Pisa in the 1840s

Unknown Photographer

View of Pisa from San Piero a Grado 

c. 1845

Daguerrotype

84XT.1580.3

The Getty Museum, Los Angeles

In his historic daguerrotype, the maker of the work placed his apparatus on the campanile of San Piero a Grado  four kilometres from the centre of Pisa to produce a historical document 

The Pisa depicted  cannot be seen today.

During the Second World War the city was heavily bombed includng the campanile from which the daguerreotype was taken

From its great vantage point on the coast, a viewer on  the top of the campanile could see all the way on the Italian coast from Piombino all along the Tuscan coast to the Ligurian towns of the Cinque Terre

In January 1845 Charles Dickens took his wife to Rome via Pisa He was rather disappointed by The Leaning Tower but was otherwise impressed by the other sights

In Pictures From Italy - 1846, he wrote:

"The moon was shining when we approached Pisa, and for a long time we could see, behind the wall, the leaning Tower, all awry in the uncertain light; the shadowy original of the old pictures in school-books, setting forth 'The Wonders of the World.' Like most things connected in their first associations with school-books and school-times, it was too small. I felt it keenly. It was nothing like so high above the wall as I had hoped. 

It was another of the many deceptions practised by Mr. Harris, Bookseller, at the corner of St. Paul's Churchyard, London. HIS Tower was a fiction, but this was a reality - and, by comparison, a short reality. Still, it looked very well, and very strange, and was quite as much out of the perpendicular as Harris had represented it to be. 

The quiet air of Pisa too; the big guard-house at the gate, with only two little soldiers in it; the streets with scarcely any show of people in them; and the Arno, flowing quaintly through the centre of the town; were excellent. So, I bore no malice in my heart against Mr. Harris (remembering his good intentions), but forgave him before dinner, and went out, full of confidence, to see the Tower next morning.  

I might have known better; but, somehow, I had expected to see it, casting its long shadow on a public street where people came and went all day. It was a surprise to me to find it in a grave retired place, apart from the general resort, and carpeted with smooth green turf. 

But, the group of buildings, clustered on and about this verdant carpet: comprising the Tower, the Baptistery, the Cathedral, and the Church of the Campo Santo: is perhaps the most remarkable and beautiful in the whole world; and from being clustered there, together, away from the ordinary transactions and details of the town, they have a singularly venerable and impressive character. It is the architectural essence of a rich old city, with all its common life and common habitations pressed out, and filtered away."

Here we see another daguerreotype of the city taken in 1844 of the riverfront in the heart of the city again by an unknown French or Italian photographer

It was taken from the front of the Hotel of the Three Damsels (la Locanda delle Tre Donzelle) in what is now Piazza Giuseppe Garibaldi

Unknown photographer

View of Pisa along the River front

c. May 1844

Daguerrotype

Half plate

84.XT. 265.20

The Getty Museum, Los Angeles

From Roman times, the city of Pisa has occupied an important place in the history of Western Christianity

In 1409 the Council of Pisa was held in the city which was the beginning of the Western Schism

It has been said :

"The Pisan synod marks an epoch in the history of Western Christendom not so much on account of what it actually accomplished as because it was the first revolt in council against the theory of papal absolutism which had been accepted for centuries. 

It followed the ideas of Gerson and Langenstein, namely, that the Church is the Church even without the presence of a pope, and that an oecumenical council is legitimate which meets not only in the absence of his assent but in the face of his protest. 

Representing intellectually the weight of the Latin world and the larger part of its constituency, the assembly was a momentous event leading in the opposite direction from the path laid out by Hildebrand, Innocent III., and their successors. It was a mighty blow at the old system of Church government."

Pastor, Geschichte der Papste, etc 4th ed., 1901–1906  I. 192, speaks of the unholy Pisan synod—segenslose Pisaner Synode. He opens his treatment with a discourse on the primacy of the papacy, dating from Peter, and the sole right of the pope to call a council. The cardinals who called it usurped an authority which did not belong to them.

L Salembier Le grand schisme d’ Occident, Paris, 1900, 3d ed., 1907. Engl. trans., London, 1907 

regarded the survival of the papacy as a proof of its divine origin. 

At p. 395, he says, "The history of the great Schism would have dealt a mortal blow to the papacy if Christ’s promises had not made it immortal."

Salembier described 15th century Pisa (like 19th century Pisa) as a city which had lost its former glory, had seemed to totter ready to fall and near ruin. However she had prmises of life eternal and would soon celebrate the triumph of life over death

In 1989 Saint John Paul II visited the city on a pastoral visit and referred to the history of Pisa and in particular to its association with the history of the Christian faith and its mission. He referred to the city as being touched by the hand of God, perhaps overlooking the events of 1409

He  said:

"Chiesa che vivi in Pisa, ripensa alla tua storia nella luce che ti viene da questa Parola di Dio! Fin dagli inizi dell’era cristiana i tuoi padri sono stati oggetto di una scelta di predilezione da parte di Dio: se non Pietro stesso, sicuramente i primi suoi discepoli sono approdati alla foce dell’Arno per recarti la “buona notizia” del Vangelo. 

