prefer to address their prayers to one who would understand their sentiments and temptations, and who could better translate them to Our Lord, than to those other saintly women who had suffered martyrdom in defence of their faith and their chastity. These seemed too far away from the would-be penitents, but Mary Magdalene in spite of her high

called St. Maximin after the disciple who had baptised them.

In Flemish and German pictures where it was almost customary to depict female saints in the richest satins, velvets and brocades, naïvely presenting them as ipse facto "of the Noble Class," the Magdalene is invariably thus portrayed. In the famous Portinari Nativity, by Hugo van der Goes, now in the Uffizi Gallery, the right wing presents the wife and small daughter of the donor, Tommaso Portinari, great-grandson of Folco of the same house, whose daughter, Beatrice, was rendered immortal by Dante's beautiful love for her. The little girl is placed under the protection of St. Mary Magdalene, who is standing sumptuously garbed behind the devoutly-kneeling child. She seems lost in contemplation and is holding in her right hand her alabaster ointment-box. In a curious picture by Jacob Cornelisz of Amsterdam, dated 1507, representing Christ appearing to the Magdalene in the Garden, she is still more richly dressed in semiroyal costume, but with her traditional blond hair falling loose from the elaborate head dress affected by women of high stations of the time. Her Pyx is standing beside her on the ground, a handsomely decorated vase. Our Saviour is portrayed holding a spade in his left hand! His right hand is placed upon the head of the woman, which hardly fits in with the version of St.John: "Noli me tangere" quoted above.

rank was, by their common sin, brought nearer to them.

It must be remembered that the middle of the thirteenth century in Europe was dominated by a fear-inspired "wave of penitence," expressed by innumerable pilgrimages to Rome, rigorous penances imposed by the clergy both on themselves and on the members of their flocks, and the institution of ever severer regimes in monastic establishments. And it was right on the crest of this wave that news came of the discovery of the early remains of Mary and her brother, the Bishop Lazarus, at a place now

Carlo Crivelli, again, depicts the Penitent in gorgeous raiment, with her bosom uncovered, her long nair falling to her knees, and holding on her hand bent back, an ointment box, in the form of a drinking mug with a richly embossed lid!

In Mantegna's splendid Madonna and Child with the Baptist and the Magdalene, in the National Gallery, she is clad in the red tunic which is her color, expressing her great love, covered by a blue mantle for constancy. Her beautiful face is uplifted toward Heaven, with an expression of profound faith. In her right hand she holds a small pyx. This is one of the loveliest representations of St. Mary Magdalene that I have ever seen. Luca Signorelli shows her looking almost shamefacedly downwards at her pyx, while St. Catherine of Siena, bearing a lily, appears to be comforting her. An interesting votive picture in the Metropolitan Museum portrays Mary Magdalene seated on a back-less throne, in a grey-green tunic covered by a brilliant scarlet mantle, with a hood, under which her hair is this time confined. She holds in her left hand a crucifix, and in the right, her ointment box, while four charmingly-painted musician angels are lined up on each side of her. At her feet are kneeling the donors, tiny hooded figures representing Friars of the Misericordia Fraternity as the Pyx on their shoulders indicates (see Plate XXIII).

But apart from her more or less artificial role as patroness, Mary Magdalene has been painted innumerable times in one of her two most interesting epochs, that of her sojourn as a penitent recluse in the desert. In this aspect she appears either nude, covered only by her long hair, or scantily clad in a garment of camel's hair, similar to that of St. John the Baptist. A picture by Raphael's first master, Timoteo Viti of Urbino, now in the Bologna Gallery, depicts her as a very beautiful and very young girl with bare feet, but otherwise completely covered by a crimson cloak over a camel's-hair garment. The desert in which she is standing is represented by some high crags and a cave in the background, while on the ground near her feet are a cross, a skull-the attribute of all desert hermits-and her ointment box standing on a closed Gospel.

Again the famous Donatello statue in Florence shows her standing nude, very tall, extremely emaciated and covered to her knees with long flowing hair. She bears no attribute but the general appearance of the statue and the long hair immediately fix for us the identity of the subject.

She is painted nude, only partially covered, by all those artists of the early decadence to whom painting for its own sake bore more interest than for what it could express. In such figures they could not only exhibit their skill in limning the "female form divine," but also in imprinting upon the face and general attitude of the Magdalene the dramatic sorrow and penance which she had imposed upon herself. Many of these, due to the brushes of such men as Rubens, Guido Reni, Ludovico Cardi,

ANDREA MANTEGNA'S SPLENDID MADONNA WITH THE BAPTIST AND THE MAGDALENE, IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY, BETRAYS A REVERENCE WHICH IS NOT ALWAYS SO APPARENT IN PICTURES

OF THE GREAT PENITENT (SEE OPPOSITE COLUMN) Furini, are depicted sitting upon a rock, while others such as the so-called Correggio Magdalene* in Dresden and the other far more beautiful Batoni picture in the same gallery, are lying at full length on the ground, buried deep in the study of the Gospel. These are often called "Reading Magdalenes." The ointment box and the skull are always present in these desert pictures, and generally a crucifix.

CHAPTER IX

OF THE FATHERS OF THE LATIN AND GREEK
CHURCHES

If the Evangelists hold a special place in the established hierarchy of the Church because they set down in writing the Life and Doctrines of Our Lord, the Doctors of the Church again are given precedence over other saints, because it was they who not only interpreted the gospels for us, but also produced what we might call a working order of procedure for the systematic worship of what was in their day still a new, and more or less looselyconstructed, religion. The interpretations they set forth and the articles of faith they evolved are in force even now, and while this century of ours is one of scepticism and discussion, we must not forget when we gaze upon the pictures of the old masters that the Fathers or Doctors of the Church were so

*Giovanni Morelli definitely and incontestably denies the authenticity of this picture as a Correggio. It bears none of the characteristics of the Parmese Master. According to Morelli it is a copy of a lost Correggio by the late 17th Century Dutch painter, Adrian van der Werff.

highly venerated for their learning and their profound faith that their interpretations of the actions and sayings of Our Lord were looked upon as divinely inspired, and the judgment of their authors as infallible.

