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lengthy, and are crooked with too much of Michael Angelesque angularity. The Madonna's left hand holds a palm-branch-the symbol (not of martyrdom, of course, for she was not martyred, but) of victory, over Sin and Death. But what is there in that of Jesus Christ? We can scarcely make it out: unless, however, we mistake, it is a little book, and is probably meant either for the rubric of Rome, or the bible of St. Jerome. But we will return to this consideration,

anon.

Saint Jerome sleeps within his hermitage, with a skull before, and a crucifix beside him, which latter he embraces with his right arm and hand; the other hand being over his head, and perhaps engaged in holding a rope, of which legends tell. His beard is aged and grey; and his robust figure rather awkwardly twisted and fore-shortened. The cell and mossy couch of the hermit, and the weeds of the fore ground, are painted in a masterly style.

In the character and expression of the Baptist's countenance, there is a degree of mystic sublimity, which, combined with that which is expressed by his action, is pertinent and fine, and his curling locks are divinely clustered, yet with an appropriate air of wildness: his limbs are vigorously moulded; but his prominent knee and leg are a little deficient in anatomical marking. We fear that neither Michael Angelo nor Professor Green, would be quite satisfied with them.

The holy Catholic church adopted that article of their faith which taught them to venerate the Madonna as "the Queen of Heaven;" not from the sacred Scriptures, for by the Scriptures it is nowhere authorized; but they caught the regal title from the

ancient Sabæan superstition, with which the Jews, during their aberrations from the worship of Jehovah, were deeply infected, and which deemed Ashteroth, or Astarte, to be the Queen, (and Baal the King) of Heaven an honour which descended to the Homeric Juno, and through the Homeric Juno, as transmitted by the numismatic art, to the modern Virgin Mary. The humble Mary of Nazareth-" blessed amongst women," was supposed, by this regal investment with a terrestrial title, to be duly exalted amongst men.

Parmegiano, either aware or unaware of these circumstances, has, in common with many other Italian and German artists of this early period, adopted the idea of representing the Virgin Mary as the Queen of Heaven, from combining the coinage, (vide Spanheim) with the Scriptures, of remote antiquity, and has seated his Madonna, as the Tyrian Astarte was seated, upon a crescent moon. Mr. Valpy's compiler-uninformed probably of these circumstances, and not immediately perceiving the difference between a rainbow and a crescent moon-Mr. Valpy's editor, or compiler, in his National Gallery, says, the Madonna is seated on a bow in the clouds-as if any artist at any time, would have dared venture to invert the bow of Heaven. The new moon is in good poetic analogy with the subject, it being the point of commencement of a new cycle.

The enthroned Virgin-the Christian Queen of Heaven-looks down majestically, yet with condescending celestial benignity, toward St. John, the former predestined harbinger of her sainted Son, while the Baptist points upward at the beatified infant; but the infant Christ himself, though preeminently graceful, has perhaps a trifle too much of

the prepared and studied air of the dancing-school, and thus exemplifies what we have written a few pages back; and why he has advanced his left leg and foot, as if in the act of stepping toward the furclad saint, we are at some loss to conceive-unless it have any especial reference to what the holy hermit in the cavern below may be dreaming.

Thus we fancied that every reflecting spectator would argue with himself concerning the picture of the Vision of St. Jerome; and would, in consequence, desire to know what the canonized hermit really did dream on this depicted occasion. Accordingly, we held communion with the saints.

But the rubrics and the black-letter legends affording us no light as to this glorious vision, we are led to infer that it arose out of those religious reveries which served the dark middle ages in the stead of poetry; and that probably the superiors of the church of Citta di Castello, who were patrons of the Vulgate, and for whom the pictured dream was painted, dreamed, that St. Jerome dreamed, that St. John pointed out to him, that his translation of the Bible had reached the celestial regions, and that he saw it there on the lap of the Virgin, as she sat in glory on the holy mount. Tasso, who lived just after Parmegiano, gives us the then existing tone of Italian intellect concerning such matters, where he singsas faithfully rendered by friend Wiffen-that

"Piety supplies

The heavenly lustre that irradiates thought;

Nor doubts that Heaven itself the marvellous action wrought.” But, should this not prove satisfactory; and should we be called upon to tell how the holy churchmen

came to dream thus, and to detail as well as divine the forgotten dream, it would but increase the probability of the actual occurrence of the vision, if in humble imitation of the prophet Daniel, we should merely report what every one of our readers would have dreamed under similar circumstances.

When polemic controversy with Origen and his disciples, drove Jerome from Rome, he migrated to the Holy Land, and betaking himself to ascetic devotion, became an eremitic inhabitant of the very same desert which had formerly resounded with the Baptist's warnings to repentance. While thus resigned to the reveries of enthusiasm, and with his imagination thus stimulated by the localities of scenery and privation, he probably believed that he had discovered and lodged himself in the very cavern that had served the precursor of the Saviour for a bedchamber; and, sleeping and meditating there if the votaries of Trophonius, under similar circumstances, dreamed of Elysian mysteries-how could St. Jerome do otherwise than dream that the Baptist-the great promulgator of "glad tidings"-appeared to him, and imparted the welcome intelligence that his translation of the Holy Scriptures had been well received in Heaven? Does not this sufficiently account for the Saviour's resting his right hand on the little volume on the lap of the Madonna?-If this be not the dream, and this the interpretation thereof, let the Chaldeans and soothsayers be called.

But one of the old black-letter authorities, which I consulted whilst in quest of this vision, informed me that Jerome Hieronymus-literally means both the Vision of Beauty and the Law of Holiness: in

which case we have here a sort of painted equivoke, as well as a pun upon the proper name of this sainted

hermit.

This capital work of Francisco Mazzuoli (surnamed Parmegiano, or Parmegianino) was painted at Rome, during the years 1526-7, as an altar-piece for a church at Cetta di Castello. Who imported it into England, we do not know: but it was purchased (at the price of two thousand guineas, if we rightly remember) some few years ago by the governors of the British Institution, and presented by those gentlemen to the National Gallery.

PORTRAITS, OF THE PAINTER, AND OF CARDINAL HIPPOLITO DE MEDICIS.

SEBASTIAN LUCIANO DEL PIOMBO.

THIS distinguished painter, whose name is respected, but whose works are little known, in England, was born at Venice, in the year 1485. His paternal name was Luciano; but early in his career as an artist, he was styled (agreeably to the custom of the age in which he lived) Veneziano, from his birthplace; and, later in life, del Piombo, from his obtaining the honourable office of Fraté del Piombo.

Sebastian was distinguished in his youth as a musician, and, like Da Vinci, was particularly famed for his performance on the lute; but he chose Painting for his profession, and was instructed in the rudiments of that art by Giovanni Bellini. Giorgione, however, shining forth, and his new mode of colouring attracting great notice, and very general admiration,

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