III Of Certain Patron Saints, Who Are Commonly Grouped Together in Works of Art, or Who Belong to Particular Countries, Cities, or Localities
While such assemblages of holy persons as are found grouped together in devotional pictures are to be considered as quite independent of chronology, we shall find that the selection has been neither capricious nor arbitrary, and, with a little consideration, we shall discover the leading idea in the mind of the artist that, at least, which was intended to be conveyed to the mind of the spectator, and which was much more intelligible in former times than it is now.
Sometimes we find certain saints placed in companionship, because they are the joint patrons and protectors of the city or locality for which the picture was painted. Thus in the Bologna pictures we constantly find the bishop St. Petronius, St. Eloy, St. Dominick, and the warrior St. Proculus; while in the Venetian pictures we have perpetual St. Marks, St. Georges, and St. Catherines.
Or, secondly, they are connected by kindred powers and attributes. Thus we find St. Sebastian, the patron against pestilence, in company with St. Roch, who ministered to the sick of the plague. Thus St. Catherine and St. Jerome, the two patrons of school theology, are often found in companionship. Where St. Catherine and St. Barbara are found together, the first figures as patroness of the ecclesiastical, and the second of the military, power—or they represent respectively the contemplative and the active life.
Or, thirdly, they are combined in the fancy by some inevitable association; as St. Augustine and St. Stephen are often in the same picture, because St. Augustine dedicated some of his most eloquent works to the glory of the martyr.
Or they were friends on earth, for which reason St. Cyprian and St. Cornelius are placed together.
Or their relics repose in the same spot; whence St. Stephen and St. Laurence have become almost inseparable. When St. Vincent and St. Laurence are placed together, (as in a lovely composition of Parmigiana where they sit reading out of the same book,) it is because of the similarity of their fate, and that the popular tradition supposed them to be brothers.
A point of more general importance, and capable of more definite explanation, is the predominance of certain sacred personages in particular schools of Art. St. Cosmo and St. Damian, for instance, are perpetually recurring in the Florentine pictures as the patron saints of the Medici family. In the Lombard pictures St. Ambrose is often found without his compeers—not as doctor of the Church, but as bishop of Milan. In the Siena pictures, we may look for the nun St. Catherine of Siena, and St. Ansano, the apostle of the Sienese, holding his banner and palm. And in the Augustine chapels and churches, St. Augustine figures, not as doctor of the Church, but as patriarch of the Order.
A bishop-martyr, holding his palm, and not otherwise designated either by name or attribute, would be—in one if Perugino’s pictures, St. Ercolano or St. Costanzo; in a Florentine picture, St. Donato or St. Romulo; if the picture were painted in the March of Ancona, it would probably be St. Apollinaris of Ravenna; at Naples it would be St. Januarius; at Paris, or in a picture painted for a French church, of which there are many in Italy, it would be St. Denis; and in German prints, St. Boniface or St. Lambert. I need not further multiply examples.
If the locality from which the picture came will sometimes determine the names of the personages, so the personages represented will often explain the purpose and intended situation of the picture. There is in Lord Ashburton’s gallery a noble group representing together St. Peter, St. Leonard, St. Martha, and Mary Magdalene. Such a combination points it out at once as intended for a charitable institution, and, on enquiry, we find that it was painted for the chapel of a brotherhood associated to redeem prisoners, to ransom slaves, to work for the poor, and to convert the sinner to repentance. Many such interesting and instructive analogies will be pointed out in the course of the following pages, and the observer of works of Art will discover others for himself.
I add here, in alphabetical order, those countries and localities of which the patron saints are distinguished in works of Art.[6]
Ancona: St. Cyriacus, Bishop; and his mother Anna, Martyr.
Arezzo: St. Donato, Bishop.
Asti, Novara, and all through the cities of Piedmont and the north of Italy, we find the Warrior, St. Maurice, and his companions St. Secundus, St. Alexander, and the other Martyrs of the Theban Legion.
Augsburg: St. Ulrich, Bishop; St. Afra, Martyr.
Austria: St. Leopold, St. Stephen, St. Maximilian, St. Coloman.
Bamberg: St. Henry and St. Cunegunda, Emperor and Empress.
Barcelona: St. Eulalia, Martyr. (In Spanish pictures only.)
Bavaria: St. George, Martyr.
Bergamo: St. Alexander, Warrior; St. Grata, Widow.
Bohemia: St. John Nepomuck, Priest; St. Wenceslaus, King; St. Ludmilla, Queen; St. Vitus, young Martyr; St. Procopius, Hermit.
Bologna: St. Petronius, Bishop; St. Dominick, Friar; St. Proculus, Warrior Martyr; St. Eloy (Eligio), Bishop and Smith.
Brescia: St. Faustinus and Jovita; St. Julia, St. Afra, Martyrs.
Bruges: St. John the Baptist.
Burgundy: St. Andrew, Apostle.
Cologne: The Three Kings; St. Ursula, Virgin Martyr; St. Gereon, Warrior Martyr.
Como: St. Abbondio, Bishop.
Cortona: St. Margaret, Nun and Penitent.
Cremona: St. Omobuono, Secular Habit.
