Jewels to the value of many thousand crowns have been offered at her shrine, and solemnly placed round the neck of her image or suspended to her girdle. I found her effigy in the Venetian churches, and in those of Bologna and Lombardy. Her worship has extended to enlightened Tuscany. At Pisa the church of San Francesco contains a chapel dedicated lately to Santa Filomena; over the altar is a picture by Sabatelli representing the saint as a beautiful nymph-like figure floating down from heaven, attended by two angels bearing the lily, palm, and javelin, and beneath in the foreground the sick and maimed who are healed by her intercession; round the chapel are suspended hundreds of votive offerings, displaying the power and the popularity of the saint. There is also a graceful German print after Führich, representing her in the same attitude in which the image lies in the shrine. I did not expect to encounter St. Filomena at Paris; but, to my surprise, I found a chapel dedicated to her in the church of St. Gervais; a statue of her with the flowers, the dart, the scourge, and the anchor under her feet; and two pictures, one surrounded, after the antique fashion, with scenes from her life. In the church of SaintMerry, at Paris, there is a chapel recently dedicated to "Ste Philomène"; the walls covered with a series of frescos from her legend, painted by Amaury Duval ; -a very fair imitation of the old Italian style.

I have heard that St. Filomena is patronized by the Jesuits; even so, it is difficult to account for the extension and popularity of her story in this nineteenth century.

ST. OMOBUONO, the protector of Cremona, and patron saint of tailors, was neither a martyr, nor a monk, nor even a hermit; but as effigies of him are confined entirely to pictures of the Cremonese and Venetian schools, I shall place him here to make my chapter of these local Italian saints complete. He is regarded all

over the North of Italy as the patron and example of good citizens, and is the subject of some beautiful pic

tures.

According to the legend, Omobuono was a merchant of Cremona, who had received from his father but little school learning, yet, from the moment he entered on the management of his own affairs, a wisdom more than human seemed to inspire every action of his life; diligent and thrifty, his stores increased daily, and, with his possessions, his almost boundless charity; nor did his charity consist merely in giving his money in alms, nor in founding hospitals, but in the devotion of his whole heart towards relieving the sorrows as well as the necessities of the poor, and in exhorting and converting to repentance those who had been led into evil courses neither did this good saint think it necessary to lead a life of celibacy; he was married to a prudent and virtuous wife, who was sometimes uneasy lest her husband's excessive bounty to the poor should bring her children to beggary; but it was far otherwise : Omobuono increased daily in riches and prosperity, so that the people of the city believed that his stores were miraculously multiplied. It is related of him, that being on a journey with his family, and meeting some poor pilgrims who were ready to faint by the wayside with hunger and thirst, he gave them freely all the bread and wine he had provided for his own necessities, and going afterwards to fill his empty wine-flasks from a running stream, the water when poured out proved to be most excellent wine, and his wallet was found full of wheaten bread, supplied by the angels in lieu of that which he had given away.

As the life of Omobuono had been in all respects most blessed, so was his death; for one morning, being at his early devotions in the church of St. Egidio, and kneeling before a crucifix, just as the choir were singing the "Gloria in excelsis" he stretched out his arms in the form of a cross, and in this attitude expired. He was canonized by Pope Innocent III. on the earnest petition of his fellow-citizens.

Figures of this amiable citizen-saint occur in the pictures of Giulio Campi, Malosso, Andrea Mainardi, Borroni, and other painters of Cremona. He is generally habited in a loose tunic trimmed with fur, and cap also trimmed with fur, and as in the act of distributing food and alms to the poor; sometimes wine-flasks stand near him, in allusion to the famous miracle in his legend. In a fine enthroned Madonna by Bartolomeo Montagna, Omobuono stands in an attitude of compassionate thoughtfulness, with a poor beggar at his feet.* In the church of St. Egidio-ed-Omobuono at Cremona, I found a series of pictures from his life. 1. He fills his empty flasks at the stream, and finds them full of wine. 2. The bread which he distributes to the poor is miraculously multiplied in his hands. 3. He clothes the ragged and naked poor. 4. He expires before the crucifix, sustained by angels. In the cupola of the same church he is seen carried into paradise by a troop of rejoicing spirits. These were painted by Borroni in

1684.

