schools of Italy, but frequently by the later painters, and particularly by the Bologna school; in some instances most beautifully. It was a subject peculiarly suited to the genius of Guercino, who excelled in the expression of profound rather than elevated feeling.

There is a manner of representing the repentance of Peter which seems peculiar to Spanish Art, and is more ideal than is usual with that school. Christ is bound to a column and crowned with thorns; St. Peter kneels before him in an attitude of the deepest anguish and humiliation, and appears to be supplicating forgiveness. Except in the Spanish school, I have never met with this treatment. The little picture by Murillo is an exquisite example; and in the Spanish Gallery are two others, by Pedro de Cordova and Juan Juanes :-in the former, St. Peter holds a pocket-handkerchief with which he has been wiping his eyes, and the cock is perched on the column to which our Saviour is bound.

Another ideal treatment we find in a picture by Guercino; St. Peter is weeping bitterly, and opposite to him the Virgin is seated in motionless grief.

Half-length figures of St. Peter looking up with an expression of repentant sorrow, and wringing his hands, are of frequent occurrence, more especially in the later followers of the Bologna and Neapolitan schools of the seventeenth century: Ribera, Lanfranco, Caravaggio, and Valentin. In most of these instances, the total absence of ideal or elevated sentiment is striking;- any old bearded beggar out of the streets, who could cast up his eyes and look pathetic, served as a model.

I recollect no picture of the Crucifixion in which St. Peter is present.

"The delivery of the keys to Peter" and "the Charge to Peter," (Feed my sheep,) either in separate pictures or combined into one subject, have been of course favourite themes in a Church which founds its authority on these particular circumstances. The bas-relief over the principal door of St. Peter's at Rome represents the two themes in one: Christ delivers the keys to Peter, and the sheep are standing by.

"Le Christ à la Colonne." Louvre, 550.

In the panels of the bronze doors beneath (A. D. 1431), we have the chain of thought and incident continued; Peter delivers the emblematical keys to Pope Eugenius IV.

It is curious that, while the repentance of Peter is a frequent subject on the sarcophagi of the fourth century, the delivery of the keys to Peter occurs but once. Christ, as a beardless youth, presents to Peter two keys laid crosswise one over the other. Peter, in whose head the traditional type is most distinctly marked, has thrown his pallium over his outstretched hands, for, according to the antique ceremonial, of which the early sculpture and mosaics afford us so many examples, things consecrated could only be touched with covered hands. This singular example is engraved in Bottari. An example of beautiful and solemn treatment in painting, is Perugino's fresco in the Sistine Chapel. It contains twenty-one figures; the conception is quite ideal, the composition regular even to formality, yet striking and dramatic. In the centre, Peter, kneeling on one knee, receives the keys from the hand of the Saviour; the apostles and disciples are arranged on each side behind Christ and St. Peter; in the background is the rebuilding of the Temple; a double allegory: "Destroy this temple, I will build it up in three days:" and also, perhaps, alluding to the building of the chapel by Sixtus IV.

In Raphael's cartoon 2 the scene is an open plain: Christ stands on the right; in front, St. Peter kneels, with the keys in his hand; Christ extends one hand to Peter, and with the other points to a flock of sheep in the background. The introduction of the sheep into this subject has been criticised as at once too literal and too allegorical, a too literal transcript of the words, a too allegorical version of the meaning; but I do not see how the words of our Saviour could have been otherwise rendered in painting, which must speak to us through sensible objects. The other apostles standing behind Peter show in each countenance the different manner in which they are affected by the words of the Saviour.

By Gian Bellini: a beautiful picture 3: St. Peter kneeling, half length, receives the keys from Jesus Christ, seated on a throne. Behind St. Peter stand the three Christian graces, Faith, Hope, and Charity. Poussin has taken this subject in his series of the Seven Sacraments 1, Hampton Court. Bridgewater Gal.

1 Tab. xxi.

2

3 Madrid Gal., No. 114.

to represent the sacrament of Ordination. In this instance again, the two themes are united; and we must also remember, that the allegorical representation of the disciples and followers of Christ as sheep looking up to be fed, is consecrated by the practice of the earliest schools of Christian Art. Rubens has rendered the subject very simply, in a picture containing only the two figures, Christ and St. Peter1; and again with five figures, less good.2 Numerous other examples might be given; but the subject is one that, however treated, cannot be easily mistaken.

A very ideal version of this subject is where St. Peter kneels at the feet of the Madonna, and the Infant Christ, bending from her lap, presents the keys to him; as in a singularly fine and large composition by Crivelli, and in another by Andrea Salaino. Another, very beautiful and curious, is in the possession of Mr. Bromley of Wootten.1

After the ascension of our Saviour, the personal history of St. Peter is mingled first with that of St. John, and afterwards with that of St. Paul.

