Legends of the monastic orders : as represented in the fine artsForming the second series of Sacred and legendary art . y of his sainted friend and patroness whichVanni has left us. This portrait was painted originally onthe wall of the Church of San Domenico, in that part of thenave which was the scene of Catherines devotions and mystic ST. CATHERINE OP SIENA. visions, and which has sincebeen divided off and en-closed as a place of peculiarsanctity. The fresco, nowover a small altar, has longbeen covered with glass andcarefully preserved, and isin all respects most strik-ing and lifelike. I g
Legends of the monastic orders : as represented in the fine artsForming the second series of Sacred and legendary art . y of his sainted friend and patroness whichVanni has left us. This portrait was painted originally onthe wall of the Church of San Domenico, in that part of thenave which was the scene of Catherines devotions and mystic ST. CATHERINE OP SIENA. visions, and which has sincebeen divided off and en-closed as a place of peculiarsanctity. The fresco, nowover a small altar, has longbeen covered with glass andcarefully preserved, and isin all respects most strik-ing and lifelike. I give asketch from it, in which thegeneral character of thehead is tolerably preserved;but it would be difficult totransfer, even to a finishedcopy, its peculiar is a spare, worn, butelegant face, with small re-gular features. Her blackmantle is drawn round her;she holds her spotless lilyin one hand, the other ispresented to a kneeling nun,who seems about to press itreverentially to her lips;this figure has been called a votary, but I think it may represent the repentance and pardon of her enemy St. Catherine of Siena In the single devotional figures, so commonly met with in theDominican churches, St. Catherine is distinguished by the habitof the Order and the stigmata; these together fix the identity atonce. It is true that one of the earliest of her biographers, thegood St. Antonino of Florence, who was born seven or eightyears after her death, asserts distinctly that the stigmata werenot impressed visibly on her body, but on her soul: and about acentury later, the Franciscans petitioned Pope Sixtus IV. thatCatherine of Siena might not be represented in a manner which LEGENDS OF THE MONASTIC ORDERS. B. Museum. Vasari. placed her on an equality with their own great saint and patri-arch. Sixtus, who before his elevation had been a Franciscanfriar, issued a decree, that in the effigies of St. Catherine thestigmata should thenceforth be omitted. This mandate m
Size: 1155px × 2163px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., booksubjectchristianartandsymbolism, booksubjectmonasticismandr