Tu allora sei nata: alle tue origini c’è un’iniziativa d’amore di Dio. 

I tuoi padri hanno saputo corrispondere generosamente al patto d’alleanza, che Dio stabilì allora con essi. I frutti di tale corrispondenza sono descritti negli annali della tua storia e sono evocati da questa fioritura di opere d’arte che tutto il mondo ti invidia."

Saint Agnes of Rome

David Gauld (1865 - 1936)

Saint Agnes

1889–1890

Oil on canvas

61.3 x 35.8 cm

National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh

Gauld was a good friend of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and had studied part-time at Glasgow School of Art.

He designed for stained-glass windows and one can see there is a glass design or tapestry quality to this work

One of the "Glasgow Boys", one can see the influence of Japanese painting and the pre-Raphaelites

The painting was shown at the Munich (Glaspalast) International Exhibition of 1890

It was exhibited there with his work "Music in Japan" which is now in The Hunterian Museum at The University of Glasgow

Saint Agnes  was sold to the influential art dealer Alexander Reid,  friend and model of James Abbott McNeill Whistler and Vincent van Gogh

The work has been described as "an extraordinary anticipation of Art Nouveau"

This was not Gauld`s first work or the last on the theme of St Agnes. In 1889, he finished The Procession of St Agnes:

David Gauld (1865 - 1936)

The Procession of Saint Agnes

c 1893

Oil on canvas

90.8 by 76.2 cm

Private collection

St Agnes, the early Christian martyr who at the age of thirteen refused an arranged marriage, was executed in AD 304 

She became the patron saint of young girls and the subject of a famous poem by John Keats. 

St Agnes Eve, 20-21 January, was a time of celebration when young women could, according to legend, foretell their future husbands

It was contrary to Roman law to put a virgin to death. 

The death caused a scandal to the Roman populace  of the time. The leaders of Rome alleged that it was necessary to kill Christians in order to preserve the old Roman ways. However such acts  undermined their position

The fact that a young girl fortified only by her Chrisian faith was able to meet an unjust death so equably impressed and intrigued the Roman populace. Such testimony led to greater interest in the faith

In Sermon 273, St Augustine noted that in the recitation of names at the altar of Christ, the names of the Martyrs are recited in the most honoured place

A decree from Caesar Augustus

John Siferwas (c.1360 -  c.1430)

Historiated initial of Caesar Augustus issuing an edict, with courtiers, at the beginning of the reading for Christmas with a passage from the Gospel of Luke (2:1-14): 'And it came to pass that in those days there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled . . .'

From The Lovell Lectionary

Between c. 1400 and c. 1410

Harley 7026   f. 5  

The British Library, London

John,  the fifth Lord Lovell of Tichmersh (near Thrapston in Northamptonshire), (d 1408) commissioned the Lectionary  as a gift to Salisbury Cathedral

The work was commissioned for the benefit of his soul and that of his wife. The text prays:

'Orate pro anima domini iohannis lovell qui hunc librum orinavit ecclesie cathedrali Sarum pro speciali memoria sui et uxoris`

His wife was Maud de Holand (d. 1423)

He commissioned Siferwas,  a Dominican friar

Here we see Lovell receving the book from the artist:

Harley 7026   f. 4v

This work  is why Siferwas  is credited with having painted the earliest naturalistic self-portrait in England.

Here we see that fourteenth-century manuscripts were actually executed in England by  English artists using an English variation of an International artistic style: the International Gothic

Siferwas is the first English illuminator whose career can be followed to some extent through documentary references and signed works.

He was ordained an acolyte at Farnham in 1380, and went on to enter the Dominican friary at Guildford.

He was ordained a priest in London in 1382 and he probably trained as an artist there. All his known work was done for religious houses in the south-west of England.

His most important manuscript is the Sherborne missal (c.1405, BL, London), a very large and sumptuous book made for Sherborne Abbey, Dorset. It is a masterpiece of the International Gothic style

In 1427 he seems to have been resident in Somerset

His personal motto was: `Soli deo honor et gloria'

In those times the lectio or reading of Scripture was not a straightforward process

First the passage was read literally, in its historical context, the Literal or Historical sense.

Second, the passage was taken to have a symbolic meaning, the Typological or Allegorical sense.

Then the spiritual meaning was discerned in terms of moral behaviour, the Moral or Tropological Sense followed by the Eschatological, Mystical or Unitive Sense that incites hope for transforming union in this life and final fulfilment in the beatific vision. See Michael Casey. The Art of Sacred Reading. North Blackburn: Dove, 1995, 54.

