aller empescher que le corps de lad[icte] dame ne soit mis au monument. Les Juifs s'efforcent mectre la main au corps de la Vierge Marie pour l'oster aux apostres, et incontinant les mains leurs demeurent seiches et sont aveuglez par le feu que leur gectent les anges. Belzeray meetant les mains a la lectiere ou l'on porte la Vierge Marie et ses mains demeurent atachées a lad[icte] lectiere, et se geetent sur eulx force feu en maniere de fouldre, et doivent cheoir à terre les Juifs aveuglés.

"Les mains de Bellezeray doivent estre detachees et rejoinctes a ses bras, puis luy est baillée la palme qu'il porte aux autres dont ceulx qui voulurent croire furent illuminez, puis rapporta lad[icte] palme.” *

In the sculptured panel from Notre Dame (Fig. 230) we see the figure of the Jewish prince represented, first as

* See Annales Archéol. vol. xiii. p. 135. The costumes were generally those of the period in which the play was enacted. The Christ was dressed as a pontiff in papal tiara, wearing a rich tunic studded with VOL. II

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laying hands on the Virgin's coffin; and, again, as maimed and prostrate, while his hands are seen fastened to the pall. Such examples of the mutual relations of the drama and sculpture of the Middle Ages are of extreme interest. We should study such works as these medieval stage directions, published by Didron and his friends in the Annales Archéologiques,* scene by scene, to compare the details of each furnished by them with the representations of similar subjects in painting and sculpture, if we would learn how far the grouping, scenic effect, and dramatic action of the whole scene may have been influenced by these performances, which had descended from the Greek to the medieval stage. Also, when examining as to what were the influences at work that aroused Italian art, in the time of Giotto, and his school, from the death sleep of Byzantine formalism, may we not attribute much of the inspiration of the thirteenth and following centuries to the drama. The artists who witnessed at Florence the performance of the "Electra" of Sophocles by Alessandra Scala,† may have felt in this embodiment of noble womanhood, much as did the scholars and artists of Ireland in 1835, when the "Antigone" of Sophocles was represented for them by Helen Faucit. Their scholarship received an impetus, and their genius was warmed at sight of living passion infused into forms which before had but faintly been associated with the idea of life. "With the writings,' they said, "of the Grecian dramatists, it is true, we have long been familiar; but their power and their beauty have come down to us through books alone. 'Mute and motionless' that drama has heretofore stood before us; you, madam, have given it voice, gesture, life; you have

pearls, and with stole and pastoral staff, while in the scenes of the Nativity the Magi wore the costly dress of the knights and merchants of the time, rare foreign stuffs and velvet coats trimmed with fur, while the ordinary wore the costumes of citizens and peasants with pointed shoes and head-circlets of tinkling bells, all of which details are to be seen repeated in the miniatures of the early French and Italian MSS. * Annales Archéol. vol. viii. pp. 272, 274.

See Walker, Drama in Italy, p. 49. In the person of Leo Baptista Alberti we find one who was dramatist, painter, sculptor and architect. His comedy of "Philodoxeos" appeared in his twentieth year. See Walker, ib. p. 32.

realized the genius and embodied the inspirations of the authors and of the artists of early Greece, and have thus encouraged and instructed the youth of Ireland in the study of their immortal works." *

So, mute and motionless, stood the Christian drama also, and its long lines of angels, saints and martyrs, had for centuries looked out with their fixed gaze from the walls and domes of their solemn basilicas, till a like vivifying and invigorating influence was brought to bear upon its

art.

* See Essays on the Drama Theodore Martin, p. 26.

MEDIEVAL ART AND THE ANTIQUE.

In the discussions carried on by some writers in the present day as to the attitude of medieval Christian art in the presence of the antique, it has been asked whether the study of nature and of the antique, which were two factors in the art of the Renaissance, were not opposing influences in the beginning, however they may have, in the end, combined to produce great results; whether, at first, the studies of nature and the antique were not as rival forces confusing the artist and marring his work. When we follow the history of the gradual development of art, the signs of such opposition between the two styles seem to disappear; and the more we learn of art before Dante, the less reason we have for believing in the existence of these hard and fast lines between heathen and Christian mythography. We have seen in the course of this work how, in the texts of the Speculum Humanæ Salvationis and Biblia Pauperum, tales from heathen mythology were taken as types of Christian virtues-contemplation, fortitube, moral strife, and self-sacrifice. Christ Himself borrows the image of the Good Shepherd from a heathen writer, and St. Paul finds in the Isthmian games an image of the Christian course. So it was with the iconography of the first Christian period. In the lives of the four sculptor-saints, Claude, Castory, Symphorian, Nicostratus, we find them working at genii, amorini, victories, &c. In early Christian places of worship, Orpheus, Psyche, Deucalion, Hermes, Ulysses, are seen side by side with Christian symbols and figures. In fact, one system of iconography appeared to dovetail into the other, and the use of certain heathen images was never wholly abandoned, even down to the time of Dante.

In the illuminated manuscripts, even of the tenth

century, classic influences are seen to linger, and the miniature painter will dwell as fondly as Mantegna himself, on antique bas-reliefs, sarcophagi, and architecture, and occasionally caryatide, or figures of naked warriors; but these are always treated as accessories, and kept in the background. In an illuminated manuscript of the eleventh century, "Sermons on the Festivals of the Virgin," mythological personifications of rivers are constantly occurring; in fact, such images never disappeared from Byzantine art.

Lingering traditions of pagan mythology are constantly appearing on the church walls in the monasteries of Mount Athos, and elsewhere in Greece, as well as in Ravenna. Thus, in the refectory of Vatopédi, we see the name Charon inscribed under the image of Death: the figure resembles a skeleton, although the bones are still covered by a shrunken skin. He holds a sickle in his right hand, and a scythe in the left. We have seen an illustration of a portion of mosaic, dating, according to Ciampini, from the year 314, which formed part of the pavement above referred to, in the Church at Pavia, dedicated by Constantine to St. Michael in Ticino, and thus described by Ciampini (Vet. Mon. Tab. 11, fig. 2).

"In this part, then, another tesselated work is seen, and it is seen in the pavement of the church of St. Michael Ticinus, in Ticino; an example of it has been made known to us by the most illustrious and reverend Don Franciscus Bellisomus, which he says he received from Don Marcellinus, ruler of the church of St. Nicolas, Moneta. To these men I acknowledge my obligation for their singular desire to enrich this collection of mine, a desire made known to me by such proofs. At what time this mosaic was made it is hard to find out.

"Carolus Sigonius, a celebrated writer of the last century, in the third book of his History of the Western Empire to the Year 314, says that by popular report the Emperor Constantine the Great, after gaining a victory over the Franks, built that temple. Accordingly by this simple disclosure of a report, the time of the building of the temple is made doubtful. It is certain, however, that there is to be seen there a tesselated pavement made in a rude fashion, in which we see images both sacred and profane. In the midst of it are circles of various sizes, which form the middle part of the labyrinth, in the centre of which the well-known story of Theseus* slaying the Minotaur is represented, as the writing itself makes known, which says:

*See Ciampini, Veter. Mon. tom. ii. pl. ii. See Ann. Archéol. vol. xv. p. 231; vol. xvii. pp. 69-193.