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
On the road from Spoleto to Foligno, about four miles from Spoleto,
there is a small chapel dedicated to St. James of Galizia. The frescoes
representing the miracles of the saint were painted by Lo Spagna (A.D.
1526), the friend and fellow pupil of Raphael. In the vault of the
apsis is the Coronation of the Virgin; she kneels, attired in white
drapery flowered with gold, and the whole group, though inferior in
power, appeared to me in delicacy and taste far superior to the fresco
of Fra Filippo Lippi at Spoleto, from which Passavant thinks it is
borrowed.[213] Immediately under the Coronation, in the centre, is a
figure of St. James as patron saint, standing with his pilgrim’s staff
in one hand, and the Gospel in the other; his dress is a yellow tunic
with a blue mantle thrown over it. In the compartment on the left, the
youth is seen suspended on the gibbet, while St. James with his hands
under his feet sustains him; the father and mother look up at him with
astonishment. In the compartment to the right, we see the judge seated
at dinner, attended by his servants, one of whom is bringing in a dish:
the two pilgrims appear to have just told their story, and the cock and
hen have risen up in the dish (78). These frescoes are painted with
great elegance and animation, and the story is told with much naïveté.
I found the same legend painted on one of the lower windows of the
church of St. Ouen, and on a window of the right-hand aisle in St.
Vincent’s at Rouen.
Of ST. JOHN, who is the fifth in the series, I have spoken at large
under the head of the Evangelists.
ST. PHILIP.
_Ital._ San Filippo Apostolo. _Fr._ Saint Philippe. Patron of Brabant
and Luxembourg. May 1.
Of St. Philip there are few notices in the Gospel. He was born at
Bethsaida, and he was one of the first of those whom our Lord summoned
to follow him. After the ascension, he travelled into Scythia, and
remained there preaching the Gospel for twenty years; he then preached
at Hieropolis in Phrygia, where he found the people addicted to the
worship of a monstrous serpent or dragon, or of the god Mars under that
form. Taking compassion on their blindness, the apostle commanded the
serpent, in the name of the cross he held in his hand, to disappear,
and immediately the reptile glided out from beneath the altar, at the
same time emitting such a hideous stench, that many people died, and
among them the king’s son fell dead in the arms of his attendants: but
the apostle, by Divine power, restored him to life. Then the priests of
the dragon were incensed against him, and they took him, and crucified
him, and being bound on the cross they stoned him; thus he yielded up
his spirit to God, praying, like his Divine Master, for his enemies and
tormentors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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