The passage in Luke describes how an edict came from the most important and powerful man in the known civilised world: the Roman emperor and his acolytes are depicted in 15th Century dress

It was to be enrolled in obedience to the edict  that Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem.

On the left we see half naked king beseeching mother and child in the afterlife. A parable like Dives et Lazarus

Visually we see the key role Mary played in human redemption.

We see the Annunciation. Mary is at the heart of the process of the IncarnationL how the Word became flesh

She has an ornate crown on her head and a glowing sun at her heart, reminiscent of the woman clothed with the sun with a crown of twelve stars on her head described in the Book of Revelation (Rev 12:11)

A male and female peacock symbolising light, immortality and the joy of the afterlife give expression to human hope.

As depicted six hundred years ago, may you have a holy and blessed Christmas

Vasari and The Immaculate Conception

Giorgio Vasari (1512-1574)

The Immaculate Conception 

1541

Oil on panel

Santi Apostoli, Florence

Giorgio Vasari (1512-1574)

The Immaculate Conception

Brown ink and wash, blank ink and pencil on parchment

51.8 x 35.7 cm

Musée du Louvre, Paris (D.A.G)

The artist said of this work:

"In October, then, of the year 1540, I began the altar-picture for Messer Bindo, proposing to paint in it a scene that should represent the Conception of Our Lady, according to the title of the chapel; which subject presenting no little difficulty to me, Messer Bindo and I took the opinions of many common friends, men of learning, and finally I executed it in the following manner.  

Having depicted the Tree of the Primal Sin in the middle of the picture, I painted at its roots Adam and Eve naked and bound, as the first transgressors of the commandment of God, and then one by one, bound to the other branches, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, David, and the other Kings in succession, according to the order of time; all, I say, bound by both arms, excepting Samuel and John the Baptist, who are bound by one arm only, because they were blessed in the womb.  

I painted there, also, with the tail wound about the trunk of the Tree, the Ancient Serpent, who, having a human form from the middle upwards, has the hands bound behind; and upon his head, treading upon his horns, is one foot of the glorious Virgin, who has the other on a Moon, being herself all clothed with the Sun, and crowned with twelve stars.  

The Virgin, I say, is supported in the air, within a Splendour, by many nude little Angels, who are illumined by the rays that come from her; which rays, likewise, passing through the leaves of the Tree, shed light upon those bound to it, and appear to be loosing their bonds by means of the virtue and grace that they bring from her from whom they proceed. 

And in the heaven, at the top of the picture, are two children that are holding certain scrolls, in which are written these words: QUOS EVAE CULPA DAMNAVIT, MARIAE GRATIA SOLVIT. [Those whom the fault of Eve damned, the grace of Mary saved] 

In short, so far as I can remember, I had not executed any work up to that time with more study or with more lovingness and labour; but all the same, while I may perhaps have satisfied others, I did not satisfy myself, although I know the time, study, and labour that I devoted to it, particularly to the nudes and heads, and, indeed, to every part. 

For the labours of that picture Messer Bindo gave me three hundred crowns of gold, besides which, in the following year, he showed me so many courtesies and kindnesses in his house in Rome, where I made him a copy of the same altar-piece in a little picture, almost in miniature, that I shall always feel an obligation to his memory. " 

Giorgio Vasari,  Lives of the most eminent painters, sculptors & architects Trans Gaston de Vere 1912 - 15 (Volume  10, pp 185 - 186)

Bindo Altoviti  was a rich Floretine banker who engaged Vasari for the work in the family chapel in the Church of Santi Apostoli in Florence

It is still there in situ

The work was a great success and many copies and replicas were made

The Church itself was founded about 800 and was popularly called Il  Vecchio Duomo

It is situated in Piazza del Limbo

It was called Piazza del Limbo because it used to house a cemetery for neonates who had not been baptised. In The Divine Comedy, Dante refers to it to as a subterranean part of the material world

The work depicts Mary as the New Eve who remedies the evil unleashed through Eve and by her grace is the sine qua non by which the Gates of Heaven are re-opened and the Old Testament saints released from Limbo

Mary is depicted as being so blessed and powerful she is depicted as descending into Limbo itself

This work was the epitome of a new Florentine iconography of The Immaculate Conception which remained popular 

The Scriptural sources are Genesis 3:15 and Revelation 12:1

However references to Limbo and The Harrowing of Hell  also bring to mind the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus

In that Gospel, Christ is the one who descends into Hades to deliver the Patriarchs, not Mary

However in the Gospel reference is made repeatedly to Christ as the breaker of chains, the same designation given by Vasari to Mary

For example

"Ecce iam iste Iesus suae divinitatis fulgore fugat omnes tenebres mortis, et firma ima carceris confregit, et ejecit captivos et solvit vinctos" (Chapter 23)

In this work Mary is shown as defeating the Serpent alone

This was not acceptable and by 1543 Vasari had changed the inscription on another Immaculate Conception (now in Lucca) to:

