quillity, that silence, all things, in a word, were so in accord with his character and genius, that he resolved to surpass all his former works on this occasion; and he was so charmed with the place, that he spent several years over these pictures. Besides these works, in order to please the monks he painted the portrait of a lay brother, who was then living there at the age of a hundred and twenty years." To form an idea of the monastery, in this respect, and of the monks inspiring and encouraging the painter, one need only read the account which Vasari gives of himself. Thus, in the abbey of San Bernardo, in Arezzo, having painted some walls, he says, "Although, as an inexperienced youth, I did not effect what might have been done by a more practised artist, yet I did what I could; and these monks, having consideration for my early years, were not displeased with my labours." Invited by the fathers of Camaldoli to paint figures for the church of the hermitage here, he says, "The Alpine solitude and profound stillness of the place delighted me greatly; and, although I perceived that, at first, these venerable monks, seeing me so young, began to doubt of the matter, yet, taking courage, I discoursed to them in such a manner that they resolved to accept my services." Having completed these works, he descended to the abbey, and there executed other pictures, "to the great satisfaction," he says, "of the monks, as they gave me to understand; and during this time," he adds, "I discovered how much more favourable to study is a calm repose and agreeable solitude than the tumult of cities and courts. I perceived, likewise, that my error had been great when I had before placed my hopes in men, and made my pleasure of the follies of the world. Detained in the place by the charms of that solitude, I lingered there for some time after the completion of my pictures, having also taken sketches of rocks and mountains from the district around me." Paintings in monasteries were generally executed for the precise spots in which they were placed; and this accounts for the fact, that they are found in the best light and most appropriate position. Vasari, having to paint for the refectory of the Black Friars of Santa Fiore e Lucilla, at Mantua, caused the canvas to be first fixed in its place, and afterwards painted, which method, he affirms, should always be adopted. Sometimes even the frames were the work of great artists. Thus it was Giuliano who prepared those of all the pictures in the refectory of the abbey of Santa Fiora, in Arezzo. In monasteries of the most austere orders pictures are found in abundance. The archives of the Carmelites of the Faubourg Saint-Jacques, at Paris, contain an inventory of the paintings by celebrated masters, of the statues, and other works of art, with which the piety of the faithful of all ranks, during two centuries, had enriched them*. In fact, generally, the monks ranked painters with theologians. "Whoever loves not pictures," they would say, with an old writer, "is injurious to truth and all the wisdom of poetry. Picture is the invention of heaven, the most ancient and most akin to nature. It is itself a silent work, and always of one and the same habit; yet it doth so enter and penetrate the inmost affection as sometimes it overcomes the power of speech and oratory. There are diverse graces in it." Great teachers have artists proved themselves. In the refectory of the monks of Monte Oliveto, at Naples, the painter represented eight virtues, intimating to those who eat in that room the qualities required for the perfection of their lives. The frescoes of Dominiquini, in the church of St. Louis of the French, at Rome, representing the whole life of St. Cecilia, are said to be more eloquent than any writing; and the same praise might with justice have been bestowed upon that picture by Lappoli, the disciple of Dom Bartolommeo, representing a crucifix, at the foot of which were two figures kneeling, one being a poor man, from whose breast proceeded a sort of radiation, issuing directly towards the wounds of the Saviour, on whom his eyes were earnestly fixed; the other being a rich man, clothed in purple, with rubicund face, from whose heart also proceeded rays while he appeared to adore Christ, but which, instead of going directly to the wounds of the Saviour, were scattered and dispersed over a broad landscape, exhibiting corn-fields, cattle, gardens, and the sea covered with barks laden with merchandise, and, in fine, tables whereat money-changers were seated. Another instance of the instruction conveyed by such works is presented on the walls of the chapter-house in the convent of San Marco, on which Giovanni da Fiesole painted the history of the Crucifixion, in which picture are figures of all those saints who have been founders and heads of religious orders, mourning and bewailing at the foot of the cross. But what a lesson is read again, for persons doubting, in that figure of St. Thomas laying his hand on the wound of Christ, by Verrochio, the incredulity and his great desire to assure himself of the truth of the fact being clearly perceived in his countenance, while, at the same time, the love with which he lays his hand most tenderly on the side of Christ is also manifest. The aged, worn figure of St. Girolamo, with eyes fixed on the cross, in the Carthusian monastery at Florence, by Perugino, is also another example of a monastic work executed, as Vasari says, "more after the manner of a deeply-thinking philosopher, than of a painter." • Cousin, Madame de Longueville, p. i. c. i. The prevailing taste, at present, among English Catholics, substituting for pictures in churches graceful drapery, variegated compartments, architectural conceits, or the stucco of housedecorators, holds out no great encouragement to those who love elevated art; but the monks, in general, were so devotedly fond of pictures, that to describe their pleasure on seeing any thing admirable, one might say of them what Tacitus writes of those who from the provinces came to Rome to see Saleius Bassus, the orator; for having once seen him, they would depart, he says, contented, "ut si picturam aliquam vel statuam vidissent." The enemies of monks were not characterized by such enthusiasm for the arts; and even to the present day, in England, where such multitudes abhor every barbarism, whenever an old fresco painting is discovered on the walls of a church, antiquarians, it is said, have great difficulty in obtaining a respite of a few days to make a copy of