Sacred and legendary art, volume 1 (of 2): Containing legends of the angels and archangels, the evangelists, the Apostles, the doctors of the church, and St. Mary magdalene, as represented in the fine arts.Jameson, Mrs. (Anna)
Religion
Sacred and legendary art, volume 1 (of 2): Containing legends of the angels and archangels, the evangelists, the Apostles, the doctors of the church, and St. Mary magdalene, as represented in the fine arts.
Jameson, Mrs. (Anna)
Christian art and symbolism; Christian saints in art
Pictures from the life of St. James singly, or as a series, are not
common; but among those which remain to us there are several of great
beauty and interest.
In the series of frescoes painted in a side chapel of the church of St.
Antony of Padua (A.D. 1376), once called the Capella di San Giacomo,
and now San Felice, the old legend of St. James has been exactly
followed; and though ruined in many parts, and in others coarsely
repainted, these works remain as compositions amongst the most curious
monuments of the _Trecentisti_. It appears that, towards the year
1376, Messer Bonifacio de’ Lupi da Parma, Cavaliere e Marchese di
Serana, who boasted of his descent from the Queen Lupa of the legend,
dedicated this chapel to St. James of Spain (San Jacopo di Galizia),
and employed M. Jacopo Avanzi to decorate it, who no doubt bestowed his
best workmanship on his patron saint. The subjects are thus arranged,
beginning with the lunette on the left hand, which is divided into
three compartments:
1. Hermogenes sends Philetus to dispute with St. James. 2. St. James in
his pulpit converts Philetus. 3. Hermogenes sends his demons to bind
St. James and Philetus. 4. Hermogenes brought bound to St. James. 5.
He burns his books of magic. 6. Hermogenes and Philetus are conversing
in a friendly manner with St. James. 7. St. James is martyred. 8. The
arrival of his body in Spain in a marble ship steered by an angel. 9.
The disciples lay the body on a rock, while Queen Lupa and her sister
and another personage look on from a window in her palace. Then follow
two compartments on the side where the window is broken out, much
ruined; they represented apparently the imprisonment of the disciples.
12. The disciples escape and are pursued, and their pursuers with their
horses are drowned. 13. The wild bulls draw the sarcophagus into the
court of Queen Lupa’s palace. 14. Baptism of Lupa. 15 and 16 (lower
compartments to the left): St. Jago appears to King Ramirez, and the
defeat of the Moors at Clavijo.
* * * * *
There is a rare and curious print by Martin Schoen, in which the
apparition of St. James at Clavijo is represented not in the Spanish
but the German style. It is an animated composition of many figures.
The saint appears on horseback in the midst, wearing his pilgrim’s
dress, with the cockle-shell in his hat: the Infidels are trampled
down, or fly before him.
[Illustration: 78 The miracle of the Fowls (Lo Spagna)]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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