"Quod Eva tristis abstulit, tu reddis almo germine"

Christ is firmly the Redeemer

In 1572 St Pope Pius V settled the matter and decreed that in iconography of The Immaculate Conception where Mary is shown crushing the head of the Serpent, she must be shown as accompanied by her son, Jesus, the  Redeemer

See also Donal O’Connor, G. Vasari’s Allegory of the Immaculate Conception and its Theological Tensions  in Irish Theological Quarterly, 2000, 65, p. 169-177

Ecce Homo

Hans Hausser von Ach  (1576-1612) 

Ecce Homo

c 1603

Pen and ink (brown) on paper (light buff)

26.0 cm x 34.0 cm

The Courtauld Gallery, London

Rembrandt van Rijn  (1606 - 1669) 

Christ Presented to the People (Ecce Homo)

c 1655

Drypoint, printed in black ink on cream-colored Asiatic wove paper

38.4 x 45.1 cm

The Frick Collection, New York

Christ is presented to the people who clamour for his crucifixion. 

It was Pilate and the Romans who ironically referred to Christ as "King"

"Pilate tried to release him; but the Jews cried out, “If you release him, you are not a Friend of Caesar. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.” 

13 When Pilate heard these words he brought Jesus out and seated him on the judge’s bench in the place called Stone Pavement, in Hebrew, Gabbatha. 

14 It was preparation day for Passover, and it was about noon. And he said to the Jews, “Behold, your king!” 

15 They cried out, “Take him away, take him away! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your king?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” 

16 Then he handed him over to them to be crucified"

(John 19: 12 - 16)

In the New Testament, Christ is referred to as "King of the Jews" by the Magi, Pilate and the Roman soldiers. He is mocked by the Romans. 

On the Cross they affixed the plaque "INRI"  - IESVS·NAZARENVS·REX·IVDÆORVM (Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum)

In Quas Primas (1925), in instituting  the Feast of Christ the King (now called "the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe")  Pope Pius XI wrote:

"[T]his power and dignity of Our Lord [as King] is rightly indicated by Cyril of Alexandria. "Christ," he says, "has dominion over all creatures, a dominion not seized by violence nor usurped, but his by essence and by nature."[In huc. x.] 

 His kingship is founded upon the ineffable hypostatic union. From this it follows not only that Christ is to be adored by angels and men, but that to him as man angels and men are subject, and must recognize his empire; by reason of the hypostatic union Christ has power over all creatures.  

But a thought that must give us even greater joy and consolation is this that Christ is our King by acquired, as well as by natural right, for he is our Redeemer.  

Would that they who forget what they have cost their Savior might recall the words:

"You were not redeemed with corruptible things, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled."[I Pet. i, 18-19] 

We are no longer our own property, for Christ has purchased us "with a great price"[1 Cor. vi, 20];  our very bodies are the "members of Christ."[I Cor. vi, 15] ... 

This kingdom is spiritual and is concerned with spiritual things.  ...  

On many occasions, when the Jews and even the Apostles wrongly supposed that the Messiah would restore the liberties and the kingdom of Israel, he repelled and denied such a suggestion. When the populace thronged around him in admiration and would have acclaimed him King, he shrank from the honour and sought safety in flight. Before the Roman magistrate he declared that his kingdom was not of this world.  

The gospels present this kingdom as one which men prepare to enter by penance, and cannot actually enter except by faith and by baptism, which, though an external rite, signifies and produces an interior regeneration. This kingdom is opposed to none other than to that of Satan and to the power of darkness.  

It demands of its subjects a spirit of detachment from riches and earthly things, and a spirit of gentleness. They must hunger and thirst after justice, and more than this, they must deny themselves and carry the cross."

Guillaume de Digulleville

The Soul of the Pilgrim in the Flames of Purgatory

Miniature from Guillaume de Digulleville Pèlerinage de l'âme

14th century

Bibl. Sainte-Geneviève - ms. 1130, f. 110

Paris

Le Pèlerinage de l'Âme is a fourteenth-century poem written in Old French by Guillaume de Deguileville  (1295 - before 1358)

Guillaume de Deguileville  was a French  Cistercian 

He entered the Cistercian abbey of Chaalis in 1316, at the age of twenty-one.

He  was over 60 years old when writing the Âme. The cloistered monk had not left the monastery grounds for 40 years or more

Le Pèlerinage de l'Âme was one of three long poems which he wrote on the theme of man as a traveller, a pilgrim on the road to the Spiritual Jerusalem: Le Pèlerinage de la vie humaine (1330-31); Le Pèlerinage de l'Âme (1355-58); and Le Pèlerinage de Jésus Christ (1358)

All come to the same conclusion: to reach the Celestial Jerusalem, one must experience Death

The setting is a dream but the theme is the same: How does mortal Man save his Immortal Soul

Deguileville was followed by Chemin de vaillance by Jean de Courcy and Chemin de paradis by  Jean Germain, 

In these works the interest lies not not only in the destination itself but the voyage, the means of getting there

The interior journey

Of Purgatory Pope Benedict XVI wrote in Spe Salvi:

"For the great majority of people—we may suppose—there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God.  

