The =Nave= has the usual overloaded 17th century _pulpit_, with Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. I have only briefly enumerated the principal contents; but you will find much more that is interesting for yourself if you spend an hour or two longer in examining the Cathedral. _C_. THE PICTURE GALLERY [The chief object of interest at Antwerp, even more important than the Cathedral itself, is the =Picture Gallery=, regally housed in a magnificent Museum at the S. end of the town. The building alone might make Trafalgar Square blush, if Trafalgar Square had a blush left in it. To this collection you should devote at least two or three mornings. [Illustration: THE PICTURE GALLERY, ANTWERP. Modern Pictures in the Rooms marked with an Italic capital.] The Antwerp Gallery contains in its palatial rooms a large number of =Flemish pictures=, many of them collected from the suppressed Churches and Monasteries of the city. (Remember that they were painted for such situations, not to be seen in Museums.) You will here have an opportunity of observing a few good pictures of the =early Flemish School=, and especially of improving your slight acquaintance with =Roger van der Weyden=, one of whose loveliest works is preserved in the gallery. You will also see at least one admirable example of =Quentin Matsys=, as well as several fine works of the Transitional School between the early and the later Flemish periods. But the special glory of the Antwerp Museum is its great collection of =Rubenses=. It is at Antwerp alone, indeed, that you can begin to grasp the greatness of Rubens, as you may grasp it afterwards at Munich and Vienna. I do not say you will love him: I will not pretend to love him myself: but you may at least understand him. This, then, is the proper place in which to consider briefly the position of Rubens in Flemish Art. From the days of the Van Eycks to those of Gerard David, painting in the Low Countries had followed a strictly _national_ line of development. Its growth was organic and internal. With Quentin Matsys, and still more with Bernard van Orley, Pourbus, and the rest, the influence of the _Italian Renaissance_ had begun to interfere with the native current of art in the Low Countries. It was Rubens who finally transformed Flemish painting by adopting to a certain extent the grandiose style of the later Italian and especially the Venetian Masters, at the same time that he transfused it with local feeling and with the private mark of his own superabundant and vigorous individuality.