"Peter and John healing the lame man at the gate called Beautiful" is the subject of one of the finest of the cartoons at Hampton Court. Perin del Vaga, Niccolò Poussin, and others less renowned, have also treated it; it is susceptible of much contrast and dramatic effect.

"The sick are brought out and placed in the shadow of Peter and John that they may be healed," by Masaccio.5

"Peter preaching to the early converts:" the two most beautiful compositions I have seen, are the simple group of Masaccio; and another by Le Sueur, full of variety and sentiment.

"Peter and John communicate the Holy Ghost by laying their hands on the disciples," by Vasari. I do not well remember this picture. The Vision of Peter: three angels sustain the curtain or sheet which

Cathedral at Malines.

2 Gal. of the Hague.

This picture, formerly in the Brera, is now in England, in the gallery of Lord Ward. It is the finest and most characteristic specimen of the master I have ever seen.

It is signed MEDULA, and attributed to Giulio della Mendula; a painter (except through this picture) unknown to me.

5 Brancacci Chapel, Florence.

6 Berlin Gal. 313.

contains the various forbidden animals, as pigs, rabbits, &c. (as in a print after Guercino).

"Peter baptizes the Centurion" (very appropriately placed in the baptistery of the Vatican). St. Peter meets the Centurion; he blesses the family of the Centurion. All commonplace versions of very interesting and picturesque subjects.

"The Death of Ananias." Raphael's cartoon of this awful scene is a masterpiece of dramatic and scenic power; never was a story more Those who had to deal

admirably and completely told in painting.
with the same subject, as if to avoid a too close comparison with his
unapproachable excellence, have chosen the death of Sapphira as the
motif: as, for example, Niccolò Poussin.'

66

Dorcas or Tabitha restored to life." One of the finest and most effective of Guercino's pictures, now in the Palazzo Pitti: the simple dignity of the apostle, and the look of sick amazement in the face of the woman restored to consciousness, show how strong Guercino could be when he had to deal with natural emotions of no elevated kind. The same subject, by Costanzi, is among the great mosaics in St. Peter's. "The Death of Dorcas," by Le Sueur, is a beautiful composition. She lies extended on a couch; St. Peter and two other apostles approach the foot of it: the poor widows, weeping, show to St. Peter the garments which Dorcas had made for them (Acts, ix. 39.).

The imprisonment of Peter, and his deliverance by the Angel, were incidents so important, and offer such obvious points of dramatic effect, that they have been treated in every possible variety of style and sentiment, from the simple formality of the early mosaics, where the two figures-Peter sitting on a stool, leaning his head on his hand, and the Angel at his side express the story like a vision 2, down to the scenic and architectural compositions of Steenwick, where, amid a vast perspective of gloomy vaults and pillars, a diminutive St. Peter, with an Angel or a sentinel placed somewhere in the foreground, just serves to give the picture a name.3

1 Louvre, 685.

2 As in the Greek mosaics in the Cathedral of Monreale, near Palermo.

3 Several such pictures are in the royal collections at Windsor and Hampton Court.

VOL. I.

D D

LOR

INE

Some examples of this subject are of great celebrity.

Masaccio, in the frescoes of the Brancacci Chapel, has represented Peter in prison, looking through his grated window, and Paul outside communing with him. (The noble figure of St. Paul in this fresco was imitated by Raphael in the "St. Paul preaching at Athens.") In the next compartment of the series, Masaccio has given us the Angel leading forth Peter, while the guard sleeps at the door: he sleeps as one oppressed with an unnatural sleep. Raphael's fresco in the Vatican is not one of his best, but he has seized on the obvious point of effect, both as to light and grouping; and we have three separate moments of the same incident, which yet combine most happily into one grand scene. Thus in the centre, over the window, we see through a grating the interior of the prison, where St. Peter is sleeping between two guards, who, leaning on their weapons, are sunk in a deep charmed slumber 1; an angel, whose celestial radiance fills the dungeon with a flood of light, is in the act of waking the apostle: on the right of the spectator, the angel leads the apostle out of the prison; two guards are sleeping on the steps on the left, the soldiers are roused from sleep, and one with a lighted torch appears to be giving the alarm; the crescent moon faintly illumines the background.

The deliverance of St. Peter has always been considered as figurative of the deliverance of the Church; and the two other frescoes of this room, the Heliodorus and the Attila, bear the same interpretation. It is worth while to compare this dramatic composition of Raphael with others wherein the story is merely a vehicle for artificial effects of light, as in a picture by Gerard Honthorst; or treated like a supernatural vision, as by that poet, Rembrandt.

Those historical subjects in which St. Peter and St. Paul figure together will be noticed in the life of St. Paul.

I come now to the legendary stories connected with St. Peter; inexhaustible source of popular and pictorial interest.

an

Moore makes a characteristic remark on this fresco: he is amazed at the self-denial of the painter who could cross this fine group with the black iron bars which represent the prison.