In the concrete choices of life, however, it is covered over by ever new compromises with evil—much filth covers purity, but the thirst for purity remains and it still constantly re-emerges from all that is base and remains present in the soul.  

What happens to such individuals when they appear before the Judge?  

Will all the impurity they have amassed through life suddenly cease to matter? What else might occur?  

Saint Paul, in his First Letter to the Corinthians, gives us an idea of the differing impact of God's judgement according to each person's particular circumstances. He does this using images which in some way try to express the invisible, without it being possible for us to conceptualize these images—simply because we can neither see into the world beyond death nor do we have any experience of it. 

Paul begins by saying that Christian life is built upon a common foundation: Jesus Christ. This foundation endures. If we have stood firm on this foundation and built our life upon it, we know that it cannot be taken away from us even in death.  

Then Paul continues: 

“Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each man's work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire” (1 Cor 3:12-15). 

In this text, it is in any case evident that our salvation can take different forms, that some of what is built may be burned down, that in order to be saved we personally have to pass through “fire” so as to become fully open to receiving God and able to take our place at the table of the eternal marriage-feast."

Blessed Paul - alone and exposed

In 1902, Giorgio Montini, the father of Blessed Pope Paul VI, constructed the monument to the Redeemer (above) on the top of Monte  Guglielmo near Brescia

The future Pope was only five years old when the monument was consecrated on 24 August 1902

The monument was restored and despite its age, the weather and its very exposed position it still stands, lonely and against the hostile elements

Every year in July there is a pilgrimage from Brescia to the monument

The statue to the now beatified Pope Paul VI stands beside his father`s monument (above). 

In his homily at the Mass for the Beatification of Pope Paul VI, Pope Francis said:

"In his humility the grandeur of Blessed Paul VI shines forth: before the advent of a secularized and hostile society, he could hold fast, with farsightedness and wisdom – and at times alone – to the helm of the barque of Peter, while never losing his joy and his trust in the Lord."

Papa Montini died in 1978. In his Audiences of that year you can detect that he knew the end was coming but he was not afraid. Unfortunately the addresses are only in French, Spanish  and Italian on the Vatican website

Likewise with his homilies

His last homily was on 29th June 1978 on the fifteenth anniversary of his election as Pope, on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. It reads like a farewell address. 

He said he was in the sunset of his life and wanted to review what he had done over the last fifteen years and give an accounting of his Pontificate

He said he considered himself the last and most unworthy successor of St Peter but on the threshold of death he felt some comfort 

"by the consciousness of having tirelessly repeated in front of the Church and the world, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" ( Mt. . 16, 16); we, like Paul, we feel we can say, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith" (2 Tim. 4: 7)."

He said that he had two accomplishments: the Protection of the Faith; and the Defence of Human Life

As regards the latter, he cited Gaudium et Spes 51: 

"God is the  Lord of life and has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life!"

In this connection he said that in absolute fidelity to the teachings of the Council he had made the defence of human life in all its forms the central theme of his Pontificate

Of Humanae Vitae ,  he again repeated that the transmission of human life is a most serious role in which married people collaborate freely and responsibly with God the Creator.

He also stressed that the document had become even more urgent and relevant due to the wounds inflicted by State laws on the sanctity of the indissoluble marriage bond and the inviolability of human life from conception

The defence of human life is inextricably linked to Christian marriage: 

"Hence the repeated statements of the doctrine of the Catholic Church on the painful realities and very painful effects of divorce and abortion, which are contained in our ordinary magisterium and in particular acts of the competent Congregation. We have them expressed, moved only by the supreme responsibility of the teacher and of the universal shepherd, and for the good of mankind!"

In the popular mind, Humanae Vitae is about contraception. It is not. It is an encyclical on Christian marriage and the defence of human life in all its forms

At the heart of Humanae Vitae is the following statement:

"[Married] love is above all fully human, a compound of sense and spirit. It is not, then, merely a question of natural instinct or emotional drive. It is also, and above all, an act of the free will, whose trust is such that it is meant not only to survive the joys and sorrows of daily life, but also to grow, so that husband and wife become in a way one heart and one soul, and together attain their human fulfillment. 

It is a love which is total—that very special form of personal friendship in which husband and wife generously share everything, allowing no unreasonable exceptions and not thinking solely of their own convenience. Whoever really loves his partner loves not only for what he receives, but loves that partner for the partner's own sake, content to be able to enrich the other with the gift of himself. 

Married love is also faithful and exclusive of all other, and this until death.  