it, in such haste are some of the ministers and churchwardens to have. the place whitewashed over, as their predecessors left it. The inscriptious found in monasteries, " mouldering scrolls writ in the tongue of heaven," might be set down, also, among things deserving of notice. Appropriate and solemn, the monks' lines can still produce an effect on those who mark them. Thus, over the place for washing hands, in the abbey of Monte Cassino, you read, "Mundities animæ corpus super astra decorat, Ablue cor lacrimis, ut aqua tibi proluo palmas. In the cloister of Montserrat, one reads these lines, composed by Father Seraphim Cavalli, general of the Dominicans, who, on his passage by Montserrat, thus expressed his veneration for the place, "Ave Maria Serrati Montis incola. Decus Hesperiæ, Barcinonis gloria, Per quam transeunt ad vitam Dei famuli." At the convent of St. Yuste might be read these lines, inscribed on the wall of an open gallery: "His majesty, the emperor, Don Charles the Fifth, our lord, was seated in this place when his malady seized him, on the 31st of August, at four o'clock in the afternoon; he died on the 21st of September, at half-past two in the morning, in the year of our Lord 1558." * D. Montegut, Hist. de Montser. But besides pictures and inscriptions, many things that belonged to the class of historical curiosities could generally be found in monasteries. The treasury was not a place to be passed by, if persons were interested in works of ancient art. At Châteaudun, in the abbey of the Magdalen, which had been reestablished by Charlemagne, was kept a glass, nine inches high, and five in diameter, with compartments of enamel and gold, and an inscription round it in Arabic. It was called Charlemagne's glass, as having been one of the presents made to him by Haroun-al-Raschid. The riches in the treasury of Cluny were immense. Here were "gold vases embossed with longforgotten story." In reading the description of the precious stones named in many monastic inventories, one might think that it was from a tale in the Arabian Nights. Here were inestimable jewels, diamonds of such a piercing lustre as struck blind the amazed lapidary, while he laboured to honour his own art in setting them. Here were statues, representing saints, in gold, and silver, and ivory, with crowns of diamonds, and rubies, and emeralds, and sapphires. Nor were archæological riches confined to the interior. The exterior walls, the gardens and cloisters, contained often historical memorials, or curious works, of great antiquity. Descending from bald downs, in New Castille, when you come to St. Pedro de Cardeña, in a wooded dell, you observe the Cid, mounted on Babieca, carved over the portal. This was the first Benedictine abbey in Spain, raised by the Princess Sancha, in the year 537, in memory of her son Theodoric, who died while hunting, at the fountain Cara Digna, which gave rise to the name of Cardeña. The idea of the palace that is shortly to render our Sydenham so renowned, seems to have suggested itself to the monks, as lovers of all that can instruct and adorn the world; for Æneas Sylvius relates, that in the vast gardens of the monastery of Koenigsaal, in Bohemia, was a representation of all the principal countries of the globe, of the mountains, rivers, and seas. Here were shrubs and plants from various regions, and on the walls of polished stone was engraved the whole Bible, from Genesis to the Apocalypse, the letters increasing in proportion to their height from the ground, so that the whole could be read easily by those who walked round it *. At a short distance below Burgos is the celebrated Cistercian nunnery of Santa Maria la Real, called Las Huelgas, founded in 1180 by Alonso VIII., to which pious work the Spaniards ascribed their victory of Las Navas de Tolosa, of which a curious old painting is in the chapel. In this venerable house, in which St. Ferdinand knighted himself; in which his son, Alonso el Sabio, conferred, Ap. Dubois, Hist. de l'Abbaye de Morimond, 26. in 1254, that honour on our Edward I.; in which the gallant Alonso XI. kept his vigil and knighted and crowned himself, used to be seen the articulated statue of St. Jago, which, on some occasions, placed the crown on the head of Spanish monarchs. But many works of curious mechanism were often found in monasteries. The wondrous clock of the abbey of Cluny, in the fourteenth century, contained a perpetual calendar, marking the year, month, week, day, hour, and minute; an ecclesiastical calendar, distinguishing the festivals and offices of each day; the positions of the stars, phases of the moon, and movements of the earth on different days of the week. The chief mysteries of faith were represented by figures in a niche, changing at midnight for another. Each hour was announced by a cock that crew twice, and by an angel who saluted the Blessed Virgin. Leaving, however, such objects, we may remark, that a great attraction again, for many who pass thus like ourselves, is constituted by the libraries of monasteries. These religious houses formed the oldest asylum for books when exposed to the perils attending the fall of the ancient world; and even to the latest times it was to these houses of the Catholic Church that the most eminent men left their collections. Christopher Columbus bequeathed his library to the Dominicans of the convent of St. Paul of Seville. Caelius Calcagrinus left his to the Dominican convent of Ferrara, in which he wished to be buried. Petrarch left his to the church of St. Mark at Venice; James Alvarotti his to a church and religious community in Padua ; Aldus Manutius his to another in Pisa*. Cardinal Maï has been at the pains to exhibit proof that the medieval monks were guiltless of having caused the loss of those classic works of antiquity which have not been preserved to us. It would be a different task to exculpate,, even in this respect perhaps, the destroyers of monasteries. "The blood runs cold," says a late author, with rather amusing fervour, "as the thought arises in the mind that perhaps a perfect copy of Livy was among the books in the abbey of Malmesbury which the Protestants destroyed at the Reformation, or sold to the bakers to heat their At least it is certain that a great lover of books belonging to this monastery quotes one of the lost decades +." Alcuin describes with rapture the library of York collected by Egbert: "Illic invenies veterum vestigia patrum ovens. Quidquid habet pro se Latio Romanus in orbe * Jac. de Richebourcq, Ultima Verba Factaque, &c. |