The Doctors of the Church are divided into two groups, the Fathers of the Latin Church, ST. Jerome (d. 420 A. D.), ST. AMBROSE (d. 437 A. D.), ST. AUGUSTINE (d. 430A.D.), and ST. GREGORY (Gregory the Great), who died in 604 A. D.-and those of the Greek Church-ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, meaning Golden Mouth, who died in 407 A. D.; ST. BASIL the Great, whose mother and father, two brothers and sister, were all noted for their piety and were canonised (d. 380 A. D.); Sг. ATHANASIUS (d. 373 A. D.), author of the long Creed bearing his name, who never appears in art except as one of the group of Greek Fathers; and ST. GREGORY NAZIANZEN, who like St. Basil had a number of saints in his family, including his parents and two sisters. He was the intimate friend of St. Basil, with whom and Julian the Apostate he studied at Constantinople and Athens. He died in the year 390 A. D.

The Greek Fathers, who preceded the Latin Fathers, and were indeed their teachers, are seldom found in what we call modern Western Art, that is to say, works produced since the 13th Century, or even since the final rupture in 1054 A. D. between the Roman and the Greek (Byzantine) Churches. Mrs. Jameson says that we may conclude that any picture exhibiting the Greek Fathers with their famous disciples must have been executed under Byzantine influence, but surely we can not apply that somewhat dogmatic statement to the Fra Angelico figures in San Lorenzo Chapel in the Vatican. However, "Il Beato" only introduced St. Athanasius and St. John Chrysostom, as representing the four Greek Fathers, the places of the other two being taken by St. Leo the Great, who by his personal intercession saved Rome from destruction at the hands of Attila the Hun, and St. Thomas Aquinas, "the Angelic Doctor," the Dominican orator and theologian, who composed the Office of the Sacrament as it is still used today. His inclusion in the group is due to his high rank as a Dominicannext after the founder and patriarch of the Order— and the veneration in which he was held by the painter, a Dominican himself, who created the picture for a Pope who held the preaching friars in particular esteem.

In the rare pictures where the eight Doctors are grouped together the Latin Fathers should be distinguishable from their Greek teachers by their mitres. Greek bishops wear no head-dress at all, except St. Cyril, who is often included in a group of the Greek Fathers, and who wears a hood falling over his shoulders, the front of which is decorated with a cross. St. Cyril was Bishop of Alexandria from 412 to 444 and was the most earnest opponent of Nestorius, the "heretic" (see page 13). The Greek

Fathers, again being given no distinctive emblems or attributes in Byzantine or Greek art, can only be identified definitely if, as is usually the case, their names are inscribed above their heads, generally on the rim of the nimbus.

So much for the Greek Fathers. Now let us pass on to those venerable prelates who occur so frequently, either as a group or as separate figures in Italian works of all periods since the Proto-Renaissance. There is no space for the usual description of their lives and characters, nor does such come within the true scope of this book. All I shall endeavor to effect is to show how they are represented in Art, with a succinct note as to the meaning of this rendering or that emblem. All biographical and legendary information may be found in Mrs. Jameson's exhaustive treatise: "Sacred and Legendary Art."

In devotional pictures when the Four Latin Fathers are grouped together, St. Jerome is shown either as a very old man, with a bald head, seminude, a hermit in the wilderness, with his book and writing implements, and accompanied by a lion,* or in the scarlet robes of a Cardinal, although cardinal priests as a class did not exist until three centuries after his death, a curious but studied anachronism.** St. Jerome also has, as an emblem, the model of a church on account of his strenuous labors in support of the Faith, of which he will always live as one of its great lights.

St. Ambrose, the great orator and statesman, bishop of Milan, wears his episcopal robes and carries a scourge in his hand. Or a beehive is placed near him, in token of his remarkable eloquence, of which bees are the symbol. Again he is seen sometimes bearing human bones in his hand, on account of the miraculous vision which led him to the burial place of two early martyrs, SS. Gervasius and Protasius.

St. Augustine, also in episcopal robes, should have a flaming heart as his attribute, but is usually without it, and is therefore difficult to distinguish from other bishops, except from the "context" of the picture, such as when the other doctors are all

*Mrs. Jameson says that St. Jerome can be distinguished from St. Mark because the Lion emblem of the latter is "generally winged," whereas that of the Latin Father is not. (Sacred and Legendary Art, Vol. I, p. 147.) This, however, is an error, for the lion of St. Mark is but rarely winged when the emblematic beast accompanies the saint. It frequently is in very early art, before the symbol was replaced by the Evangelist in human form (see Chapter VII).

**St. Jerome, though the most eminent of the four Doctors, was the only one who occupied no high rank in the hierarchy of the church, an honor which he had steadfastly refused. Therefore, those who ordered paintings to be executed in honor of these learned men, caused the greatest of them to be dressed in the habits of a cardinal, thus placing him higher than the two bishops, Ambrose and Augustine, who were his contemporaries. St. Gregory, who was a pope, lived nearly 200 years later. Another reason that has been advanced for the strange anachronism of the cardinal's hat is that St. Jerome performed at the court of Pope Dalmatius the identical services that later were performed by cardinaldeacons. In Venetian pictures, St. Jerome wears a scarlet cloak coming up over his head like a hood. (Plate XXIV.)