This is how husband and wife understood it on the day on which, fully aware of what they were doing, they freely vowed themselves to one another in marriage. Though this fidelity of husband and wife sometimes presents difficulties, no one has the right to assert that it is impossible; it is, on the contrary, always honourable and meritorious. The example of countless married couples proves not only that fidelity is in accord with the nature of marriage, but also that it is the source of profound and enduring happiness."

All Saints

Antonio Boselli (c 1496-1536)

Cristo e la gloria di Ognissanti

Christ and the Glory of All the Saints

1514

Oil on panel

140 cm x 210 cm

Basilica di S. Maria Maggiore, Bergamo, Italy

In June 1449, the city Council of Bergamo entrusted the Basilica of S. Maria Maggiore in Bergamo Alto to the Congregazione della Misericordia Maggiore (The Congregation of Greater Mercy), a charitable foundation begun in 1265 and still very much in existence today

At the end of the fifteenth century, the foundation founded a College of Music with a Cappella Musica in the Basilica (Donizetti was a pupil)

Amongst  the works of art the Congregation commissioned was this work by Boselli in 1514 It still is in the Basilica

In the top centre, Christ is  seated in a mandorla surrounded by the Madonna and a host of angels and saints

With one hand he blesses. In the other he holds a book

There are thirty six saints who are depicted

On the right  among the saints depicted are: St. John the Baptist, St. Peter, St. Stephen, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and  St. Mark 

In the centre below Christ  are: Moses, Abraham, St. Gregory the Great and St. Jerome. 

On the left include: St. Catherine of Alexandria, St. Joseph, St. Vincent, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Alexander, San Bernardino, Blessed Guala (Dominican from Bergamo), and S. Proiettizio (a deacon martyr from Bergamo)

In 2010 Pope Benedict XVI said of the Feast of All Saints:

"The Solemnity of All Saints, which we celebrate today, invites us to raise our gaze to Heaven and to meditate on the fullness of the divine life which awaits us. “We are God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be” (1 Jn 3:2): with these words the Apostle John assures us of the reality of our profound relation to God, as too, of the certainty of our destiny. 

Like beloved children, therefore, we also receive the grace to support the trials of this earthly existence — the hunger and the thirst for justice, the misunderstandings, the persecutions (cf. Mt 5:3-11) — and, at the same time, we inherit what is promised in the Gospel Beatitudes: “promises resplendent with the new image of the world and of man inaugurated by Jesus” (Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, Milan 2007, p. 72). 

The holiness, imprinted in us by Christ himself, is the goal of Christian life"

Blessed are those who mourn...

Pierre Antoine Augustin Vafflard (1777–1837)

Study for "Young and His Daughter"

c 1804

Oil on paper, laid down on canvas

27.3 x 20.6 cm

The Metropolitan Museum, New York

Edward Young (1683-1765) was an English Protestant clergyman and writer

At the height of his career and success in the Anglican Church, he married. But happiness did not last. 

His stepdaughter, her husband and finally his wife all died between 1736 and 1740.

The comparison with Job in the Old Testament is unmistakable

His major and most popular work was a nine part poem in blank verse entitled   The Complaint, or Night Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality (1742-45)

It consists of a number of dialogues with Lorenzo, a dissipated youth, and meditates on the deaths of Lucia, Narcissa and Philander, whom, according to most interpretations, are loosely based on Young's wife, his stepdaughter and her husband. 

In 1736 Young was traveling through France with his family when his stepdaughter, Elizabeth Temple, died at Lyons. 

Forbidden to inter her remains in the city’s Catholic cemetery because of their religion, he was obliged to seek out the Protestant burial ground in the middle of the night and bury her. This is the subject of the painting. 

It was a very popular work in the French Revolution

The Third Canto entitled Narcissa narrates the macabre story of what happened in Lyon

"And on a foreign shore, where strangers wept! 

155

Strangers to thee, and, more surprising still,

Strangers to kindness, wept; their eyes let fall

Inhuman tears; strange tears, that trickled down

From marble hearts! obdurate tenderness!

A tenderness that call'd them more severe, 

160

In spite of Nature's soft persuasion steel'd.

While Nature melted, Superstition raved:

That mourn'd the dead; and this denied a grave.

Their sighs incensed; sighs foreign to the will!

Their will, the tiger-suck'd, out-raged the storm. 

165

For, O the cursed ungodliness of zeal!

While sinful flesh relented, spirit nursed

In blind Infallibility's embrace,

The sainted spirit petrified the breast;

Denied the charity of dust to spread 

170

O'er dust! a charity their dogs enjoy.

What could I do? what succour, what resource?

With pious sacrilege a grave I stole;

With impious piety that grave I wrong'd;

Short in my duty; coward in my grief! 

175

More like her murderer than friend, I crept

With soft-suspended step, and, muffled deep

In midnight darkness, whisper'd my last sigh.

