ART. V.-Memorie dei più insegni pittori, scultori e architetti Domenicani. Del P. L. VINCENZO MARCHESE, dello spesso istituito. Firenze; Alcide Parenti. (Memoirs of the most celebrated Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, &c.)

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O many of our readers, the very title we have prefixed to these remarks, will be not a little surprising. The very idea of the artist-monk is, in these days, so strange a portent amongst us, that the notion of two volumes of memoirs of Dominican painters, sculptors, and architects, will savour rather of the romance than of the reality of history. Alas! the destiny of art in this land has been so sad, that such a surprise is indeed but too natural, even in those who, by a knowledge of the intimate alliance between christianity and the fine arts, might have been prepared to anticipate an especial brotherhood between the artistic and the monastic lives. How has the fairest of the creations of human genius fallen in this great kingdom, once so proud in all that relates to the cultivation of the beautiful and the sublime! While all else has flourished gloriously, art has struggled even to live. The whole energies of the modern Anglo-Saxon have been devoted to the culture of every thing rather than of that in which his fathers so wondrously excelled. Let the churches, the monuments, the streets, the squares, the figures, the books, which greet the eye throughout the whole kingdom, tell the melancholy tale, and by their hideous deformity, or their inane mediocrity, repeat the undeniable truth, that when England lost her faith, she lost her soul for art. Since that hour when she separated herself from christendom, the genius of art has refused all her advances, and rejected her as one unworthy of any of her choicest favours.

Hence it is, that not only the great Protestant world, but the small Catholic remnant itself, has forgotten the fact, that there was a day when the cloister sent forth some of the most illustrious examples of artistic genius and skill. We have forgotten so many of the traditions of the old time, and have so little knowledge of the infinite versatility of the forms in which the spirit of true religion can develop itself in the midst of the world, consecrating everything to the service of God, and turning the very desert into an Eden, that few amongst us are prepared to associate the free exercise of the sentiment and powers of the painter and the sculptor with the rigorous rule of the monk and friar, or to anticipate from those austere and serge-clad forms aught that can touch and elevate the most tender and refined portions of our intellectual nature. The narrow cell, the hard couch, the abstemious fare, the bared feet, the knotted scourge, all these implements of the monastic state seem to accord so ill with what we know to be the common characteristics of the artist's life, that we are tempted to fancy they cannot exist together, and that either the inspiration of art, or the inspiration of divine love, must yield and fade away.

Yet assuredly is there a spirit stirring in the land which speaks of better things. No one can look upon the facts of the present hour with an observant eye, and not discern here and there a green spot bespeaking the presence of some hidden fount of living water, and cheering the wilderness with the verdure of the spring time. We confidently trust that the public mind is awakening, almost rapidly, to the consciousness of the utterly superficial character of the vast majority of her present works of art, and of that species of criticism which hitherto has been all that has been given to the world. The old cant about the sensual character of art is becoming actually old-fashioned and out of date; and a man who should class the fine arts among the mere trivial pleasures of the moment, and talk about the danger to pure religion resulting from the use of sacred pictures and sculpture, would run the risk of being laughed at, as a prejudiced simpleton, in nine societies out of ten. We are learning to look upon art as the visible language of the mind; as a means of expression with which the artist utters all the deepest thoughts of his heart, and through which he is, as it were, a poet in his generation. We are growing ashamed of the dishonour which we have so long cast upon the cultivation of art as a profession, and beginning to fancy that after all an intelligent painter, sculptor, or architect, is a fit companion for the highest in the land.

Above all, the folly of attempting to sever the fine arts from christianity, is daily becoming more manifest in the eye of the country. History is teaching to thousands its stern lesson, that unless frequently and habitually called in to the service of the temple of God, art cannot make any way in a nation. Academies, societies, patrons, government aid, all have been tried, and all have failed. The bow of Ulysses is yet unbent; the magic horn is not yet sounded; the riddle remains unsolved. Thousands watch and wonder with anxious gaze to see whence the inspiration will come to animate the cold clay which an earthly Prometheus has fashioned; and as they gaze, they are learning to comprehend that the fire must come from heaven, or the lifeless limb which man has formed will never breathe with the vital energy of true exis

tence.

