at one side of the picture,
and show the Virgin in profile or in the act of turning round.
This more scenic disposition became afterwards, in the passion for
variety and effect, too palpably artificial, and at length forced and
theatrical.

The Italians distinguish between the _Madonna in Trono_ and the
_Madonna in Gloria_. When human beings, however sainted and exalted
were admitted within the margin of the picture, the divine dignity
of the Virgin as _Madre di Dio_, was often expressed by elevating her
wholly above the earth, and placing her "in regions mild of calm and
serene air," with the crescent or the rainbow under her feet. This is
styled a "Madonna in Gloria." It is, in fact, a return to the antique
conception of the enthroned Redeemer, seated on a rainbow, sustained
by the "curled clouds," and encircled by a glory of cherubim. The
aureole of light, within which the glorified Madonna and her Child
when in a standing position are often placed, is of an oblong form,
called from its shape the _mandorla_, "the almond;"[1] but in general
she is seated above in a sort of ethereal exaltation, while the
attendant saints stand on the earth below. This beautiful arrangement,
though often very sublimely treated, has not the simple austere
dignity of the throne of state, and when the Virgin and Child, as in
the works of the late Spanish and Flemish painters, are formed out of
earth's most coarse and commonplace materials, the aerial throne of
floating fantastic clouds suggests a disagreeable discord, a fear lest
the occupants of heaven should fall on the heads of their worshippers
below. Not so the Virgins of the old Italians; for they look so
divinely ethereal that they seem uplifted by their own spirituality:
not even the air-borne clouds are needed to sustain them. They have no
touch of earth or earth's material beyond the human form; their proper
place is the seventh heaven; and there they repose, a presence and a
power--a personification of infinite mercy sublimated by innocence and
purity; and thence they look down on their worshippers and attendants,
while these gaze upwards "with looks commercing with the skies."

[Footnote 1: Or the "Vescica Pisces," by Lord Lindsay and others.]

* * * * *

And now of these angelic and sainted accessories, however placed, we
must speak at length; for much of the sentiment and majesty of the
Madonna effigies depend on the proper treatment of the attendant
figures, and on the meaning they convey to the observer.

* * * * *

The Virgin is entitled, by authority of the Church, queen of angels,
of prophets, of apostles, of martyrs, of virgins, and of confessors;
and from among these her attendants are selected.

ANGELS were first admitted, waiting Immediately round her chair
of state. A signal instance is the group of the enthroned Madonna,
attended by the four archangels, as we find it in the very ancient
mosaic in Sant-Apollinare-Novo, at Ravenna. As the belief in the
superior power and sanctity of the Blessed Virgin grew and spread,
the angels no longer attended her as princes of the heavenly host,
guardians, or councillors; they became, in the early pictures,
adoring angels, sustaining her throne on each side, or holding up
the embroidered curtain which forms the background. In the Madonna by
Cimabue, which, if it be not the earliest after the revival of art,
was one of the first in which the Byzantine manner was softened and
Italianized, we have six grand, solemn-looking angels, three on each
side of the throne, arranged perpendicularly one above another.
The Virgin herself is of colossal proportions, far exceeding them
in size, and looking out of her frame, "large as a goddess of the
antique world." In the other Madonna in the gallery of the academy,
we have the same arrangement of the angels. Giotto diversified this
arrangement. He placed the angels kneeling at the foot of the throne,
making music, and waiting on their divine Mistress as her celestial
choristers,--a service the more fitting because she was not only queen
of angels, but patroness of music and minstrelsy, in which character
she has St. Cecilia as her deputy and delegate. This accompaniment
of the choral angels was one of the earliest of the accessories, and
continued down to the latest times. They are most particularly lovely
in the pictures of the fifteenth century. They kneel and strike their
golden lutes, or stand and sound their silver clarions, or sit like
beautiful winged children on the steps of the throne, and pipe and
sing as if their spirits were overflowing with harmony as well as love
and adoration.[1] In a curious picture of the enthroned Madonna and
Child (Berlin Gal.), by Gentil Fabriano, a tree rises on each side
of the throne, on which little red seraphim are perched like birds,
singing and playing on musical instruments. In later times, they play
and sing for the solace of the divine Infant, not merely adoring, but
ministering: but these angels ministrant belong to another class of
pictures. Adoration, not service, was required by the divine Child
and his mother, when they were represented simply in their
divine character, and placed far beyond earthly wants and earthly
associations.

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