I have met with very few among the French and Spanish martyrs who have attained to any general importance as subjects of Art. The most interesting of the Spanish saints are those of the monastic orders, and they will be found in their proper place among the monastic legends. St. Vincent, whose fame has become universal, is the most distinguished of the Spanish early martyrs. There are some others almost peculiar to Spanish Art, who, from the beauty of the representations by Murillo and Zurbaran, are interesting to a lover and hunter of pictures; but as very few, even of the best, of these are known through engravings, and as my own acquaintance with Spanish Art is limited, I shall confine myself to those most popular.

* Berlin Gal. See also "Legends of the Madonna."

ST. JUSTA AND ST. RUFINA, PATRONESSES OF SE

VILLE.

19th July, A. D. 304.

THESE were two Christian sisters dwelling in that city. They were the daughters of a potter, and made a living by selling earthenware; and contenting themselves with the bare necessaries of life, they gave all the rest to the poor. Certain women who lived near them, and who were worshippers of the goddess Venus came to their shop to buy vessels for their idolatrous sacrifice. The two sisters answered that they had no vessels for such a purpose; that their ware should be used for the service of God, and not in the worship of stocks and stones. Upon this the pagan women broke all the earthenware in their shop. Justa and Rufina retaliated by falling upon the image of Venus, which they broke to pieces and flung into the kennel. The populace immediately collected before their door, seized them, and carried them before the prefect. On being accused of sacrilege, they boldly avowed themselves to be Christians; and being condemned to the torture, Justa expired on the rack, and Rufina was strangled. came to pass in the year 304.

This

The two sisters are represented as Spanish girls, bearing the palm as martyrs, and holding in their hands earthenware pots. Pictures of them are entirely confined to the Seville school. They are generally represented with the Giralda (which is supposed to be under their especial care and patronage) between them. According to Mr. Ford,* their great miracle was the preservation of this beautiful and far-famed tower in a thunder-storm, in 1504. When Espartero bombarded Seville in 1843, the people still believed that the Giralda was encompassed by invisible an

* v. Handbook of Spain, p. 249.

gels led by Rufina and Justa, who turned aside every bomb.

Murillo has frequently painted them. The Duke of Sutherland has two beautiful half-length figures of these two saints, holding each their palms and alcarrazas (earthenware pots). In the Spanish gallery of the Louvre, there are several representations of them by Zurbaran and others. Zurbaran represents them richly dressed; but Murillo has generally painted them as muchachas, Spanish girls of the lower class. There was a magnificent sketch by Murillo in the Aguado Gallery, representing the Virgin in glory; and, kneeling in adoration before her, St. Rufina and St. Justa with their alcarrazas at their feet, accompanied by St. Francis and St. John the Baptist : painted, I presume, for the Capuchins of Seville.

ST. EULALIA OF MERIDA (Dec. 10.) was a Spanish martyr whose story is related in one of the hymns of Prudentius. He tells us that, at the time the terrible edict of Diocletian was published, Eulalia, who was only twelve years old, escaped from her mother's house, and confronted the tyrant prefect, who was sitting in judgment on the Christians, and reproached him with his cruelty and impiety. The governor, astonished at her audacity, commanded her to be seized, and placed on one side of her the instruments of torture prepared for the disobedient, and on the other the salt and frankincense which they were about to offer to their idol. Eulalia immediately flung down the idol, and trampled the offering under her feet, and spit in the face of the judge, an action which, as Butler observes, "could only be excused by her extreme youth." She was immediately put to death in the midst of tortures, and at the moment she expired a white dove issued from her mouth (the usual allegory of the soul or spirit), and winged its way towards heaven.

She is renowned in Spain, and I believe only to be