We need scarcely say that it is our conviction, that if this life is to be infused into the form of English art, it must proceed from her with whom are lodged the spiritual graces of the christian life. The Protestant may aim well, and intend well, and struggle manfully, and study profoundly; but he will only approximate to that achievement which is reserved, in all its triumphant success, for those who have the heritage of faith. Religious truths are rather words than realities, even to the most amiable and conscientious Protestant. He reads and understands certain statements, while the Catholic beholds the divine things, of which these statements are but the narrative. Therefore the Catholic artist paints what he sees; the Protestant paints what he has heard of, or imagined. In the latter, the vivid expression of life and reality will ever be more or less absent; for the simple reason, that however brilliant his genius, or correct his taste, his mind is to a certain extent wanting in that distinct conception of the spiritual truths he would fain embody, without which he never can advance from mediocrity to perfection. He cannot hope to rival even the works of those older Catholic artists, whose lives unhappily were so vicious, that their christian faith must have been a mere name; for he has none of that traditionary knowledge, that reflected inspiration, which served them, in a measure, in place of true christian sight: he must create a religious art, or he can do nothing.

Such being the prospects and hopes of art in England, it is not surprising that here and there we hear of indications of the revival of the old monastic spirit among the younger and more ardent Catholic artists of the day. With, perhaps, little actual historical knowledge to guide them, and no glowing pictures of the past victories of art, achie

ved in the cloister, to arouse them by the force of mighty example, yet they cannot but now and then yearn for that which the religious life can alone supply; and pray to be permitted to consecrate their talents to the service of Jesus Christ, under the same rules, and with the same spiritual advantages, which are found so precious by the lover of general science and learning. Awakening, as we trust the heart of England is, to a perception of the wonderful powers which reside in the Catholic Church, she cannot but perceive that the monastic life, in some one or other of its varieties, will necessarily supply to the devoted and enthusiastic artist that very rule of daily practical life, without which he feels that his best energies may be wasted upon worldly objects, or frittered away from the want of that personal self-control which is but too seldom the accompaniment of those who are pre-eminent in the gifts of natural genius.

We cannot but think, therefore, that we shall gratify many of our readers, if we remind them of the artistic glories which formerly shone around one of the most illustrious of those religious orders which have held, and which still hold, a prominent place in the Christian Church. What the order of St. Dominic has been, and even now is, in the more ordinary occupations of the spiritual and ministerial life, we need not say. To this hour it retains the rays of its pristine splendour, and whether in the pulpit of Notre Dame, or in the hovel of the poor English or Irish Catholic, it shows that the spirit of its great founder yet resides in the members of the body he called into existence. Its achievements in sculpture, architecture, and painting, are less known; and though the order itself has not failed from time to time to preserve a chronicle of the works of the Fine Arts which its sons have accomplished; yet, with the exception of one or two amongst them, their very names are novelties in our ears. Even in the case of those two great artists, who hold the highest rank in their records, few are aware that it was as faithful children of the rule of St. Dominic, that they attained their lofty preeminence. The world is hardly aware that Beato Angelico and Fra Bartolommeo were both of them Dominican monks.

As early as the commencement of the thirteenth century, we find this order supplying its artists to the works of the time. Some fifteen or twenty years before Cimabue became famous, as the great painter of the age, two Dominicans, Fra Ristoro and Fra Sisto, were not only eminent in Tuscany, their own country, but were invited to Rome to share in the works of that noblest of all palaces, the Vatican. In Florence, they had previously, in the service of the republic, completed the palace of the Podestà, or chief magistrate, rebuilt the bridge called alla Carraja, and furnished designs for the church of Santa Maria Novella, when they were summoned to the holy city by Pope Nicholas the Third. Here they were employed in the works of the Vatican, and in all probability also in the building of the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. They died, the former in 1283, at Florence; the latter, in 1289, at Rome. Their names are honourably mentioned by Væsari, Bottari, and Lanzi, the historians of art; but with especial distinction by Cicognara, in his Storia della Scultura.

Other architects of the thirteenth century were supplied by the Dominican body in Tuscany and in Portugal. Mazzetto, Borghese, and Albertini Mezzanti, were all three employed, with high reputation to themselves, in the building of Prato, Florence, and the Val d'Arno; while three others, Gundisalvo, Gonzalez, and Lorenzo, were known in Portugal as "the three holy architects."

The first celebrated name, however, which the Dominicans gave to the world of art, was that of Guglielmo of Pisa, a sculptor and architect, not unworthy of ranking in fame, as he was actually associated in labour, with one of the greatest sculptors to whom Italy has given birth-the illustrious Nicola Pisano. Under this brother artist he first studied with all the fervour of laborious genius. Born of an illustrious family under the Pisan republic, Guglielmo Agnelli early entered the religious life as a monk of the order of St. Dominic, and was accounted as eminent for his piety as for his skill as a sculptor. When the preaching of the monks and their influence among the people made it necessary that they should erect a vast and splendid church in Pisa, Nicola is reported to have furnished the designs; but the superintendence of their execution was confided to Fra Guglielmo. On the celebrated shrine of San Domenico, at Bologna, Guglielmo was also employed, in conjunction with his friend and master; and though the entire work is popularly attributed to the chisel of Nicola, it is certain that not only had Fra Guglielmo a