Ferrara: St. Geminiano, Bishop; St. George, Martyr; St. Barbara, Martyr.
Fiesole: St. Romolo, Bishop.
Florence: St. John the Baptist; St. Zenobio, St. Antonino, Bishops; St. Reparata, Virgin Martyr; St. Cosmo and Damian (the Apothecary Saints, especial patrons of the Medici family); St. Verdiana, Nun; St. Miniato, Warrior.
France: St. Michael, Angel; St. Dionysius (Denis), Bishop; St. Geneviève, Virgin; St. Martin, Bishop.
Genoa: St. George, St. Laurence, Martyrs.
Ghent: St. Bavon, Prince and Hermit.
Grenoble: St. Hugh the Carthusian.
Ireland: St. Patrick, Bishop; St. Bridget, Abbess.
Lucca: St. Martin, Bishop; St. Frediano, Priest; St. Zita, Virgin.
Liege: St. Hubert, Bishop and Huntsman; St. Lambert, Bishop.
Madrid: St. Isidore, Labourer; St. Dominick, Friar; (Patron of the Escurial, St. Laurence).
Mantua: St. Andrew; St. Barbara; St. George and St. Longinus, Warrior Saints.
Marseilles and all Provence: St. Lazarus; St. Mary Magdalen; St. Martha; St. Marcella.
Messina: St. Agatha, Martyr.
Milan: St. Ambrose, Bishop and Doctor; St. Gervasius and St. Protasius, Martyrs; St. Maurice, St. Victor, Warriors.
Modena: St. Geminiano, Bishop. (In Pictures of the Correggio School.)
Naples: St. Januarius, Martyr.
Novara: St. Gaudenzio, Bishop.
Nuremburg: St. Laurence, Martyr; St. Sebald, Pilgrim and Hermit. (The latter an important person in pictures and prints of the Albert Dürer school.)
Padua: St. Anthony of Padua, Friar.
Paris: St. Geneviève, Virgin; St. Germain, Bishop; St. Hippolitus, Martyr.
Parma: St. John, B.; St. Thomas the Apostle; St. Bernard, Monk; St. Hilary (Ilario), Bishop.
Perugia: St. Ercolano and St. Costanzo, Bishops.
Piacenza: St. Justina, Martyr; St. Antoninus, Warrior (Theban Legion).
Piedmont and Savoy: St. John, B.; St. Maurice and St. George, Warriors; St. Amadeus, King.
Pisa: St. Ranieri, Hermit; St. Torpé, Warrior; St. Ephesus and St. Potita, Warriors. (These only in the ancient Pisan school.)
Ravenna: St. Appolinaris, Bishop.
Rimini: St. Juliana, Martyr. (A young saint, popular all through the north and down the east coast of Italy.)
Seville: St. Leander, Bishop; St. Justina, St. Rufina, Sisters and Martyrs. (These are only found in Spanish pictures.)
Sicily: St. Vitus, Martyr; St. Rosalia, Recluse (Palermo); St. Agatha (Messina), St. Lucia (Syracuse), Martyrs.
Siena: St. Ansano, Martyr; St. Catherine of Siena, Nun; St. Bernardino, Friar.
Thuringia and all that part of Saxony: St. Elizabeth of Hungary; St. Boniface, Bishop.
Toledo: St. Ildefonso, Bishop; and St. Leocadia, Martyr. (Only in Spanish pictures.)
Treviso: St. Liberale, Warrior.
Turin: St. John the Baptist; St. Maurice, Warrior.
Umbria: All through this region and the eastern coast of Italy, very important in respect to Art, the favourite saints are—St. Nicholas, Bishop; St. Francis of Assisi, Friar; St. Clara, Nun; St. Julian, Martyr; and St. Catherine, Virgin Martyr.
Valencia: St. Vincent, Martyr.
Venice: St. Mark, Apostle; St. George, St. Theodore, Warriors; St. Nicholas, Bishop; St. Catherine, St. Christina, Virgin Martyrs.
Vercelli: St. Eusebius, Bishop; St. Thronestus, Warrior (Theban Legion).
Verona: St. Zeno, Bishop; St. Fermo, Martyr; St. Euphemia, Martyr.
Votive Pictures are those which have been dedicated in certain religious edifices, in fulfilment of vows; either as the expression of thanksgiving for blessings which have been vouchsafed, or propitiative against calamities to be averted. The far greater number of these pictures commemorate an escape from danger, sickness, death; and more especially, some visitation of the plague, that terrible and frequent scourge of the middle ages. The significance of such pictures is generally indicated by the presence of St. Sebastian or St. Roch, the patrons against the plague; or St. Cosmo and St. Damian, the healing and medical saints; accompanied by the patron saints of the country or locality, if it be a public act of devotion; or, if dedicated by private or individual piety, the donor kneels, presented by his own patron saint. In general, though not always, this expressive group is arranged in attendance on the enthroned Madonna and her divine Son, as the universal protectors from all evil. Such pictures are among the most interesting and remarkable of the works of sacred Art which remain to us, and have often a pathetic and poetical beauty, and an historical significance, which it is a chief purpose of these volumes to interpret and illustrate.