I whisper'd what should echo through their realms;

Nor writ her name, whose tomb should pierce the skies. 

180

Presumptuous fear! how durst I dread her foes,

While Nature's loudest dictates I obey'd?

(Pardon necessity, blest shade!) Of grief

And indignation rival bursts I pour'd;

Half execration mingled with my prayer; 

185

Kindled at man, while I his God adored;

Sore grudged the savage land her sacred dust;

Stamp'd the cursed soil; and with humanity

(Denied Narcissa) wish'd them all a grave."

The German Bishops' Conference issued a decree in 2012 warning those who opted out of paying the country's "church tax" that they would no longer be entitled to the sacraments, to a religious burial or to play any part in parish life.

Three Dutch Kinds of Marriage

After: Hendrick Goltzius (1558 – January 1, 1617)

Print made by: Jan Saenredam (C.1565-1607) 

Three kinds of marriages: Marriage for love officiated by Cupid; Cupid stands between a young, finely attired couple who face each other and hold hands

c 1595

Engraving

235 millimetres x 163 millimetres

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

After: Hendrick Goltzius (1558 – January 1, 1617)

Print made by: Jan Saenredam (C.1565-1607) 

Three kinds of marriages: Marriage for wealth officiated by Satan; Satan stands between a finely attired couple who face each other and hold hands 

c 1595

Engraving

235 millimetres x 163 millimetres

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

After: Hendrick Goltzius (1558 – January 1, 1617)

Print made by: Jan Saenredam (C.1565-1607) 

Three kinds of marriages: Marriage for spiritual love officiated by Jesus Christ; Jesus blesses the couple who face each other and hold hands; the bride holds a palm and resembles a female saint

c 1595

Engraving

235 millimetres x 163 millimetres

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

The three prints are from a series of three plates showing three different kinds of marriage, engraved by Saenredam after designs by Hendrick Goltzius

The set was first published in Haarlem by Goltzius around 1595

This set was numerously copied by Dutch and German printmakers up to the eighteenth century

Goltzius was an internationally acclaimed engraver, print publisher, draftsman, and painter,and was one of the outstanding figures in Dutch art during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries

In the late 1580s, he was at the height of his success and created some of the most spectacular pieces in the history of prints

When Goltzius was only a year old, he fell headfirst into the fireplace and burned both his hands on the red-hot coals. His right hand was permanently deformed. Despite this he was capable of exceptional virtuosity, and one of the greatest draftsmen of his time.

At the age of 21 Goltzius married a rich widow Margaretha Jansdr in 1579. It was she who  helped him set up a workshop

In Holland at the time the role of the family as the basis of society was strongly emphasised

Physical attraction was only one of the factors to be taken into account. Spiritual and mental connection between spouses also had to exist as the basis for life long companionship

In a strongly Protestant Holland ruled by Catholic Spain, prints on the ideal Christian marriage were popular

In the third image we see the sacramentality of marriage as well as a union declared indissoluble in terms of Divine command

In the third print which obviously contrasts with the two others, we see Christ himself officiating at the Sacrament of marriage. 

The man is more mature. The woman holds a palm the symbol of purity

The inscription reads: "Quos connectit amor verus, castumque cubile / Auspice iunguntur Christo, remanentque fideles." - Those who are joined by true love and a chaste marriage bed will be faithful to each other

In the background of the image the husband receives a  crown from his wife. The other images have other background images which show that the other relationships are destined to lead to unhappiness, loneliness and vice

Mutual fidelity and not simply fidelity on the part of the wife towards the husband is what is being depicted

But more than that, mutual affection and love  which are absent from the other two images

Trinitarian Love

Unknown Peruvian

Sacred Conversation between St. Felix de Valois and St. Juan de la Mata

18th century

Oil on canvas

55.50 cm x 75.50 cm

The British Embassy, Bogota

The painting is by an unknown Peruvian artist in the 18th century, a mixture of European Baroque and indigenous influences, perhaps part of the Cuzco school (Escuela Cuzqueña),  the Roman Catholic artistic tradition based in Cuzco, Peru (the former capital of the Inca Empire) 

Its influence extended through Peru, Chile, and northern Argentina and beyond

The painting depicts two saints: St. Felix de Valois  (April 16, 1127 – November 4, 1212) and St. Juan de la Mata, (1150 - 1213)  both co-founders of the Trinitarian Order, the Order founded for the redemption of captives 

The Rule of the Order was approved by Innocent III on December 17, 1198 with the bull Operante Divine Dispositionis. 

It is the first official institution in the Church dedicated to the service of redemption and unarmed, with no other weapon beside Divine Mercy, and with the only purpose of returning hope to the brothers in the faith who suffer under the burden of captivity.

