Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

uìpedıb; super at ambulauia: & œlohann& Inloppu the mat bepazeauf da;

Fig. 6. BAPTISM OF CHRIST. From a MS. in the Library of La Minerva, Rome.

who was a bishop at Milan, Bugati, a canonical priest, alludes to this picture as follows: "The Redeemer is represented immersed in the water according to the ancient discipline of the church, observed for many centuries in the administration of baptism. John holds in his left hand a curved and knotty staff, and places his right upon the Saviour's head. Finally, the Holy Spirit descends from heaven in the form of a dove. This scene is found depicted on the most ancient Christian monuments.' According to Bugati, this picture is of the fifth or sixth century.

[ocr errors]

The following picture (Fig. 7), representing the Baptism of Christ, is taken from the Greek Menologue or Calendar, one of the most valuable manuscripts in the library of the Vatican. It contains four hundred and thirty miniature paintings. The engraving of this work, with a Latin translation, was commenced by Pope Clement XI., continued by his two successors, Innocent XIII. and Benedict XIII., completed by his nephew, Annibale Albani, and published under the following title:" Menologium Græcorum, jussu Basilii imperatoris Græce olim editum munificentia et

[ocr errors]

liberalitate S. D. N. Benedicti XIII., nunc primum Græce et Latine prodit," etc. Urbini, 1727, 3 vols. fol.

Cardinal Baronius (Anxal. Eccles.) ascribes this manuscript to A.D. 886. The words at the beginning, "Rex totius terræ, sol purpuræ Basilius," etc., prove that the work was executed for an Emperor Basilius, most probably for Basilius II. in the tenth century, who could say of himself in the words of the son of Marcus Aurelius, Imperatoria purpura me suscipit simulque sol hominem me vidit et principem. (Herodianus, Hist. lib. i.)

[ocr errors]

The great door of the ancient Basilica of St. Paul's,

Bugati, Memoria di San Celso-Appendice.

outside the walls of Rome, burnt in 1823, and replaced by the modern magnificient basilica of the same name, was enriched with figures, engraved in outline in the bronze,

[graphic]

and filled in with silver. This door had been cast in Constantinople in the eleventh century. The whole front was divided in six equal parts in width, and nine in

Fig. 7. BAPTISM OF CHRIST. From a Menologue of the Ninth Century, in the Vatican Library.

height, giving fifty-four oblong compartments, containing subjects, figures, and inscriptions. The subjects were taken from the life of Christ, from the annuncia

[ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small]

tion and birth to the ascension, and the coming of the Holy Ghost. In the second square of the first segment on the left hand was a figure of the Baptism of Christ.

Our Saviour was represented standing up to His waist in the middle of the River Jordan, His clothes lying by, and John on the bank, with his right hand on the shoulder of Jesus. On the upper part was the word "baptism." This sculpture is faithfully reproduced in the Storia delle Arte of Agincourt.

In the Barberini Library, at Rome, there is a Greek Psaltery of the eleventh century which contains a picture, representing the Baptism of the Eunuch by Philip (Fig. 8). The Eunuch is standing up to his neck in a pyramid of water, the usual form in the earliest representations of

Fig. 9. BAPTISM OF JEWISH CONVERTS.

Christian baptism.

Philip is clothed in purple. Close by, the two are seen in a chariot with four horses driving away at full gallop. This painting exists also in a Byzantine MS., in quarto, of the eleventh century, in the British Museum.

The above drawing of the baptism administered by John to the Jewish converts (Fig. 9), is taken from a MS., of the eleventh century, in the Bibliothéque Nationale at Paris, and is interesting from the fact that the candidate is represented entirely covered with

water.

The woodcut (Fig. 10) represents the ceremony of

« ZurückWeiter »