CHAPTER X

THE PATRON SAINTS OF CHRISTENDOM, THE VIRGIN PATRONESSES AND THE FOUR GREAT VIRGINS OF THE LATIN CHURCH.

All Saints are in a way Patron Saints, but whereas the aid of most of them is only to be invoked in some particular country or locality, or as protection against, or to "doctor," some particular malady, pestilence or others of the woes which assail man

ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON, FROM THE PICTURE BY RAPHAEL IN THE LOUVRE

kind, there are some few who are worshipped universally throughout Christendom. These, in their order of precedence in Church hierarchy, are:

1) ST. GEORGE OF CAPPADOCIA, Patron of England, Germany and Venice, and of soldiers and armorers of all countries.

2) ST. SEBASTIAN. Patron against plague and pestilence, a favorite of the Venetians.

3) ST. ROCH. Patron of prisoners, of the sick, and, particularly, of the plague-stricken.

4) SS. COSмо and DAMIAN. Patrons of all medical men and medicine. Also of the Medici family in Florence.

5) ST. CHRISTOPHER. Patron against fire, earthquakes, accidents, tempests and floods.

6) ST. NICHOLAS OF MYRA (or Bari). Chief Patron of Russia (pre-Revolution), and of Bari, Venice, Freiberg, and many other seaports and towns devoted to commerce. Also, of school boys, and to a lesser degree of all children, of poor maidens, sailors, merchants, and against robbers and losses therefrom.

The Virgin Patronesses are:

1) ST. CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA. Patroness of

Venice, of schools and colleges; of philosophy and science; of all students; and of diseases of the tongue.

2) ST. BARBARA. Patroness of Mantua, Ferrara, and Guastola; of armorers and gunsmiths; of firearms and fortifications; and against explosive accidents, thunder and lightning.

3) ST. URSULA. Patroness of young girls, particularly those who are at school, and of all women who have consecrated their lives to the education of their

own sex.

4) ST. MARGARET. Patroness of Cremona, and of women in childbirth.

None of these patrons and patronesses have any scriptural sanction, but for various reasons have become so generally popular that they form a class by themselves. The patrons who have both the scriptural and apostolic sanction are:

1) ST. PETER; Patron and First Bishop of Rome 2) ST. MARK; Patron of Venice (San Marco).

3) ST. JAMES; Patron of Spain (Sant'Jago).

4) ST. MARY MAGDALEN; Patroness of Provence and Marseilles and of penitent women.

The four Great Virgins of the Latin Church are: 1) ST. CECILIA. Martyr; Patroness of music and musicians.

2) ST. AGNES. Martyr; Patroness of Roman women and of maidenhood.

3) ST. AGATHA. Martyr; Patroness of Malta and Catania; against diseases of the breast; and against fire. 4) ST. LUCIA. Martyr; Patroness of Syracuse; of the laboring classes and against diseases of the eyes.

Now let us state briefly who each of these saints were and the reasons for their outstanding position. But first be it noted that all of them except St. Roch, St. James the Great, and St. Mary Magdalene, were martyrs, and again that with the single exception of St. Roch, they were all of that noble company which in the earliest days of the Christian religion were of so steadfast a faith that in the end their example prevailed against the creed of the pagan deities, and the beautiful doctrines of Our Lord Jesus Christ came to be the official faith of then known civilised world. St. Roch was a late saint, who died in 1327 A. D. and so does not appear in the first pictures of the early Renaissance artists.

St. George of Cappadocia is perhaps the best known and most easily recognisable of all the saints in the Calendar. He is always shown either, in narrative pictures, such as Raphael's little gem in the Long Gallery in the Louvre, on horseback, fighting with the dragon which was devastating the countryside and devouring both flocks and maidens; or, in devotional pictures, with a broken lance, and a dead dragon at his feet. He is always young and clad in armor, but is distinguishable from St. Michael who also is seen in combat with a dragon-representing in this case the Prince of Evil-by the fact that he has no wings, as has the Archangel. One day he

observed upon the gates of the temple a decree of the Emperor Diocletian denouncing the Christians, and risking the fury of his master-for he was a Roman legionary-he tore it down and destroyed it. For this, after torture lasting eight days and borne

with the red cross known by his name. St. George died in 303 A. D.

St. Sebastian's pictures are well-known to all who visit the great galleries of the world. He is almost always presented nude, with only a cloth round his loins, attached to a tree, with either-in narrative pictures-soldiers shooting arrows at his unprotected body, or in devotional pictures-alone, his body transpierced at non-vital spots with arrows. Examples of both types of pictures are to be found in every gallery which contains sacred pictures of the 13th to 17th centuries. In some German pictures there are modifications of the usual presentment, as in a famous engraving by Dürer where St. Sebastian is depicted as a man in the prime of life with a beard and shaggy locks. In a large polyptych of the Madonna and Child by an anonymous Spaniard, which was formerly in the Salomon Collection, dispersed in New York in 1923, St. Sebastian is portrayed in a court dress of pourpoint and tights with large velvet cap on his head. He is a handsome figure, but has nothing to remind us that he is the self-sacrificing martyr for Christianity except a small arrow which he holds in his hand. (See Plate XXVIII)

But what is still more curious, an Italian painter of Bergamo, Girolamo da Santa Croce, who worked between 1520 and 1549, has left us a St. Sebastianwith an Evangelist-also dressed in a short tunic,