Here we see the two saints in  the forest or desert of Cerfroid, near Paris where the mother house of the whole order presently is

Margaret of Blois granted the order twenty acres of the wood where Felix had built his first hermitage, and on almost the same spot he erected the famous monastery of Cerfroi, the mother-house of the institute. 

Within forty years the order possessed six hundred monasteries in almost every part of the world.

The stag is a symbol for Christ, who tramples and destroys the Devil. The stag is the enemy of the Snake, the symbol of the Evil One. Both are visible in the painting

For more on the symbolism of the stag and the snake see The Medieval Bestiary

In the 7th century, St Isidore of Seville wrote in his  Etymologiae about the stag:

[They] are foes of snakes, and when they feel that they are weighed down with  weakness they draw snakes out from their holes by the breath of their nostrils and  overcoming the deadly poison they  refresh themselves by eating them. They made known the plant dittany. For they eat it, and shake out the arrows that have stuck in them. 

They give a wondering attention to the whistling sound of the Pan’s pipes. They  listen sharply with up-pricked ears, not with hanging ears. If ever they swim across great rivers or seas, they lay the head on the haunch of the one in front, and following one another in turn they feel no weariness from the weight

The name of the hermitage "Cerfroid" has significance. The French for stag is "Cerf". The place is therefore the place of the Cold Stag, or Winter Stag

The arch also has significance in the founding of the Order.

The church of San Tommaso in Formis in Rome is the church which Pope Innocent III gave to the Trinitarian Order. Saint John of Matha, lived there and made it the Order's headquarters

The Church is situated beside a Roman aqueduct and the ruin of the Arch of Dolabella and Silanus on the Caelian Hill

St John of Matha died there on 2 December 1213. His cell can still be seen

From the very beginning of the Order, a life of special dedication to the Most Holy Trinity has been an essential and characteristic element of the Order’s patrimony

The painting is a contemplation on the fons et origo of the Order

Members of the Order consecrate themselves to the Trinity in a further and special way “since God willed that we, among all other religious, be the chosen vessels to bear the wonderful title of the Most Holy Trinity throughout the world"

Last year on the 800th anniversary of the death of St John of Matha, Pope Francis said;

"Work, effort and freely given love are all summed up in the Rule of St John of Matha, in the words Ministro e sine proprio (Trinitarian Rule, n. 1). Indeed, the Trinitarians know, and we should all learn from them, that every responsibility or authority in the Church should be lived out as a service. 

Therefore, our action must be divested of any desire for profit or personal promotion and must always aim at sharing any talents we have received from God, in order to direct them, as good stewards, towards the end for which they have been granted to us, so as to give relief to the less fortunate. 

This is what interests Christ and that is why the homes of your Family are homes whose “doors are always open” in fraternal welcome (Direttorio primitivo delle Suore Trinitarie, n. 2, cf. Evangelii Gaudium, n. 46)."

Wrong doing

L'Ortolano (1485–c.1527)

Woman Taken in Adultery

1524–1527

Oil on panel

71.6 x 87.3 cm

The Courtauld Gallery, London

Rembrandt van Rijn 1606 - 1669

The Woman taken in Adultery

1644

Oil on oak

83.8 x 65.4 cm

The National Gallery, London

The event depicted is told in John 8

The Scribes and Pharisees, knowing that Jesus took pity on wrong-doers, tried to catch him condoning disobedience to the Law. 

They brought a woman to him who had been caught in the act of adultery and said, 'Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her?' 

Christ replied, 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her' 

He started to write in the dust. The crowd gradually dispersed

Only Jesus and the woman were left at the scene

"10 Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 

11 She replied, “No one, sir.” Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, [and] from now on do not sin any more.” "

Of this passage in Scripture, Pope Benedict XVI said:

"St John the Evangelist highlights one detail: while his accusers are insistently interrogating him, Jesus bends down and starts writing with his finger on the ground. St Augustine notes that this gesture portrays Christ as the divine legislator: in fact, God wrote the law with his finger on tablets of stone (cf. Commentary on John's Gospel, 33,5). 

Thus Jesus is the Legislator, he is Justice in person. 

And what is his sentence? "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her". These words are full of the disarming power of truth that pulls down the wall of hypocrisy and opens consciences to a greater justice, that of love, in which consists the fulfilment of every precept (cf. Rom 13: 8-10). 

This is the justice that also saved Saul of Tarsus, transforming him into St Paul (cf. Phil 3: 8-14)."

Medieval 'Sistine Chapel' in Rome opens its doors | Art&Culture

David Haines, rest in peace.

Mr Haines was an aid worker. He helped people who were the victims of violence and suffering.

He was murdered by people who sole raison d`etre is to kill people without proper reason and to cause pain and suffering` The act was one of "pure evil" as the Prime Minister has said

May God grant him mercy and eternal rest

Let us pray for him and also for his family and friends

Eternal rest grant unto him O Lord

And let perpetual light shine upon him

May his soul and those of the faithful departed forever rest in peace