Legends of the Madonna, as represented in the fine artsForming the third series of Sacred and legendary art . poet Sannazzaro. Mr. Hallam, in a beautiful passage of his Historyof the Literature of Europe, has pointed out the influence of the genius ofTasso on the whole school of Bolognese painters of that time. Not less strikingwas the influence of Sannazzaro and his famous poem on the Nativity {DePartu Virgmis), on the contemporary productions of Italian art, and more parti-cularly as regards the subject under consideration : I can trace it through all theschools of art, from Milan to Naples,
Legends of the Madonna, as represented in the fine artsForming the third series of Sacred and legendary art . poet Sannazzaro. Mr. Hallam, in a beautiful passage of his Historyof the Literature of Europe, has pointed out the influence of the genius ofTasso on the whole school of Bolognese painters of that time. Not less strikingwas the influence of Sannazzaro and his famous poem on the Nativity {DePartu Virgmis), on the contemporary productions of Italian art, and more parti-cularly as regards the subject under consideration : I can trace it through all theschools of art, from Milan to Naples, during the latter half of the sixteenthcentury. Of Sannazzaros poem, Mr. Hallam says, that it would be difficultto find its equal for purity, elegance, and harmony of versification. It is notthe less true, that even its greatest merits as a Latin poem exercised the mostperverse influence on the religious art of that period. It was, indeed, only oneof the many influences which may be said to have demoralised the artists of thesixteenth century, but it was one of the greatest. 216 LEGENDS OF THE 105 Albertinelli. As a Mystery. In the first seiiSG, the artist has intended simply to expressthe advent of the Divinity on earth in the form of an Infant,and the motif is clearly taken from a text in the Office ofthe Virgin, Virgo quern genuit, adoravit In the beautifulwords of Jeremy Taylor, She blessed him, she worsliippedhim, and she thanked him that he would be born of her;as, indeed, many a young mother has done before and since,when she has hung in adoration over the cradle of her first-born child;—but here the child was to be a descended God;and nothing, as it seems to me, can be more graceful andmore profoundly suggestive than the manner in which some ofthe early Italian artists have expressed this idea. When, insuch pictures, the locality is marked by the poor stable, or therough rocky cave, it becomes a temple full of religion, fullof glory, where angels are the mi
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