PERUGINO'S FAMOUS ST. SEBASTIAN IN THE LOUVRE. IT IS A FREQUENT ERROR OF PAINTERS OF CERTAIN SCHOOLS TO DEPICT THIS SAINT, WITH ARROWS EMBEDDED IN VITAL PARTS OF THE BODY, WHEREAS HE WAS NOT MORTALLY WOUNDED THUS AND WAS FINALLY PUT TO DEATH BY THE SWORD

with surpassing fortitude, he was beheaded. The Greeks honor St. George with the title of the Great Martyr. For a time his deeds in defence of Christianity appear to have been questioned by the Church, and in 494, St. Gelasius, the Pope, refused to admit him to the reformed calendar of Saints. It was the famous crusader, the first king of Jerusalem, Godefroi de Bouillon, who invoked the aid of the warrior saint and made his name the battlecry of the English hosts. In 1222 his feast day, April 23rd, was ordered to be kept as a holiday, and in 1330, the institution of the Order of the Garter, with its "Great George" and "Little George" badges, established the young saint's position forever as the patron of England. Prior to his adoption, although he had been popular for a long time, St. Edward the Confessor had been the Anglo-Saxon patron Saint of the English people. St. George, in German pictures, is clad in the armor and costume of the painter's day, as in the case of the Holbein representation illustrated on Plate V. His banner always is white.

MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH SS. ROCH (RIGHT) AND LOUIS OF TOULOUSE, BY ROMANINO (1487-1566), IN THE BERLIN GALLERY. NOTE ST. ROCH'S GESTURE OF INDICATING HIS FESTERING THIGH, AND HIS PILGRIM'S STAFF. ALSO THE CROWN AT THE

FEET OF THE YOUNG FRENCH ROYAL BISHOP

tight red hose and blue calf-high boots, with a goldembroidered mantle hanging from his shoulders, holding in his right hand a long sword in its scabbard with the point resting on the ground, and with his left hand lightly laying an arrow across his right forearm, a most unusual treatment of this saint for an Italian. St. Sebastian died in 288 A. D.

ST. ROCH is always represented as a pilgrim, with his staff and wallet, and frequently accompanied by a dog. He invariably points to the ulcer on his thigh which he contracted at Piacenza where he had stopped to help cure the afflicted during the course of a dreadful plague which had fallen upon the inhabitants. For some time before, he had devoted his life to the care of the sick, going from city to city wherever he learnt that the plague was raging. After his own infection, he went through many troubles and terrible sufferings, till he was at last thrown into a dungeon by an uncle who failed to recognise his nephew in the wan and ragged pilgrim who had come home. He lingered in this dungeon for five years, but one day his soul having been released in the night, his jailers found upon him a letter in which was written his name and a statement to the effect that "Whosoever, being stricken by the plague shall pray for relief through the intercession of St. Roch, the servant of Our Lord, shall be healed." For nearly a century after his death St. Roch remained simply a local saint of the neighborhood of his estates near Montpellier in France, but in 1415, the plague having descended upon the city of Constance, where the Grand Ecumenical Council was in session, his aid was invoked at the suggestion of a German monk, who, having traveled in France, knew of the reputation of this saint. An image was carried through the streets of Constance with prayers and chants, and the plague is said to have abated and ceased its ravages. This was the commencement of the universal fame of St. Roch, and in 1485, the Venetians fearing the plague more than any other city of the Peninsula, on account of her extended intercourse with Eastern marts, determined to obtain the relics of St. Roch for their city. So under the guise of pilgrims, a company of these wiliest of Italians set forth, and reaching Montpellier, plundered the tomb of St. Roch, and bore his bones to Venice. The Church of San Rocco was built to receive them. His patronage of those in prison proceeds from his own unjust, but courageously borne, imprisonment. St. Roch died in 1327 A. D.

The two brothers, SS. COSMO and DAMIAN, being the patrons of the Medici overlords of Florence, are to be found in numerous pictures painted by early artists of the City of the Lilies. They are always represented together, both in narrative pictures of their labors and their martyrdoms, and in votive pictures, and, in devotional works, they are generally depicted in the long red robes and full round cap of the doctors and apothecaries of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Still one more curious

THE MADONNA, AS THE Virgo Sapientiae (SEE PAGE 35), EX

POUNDING A THEORY TO THE TWO APOTHECARY SAINTS, COSMO AND DAMIAN, WHILE THE DONORS AS TINY FIGURES KNEEL AT

HER FEET. FROM A FINE PICTURE BY AGNOLO GADDI, (D. 1396), IN THE POSSESSION OF MR. OTTO KAHN (SEE PP. 16 AND 17) and their marvelous cures. But it availed them little when the persecutions under Diocletian and Maximian-the tormentor of St. Catherine of Alexandria-raged through the land, and they were condemned to torture and death as Christians. First they were thrown into the sea, but an angel descended from Heaven and saved their lives. Nor would the flames, to which they were then committed, consume their mortal frames, and when at last they were bound to crosses and stoned, the stones fell back upon their oppressors and killed many of them. But finally they were delivered to the headsman who succeeded in depriving them of the lives which they had rendered so precious by their pious ministrations to the sick and their disinterested succor to all those in need thereof. From the fact that they are said never to have accepted payment for their services they are honored by the Greeks with the title of Anargyres, meaning "without money." In 526 A. D., Pope Felix built a magnificent church in Rome in honor of these Saints, in which there is a famous mosaic, depicting SS. Peter and Paul presenting the